The Diff: Kyrie Irving’s potential
January 16, 2013NFL Rumor: Chip Kelly waffled on Oregon on Tuesday January 8th
January 16, 2013And I have been whining that there hasn’t been much to write about…..
Here I was, sitting in the Kansas City airport, waiting for a flight home, perusing Twitter, and ESPN’s Chris Mortensen drops a bomb of atomic proportions: The Philadelphia Eagles will name Oregon’s Chip Kelly as their next head coach.
Wh-wh-what?
I was going to try and not be reactionary to the news, but I just can’t. Let us recap what has happened:
New Browns bossman Jimmy Haslam and his handpicked CEO Joe Banner can tell you all day long that Kelly wasn’t there first choice, but it was clear that he was. The two went to Arizona, met with him for seven hours plus a two-hour dinner, the day after Kelly’s Ducks dispatched the Kansas State Wildcats in the Fiesta Bowl. There was no doubt – their full court press was on. We were led to believe that Haslam was not going to be outbid by anyone for Kelly’s services. As I wrote last week, Haslam and Banner had all of their eggs in Kelly’s basket, thought they had him, yet left Arizona without a deal in place. Kelly went on to meet for another full day interview with Philadelphia owner Jeffrey Lurie and GM Howie Roseman, who is all that remains from the Reid/Banner era front office. Like with the Browns, the Eagles were reportedly rebuffed by Kelly and his agent and had to go back to the drawing board.
Just 10 days ago, Kelly was returning to Oregon, putting his NFL dreams on hold, and went back out recruiting. Over the last week, the speculation was that Chip was holding out for the New England job, once Bill Belichick retires and moves up to the front office. The Browns went on to “reboot” their search because they had no plan C in place (Plan B was Penn State’s Bill O’Brien). They interviewed as many candidates as they could and almost out of nowhere, Rob Chudzinski jumped to the head of the class and got the job.
That whole Chudzinski “process” took 48 hours, tops.
It seemed as though Haslam and Banner were tired of waiting and wanted to get a head coach in place as soon as they could. They wanted to get a staff in place and start another rebuild (fun!). I’m sure the Browns brass was intrigued by Chud’s offensive mind and reputation. The fact that he was going to be potentially bringing Norv Turner with him as his offensive coordinator was probably a big feather in Chud’s cap, but the entire thing seemed rushed.
Less than a week after Haslam and Banner chose Chudzinski, Kelly completely reversed course, blindsided an entire football nation, and is headed to Philly.
If Kelly was still in play for the NFL, which we now know he was, what was the big hurry to grab Chudzinski, who hadn’t even received an interview request from any other team besides the Browns? Yesterday, the Eagles were interviewing the likes of Seahawks DC Gus Bradley and former Ravens coach Brian Billick. Was it all a smoke screen by Lurie and Roseman? Despite reports to the contrary, Kelly was the guy Lurie wanted all along. So instead of making a quick coaching hire, the Eagles continued their interview process while Lurie more than likely checked back in one more time with Kelly to see if he could persuade him to come on board. We will know soon how it all happened, but whatever Lurie and Roseman did worked, because today, Chip Kelly, offensive innovator with the scheme that many college and pro teams see as the future, is the coach of the Philadelphia Eagles.
This has to feel sweet for Roseman who was getting torched for this coaching search, most notably by CBS’s Jason LaCanfora. For Lurie, who stood by Andy Reid for 14 years, he has transitioned from Banner to Roseman and now has Kelly to slide into Reid’s roll. Beating Banner out for the coach he had at the top of his list is just the cherry on top of the proverbial sundae. The pieces the Eagles have offensively in RB Lesean McCoy, WR’s DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin, and the potential to keep Michael Vick in the read-option (something that was talked about if Kelly had come to Cleveland), should translate well in Kelly’s system. The Eagles also have tons of cap space and a younger roster than you might think. Sure, they have issues defensively, but Kelly doesn’t seem to be that concerned; he took the job.
Now to the not so fun part.
Let’s get it out of the way: Jimmy Haslam and Joe Banner were schooled by Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman.
It was one thing when Kelly spurned all NFL suitors. But when the Eagles figure out a way to land the guy the Browns desperately wanted as the new face of the franchise, the splashy hire that would have excited the masses, Haslam and Banner look foolish.
I received this tweet just after the Kelly news came down that epitomizes the malaise of Browns fans:
@WFNYTD Amateur hour continues in Berea. Browns busy selling naming rights and chging uniform design. Eagles are busy getting our guy as HC
— MLS (@mshagrin) January 16, 2013
Would it have killed them to wait a little longer to name Chudzinski the head coach? It is not as if other teams were going to be stealing him away. We won’t ever know if Haslam lobbed one last call to Kelly to see if he could change his mind. We also don’t know what went on when Kelly spent nine hours with Haslam and Banner. It is very possible that Kelly was turned off by the Browns plan. Banner has a reputation that he can be tough to work with. While he had great success in Philadelphia, it was not as a football man, it was as a contract negotiator and team president. He’s never had his hands on the football side the way he does here in Cleveland. We won’t know the details of Kelly’s Philadelphia deal yet, but he obviously had more of a comfort with the Roseman/Lurie structure than he did with the Banner/Haslam plan. It’s also very possible and likely that Kelly saw McCoy/Jackson/Maclin/Vick and compared that to Richardson/Little/Gordon/QB he had to bring in and felt a lot better about the Philly skill players.
I think what bothers me the most was that Haslam and Banner talked a big game and not only didn’t deliver, but were played by the guy they wanted so badly. We all expected more. Had they hired Kelly, the hype would have been justified. Instead, we are settling for Rob Chudzinski. But we also all need to realize what we are, as I wrote last week. The Browns franchise has great fans and storied history, but they haven’t been relevant since the Bernie Kosar era, which is now over 20 years ago.
This has nothing to do with Chud. He could end up being great here and I sincerely hope he does, but you just know what is going to happen. It’s the only way things work here in Cleveland. Kelly’s offense will be the new wave in the NFL and he will be a huge hit. The Eagles will reap all the benefits and be lauded for landing him. You just know that is going to happen.
I know, the Cleveland in me is coming out, but these things always end up going against us. We have Belichick when he is figuring out how to be a head coach. We have Bill Cowher as our special teams coach and our owner thinks he is “too young” and “not ready” to be a head coach when the job opens up in 1989. We draft Tim Couch one year after the #1 pick is Peyton Manning. The Browns end up with the fourth pick in the draft the year Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III are clear #1 and #1a franchise type QBs.
I can’t go on.
All I know today is that the alleged next great offensive genius is the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, 10 days after he told the Browns (and the Eagles) he was going back to Oregon while the Browns changed course and quickly hired an offensive coordinator who wasn’t interviewed by any other NFL team.
As the great Frank Costanza once said: “Serenity Now.”
116 Comments
Of course Chud wanted the job as soon as he was interviewed… Cleveland was the only team even giving him that kind of consideration. Would you pass that offer up? I like that Haslam and Banner went after Chud and I like his background with Cleveland, but it still feels bad being spurned by Kelly because Cleveland wasn’t the most glamourous spot to land in the NFL.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/eye-on-college-football/21563964/notre-dame-statement-teo-victim-of-a-hoax
claiming hoax on Teo. don’t think this is the end.
That’s what I don’t get – after being a football fan for 20+ years and watching the Browns go through forty-eight head coach searches, I still have ZERO idea about what makes a good hire. Thus, I have no opinion on who we should hire.
I understand liking a guy based on personal preference (I liked Trestman for a variety of reasons), but would never go so far as to say I have any actual clue about who will be good or bad. Can anyone empirically show why Kelly > Zimmer > Chud in terms of NFL head coaching success rate? Nope.
So I won’t get too high and mighty about the decisions made by the billion dollar executive and the career NFL front office man, especially since they did the actual interviewing.
What am I missing? You have a guy who hired Andy Reid and another guy coming from an organization that has had fewer coaches in it’s existence than the Browns have had since returning to the league. Shouldn’t they get the benefit of the doubt that they know what they’re doing until they prove otherwise? Just because the last owner was absentee at best doesn’t mean the same is true of the new regime. Stop making such sweeping judgments about whether “this guy is a terrible NFL head coach” or “that guy is a great NFL head coach” before they’ve even so much as hired the rest of their respective coaching staffs much less coached a game.
empirically? hmmm…
ok, let’s name all the HCs who came to the NFL with absolutely ZERO professional coaching experience.
Paul Brown
Jimmy Johnson
Barry Switzer
likely missing someone from way back in the day, but that’s the list. all won a Superbowl. so, empirically, Chip Kelly = SB win!
(note: before someone says Spurrier, please don’t forget he was HC of the TB Bandits of the USFL. guys like Saban, Butch, etc. all had NFL jobs before going to college and coming back, etc.)
+1
whoops. forgot Dennis Erickson. he did make Seattle relevant going 8-8,7-9,8-8, 8-8 when the team was 14-34 in the 3 seasons before his arrival.
“A seven hour interview plus dinner in no way whatsoever indicates the candidate is your Plan A. I interviewed for a financial planner position this summer with a company that consisted of two people total, a father and son. I was the only person who interviewed for the job. They interviewed me for 8 hours over two days.”
unless your interviewer just purchased his company for a billion dollars and flew four hours and spent three days away from home specifically to see you and was prepared to offer you an eight figure contract, then i’m not sure your personal anecdote withstands critical evaluation as a valid parallel to the kelly/haslam saga.
‘If Kelly was still in play for the NFL, which we now know he was, what was the big hurry to grab Chudzinski, who hadn’t even received an interview request from any other team besides the Browns?’
‘Let’s get it out of the way: Jimmy Haslam and Joe Banner were schooled by Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman.’
Maybe the bigger question is, after Kelly apparently deceived the Browns, then the Eagles, then the Ducks, is it possible that along the way the Browns brass decided “No thank you?” Just askin’.
so he claims. here’s his statement…..
e’o issued a statement Tuesday afternoon:
“This
is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period
of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met
online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by
communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care
deeply about her.
“To realize that I was the victim of what was
apparently someone’s sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful
and humiliating.
“It further pains me that the grief I felt and
the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother’s death in
September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another
significant loss in my life.
“I am enormously grateful for the
support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year.
To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and
details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope
that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole
experience has been.
“In retrospect, I obviously should have been
much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that
others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than
I was.
“Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life,
and I’m looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I
focus on preparing for the NFL Draft.”
We don’t know that Kelly will be the next big thing in the NFL – no one does. The same questions about him (and to a lesser extent his system) that were in place when the Browns were interviewing him are still there.
This is not to bag on Kelly, but he has just as much chance of succeeding as he does failing. Time will tell.
It is the same with the Browns. No one knows if Chud will be the right choice at coach, or if Haslam and Banner can really change the culture.
The one thing we do know is they were not involved in the decision to pass on Cowher, fire Belichick, draft Tim Couch or anything else.
If we got our man, then nothing else much matters.
A billion dollars for an NFL franchise is right in line with the rest of the league. The guys who hired me paid a price for their wealth management that was right in line with the rest of the industry.
A large percentage of these interviews are conducted “away from home”. Wasn’t at least one of Chud’s interviews conducted “away from home”? Once again, this is right in line with how several coaches are interviewed in the NFL.
You have no clue if Haslam was “prepared to offer Kelly an eight figure contract. As we’ve learned the past few weeks, the media is pretty clueless with all of this, so I’m not sure why you would think this part were true. But even if it were, being prepared to offer someone a contract if they are the right guy for the job doesn’t mean you are banking the entire process on that candidate being the guy.
So yes, I think my personal anecdote withstands critical evaluation as a valid parellel to the Kelly/Haslam saga.
You are a pessimist! Guilty until proven innocent huh?
It should take seven hours, if you’re getting into the nitty gritty about why Kelly is the right guy for your future.
If the concern was that Kelly and Banner were both unwilling to give up final say on the roster, then what exactly were they doing for the last six hours and fifty five minutes? That should be the first thing addressed.
And if it took them seven hours to realize that Kelly was just looking for the best offer, and despite them seemingly to want him desperately and still refused to back up the truck for him, then I’m even more worried about the future of this team.
I agree on the first point. Yes, if Banner was unwilling to give up final say then that should have been clear early on to save everyone time.
On the second, I’m not sure how long it should take one to sniff out a head coach’s true motivations in an interview, but then again I’m not an NFL owner or exec who has interviewed head coaches.
Kelly may be a psychopath. Haslam and Banner may be idiots. A colossal miscommunication may have taken place. Who knows? My point is that no sane man or woman would think they have enough information to judge the situation fairly based on media reports. To do so is arrogant, ignorant folly.
Enough of this stuff, let’s get to what’s important — WHAT DID CHIP KELLY KNOW ABOUT MANTI TE’O’S GIRLFRIEND????
“kelly was their first choice. you dont fawn as they did for a second choice.”
Absolutely this. I get why people don’t like it and are trying to wish it away. But, at best, we were played by a guy who had no interest in being here, and at worst displayed a Lerner-level of incompetence. It doesn’t help in any way to spin it to make ourselves look good.
See, that would have been the story if we did hire Kelly.
“He strung us along, played both sides against the middles, and we still paid him millions just like the chumps we are!”
Agree, but I think people are judging based on accepting a certain, plausible, group of potential facts, which I find fair as long as they are willing to adjust as the actual facts do come out.
But, I guess my point on the second part isn’t that they couldn’t sniff him out. I’m not exactly sure what you do in the seventh hour that didn’t work for the first six, but whatever. It’s that if they found out he was just looking for the best deal, why didn’t they make it, considering how much they apparently liked him? Did we just pass on the better coach because we didn’t want to get into a bidding war? I think I might find that the worst possible scenario.
This is what I discovered to be “Cleveland Transcendence.” If you can’t hear Cleveland radio, you can’t be affected by it.
And I get that I’m just trying to fit in missing pieces here. Like you said, no one knows exactly what happened. But, no matter what, it seems like the best case scenario is that the Browns can’t even truly interest a top college guy to take the next step. It’s just more frustration to be a Browns fan.
“You have no clue if Haslam was “prepared to offer Kelly an eight figure contract.”
kelly’s oregon contract is 6yrs/20MM. i think that is a very good clue.
“Recovered from completely” would be a far stretch from what happened. He was back after missing one game, yes, but he was not 100% and was wearing a gigantic knee brace. There was also some stuff about the Redskins exaggerating how much medical clearance RG3 had gotten before being cleared to play.
Okay. My point – blaming RG3’s style of play seems unfair when what happened was an injured player who shouldn’t be playing hurt himself while slipping on poorly maintained turf. Under those circumstances, most QBs would be likely to hurt themselves worse.
LOL at “potential facts”.
I think the best case scenario is that a psychopath tried to use the Browns as a patsy to get a big pay day for the job he really wanted only to have Haslam and Banner, after doing their due diligence, back away when it became apparent to them what was going on.
Criticize them for taking too long to sniff it out, but if you really believe a guy is a good head coach then I am okay with giving him ample opportunity.
What I just don’t get – outside of a hit on the already battered Cleveland sports fan psyche, what exactly did Haslam/Banner’s approach cost them and us? A plane ticket, dinner, and some horrible time in Arizona? ESPN insulting us some more? We didn’t miss out on any other candidates. We didn’t lose a draft pick or something. There were no ill results that I can see.
If H/B are idiots then we’re screwed no matter what and how they handled (or mishandled) the Kelly Situation won’t matter in the next decade of incompetence.
So what? He was their first choice. And yeah, he decided for whatever reason that he didn’t want to come here. He did his best to play us and did so for a while. Yeah, we don’t look good in all this.
But so what?
Haslam and Banner aren’t perfect. They don’t have some divine gift to tell lie from truth. We’re calling that incompetence now? These guys walked away from Kelly and immediately continued with their search once they saw the writing on the wall. No, it wasn’t the best case scenario, but stuff happens in business and life. Grownups deal with and move on.
I agree with the feeling in the article, if not exactly the logic.
Thinks I don’t care about: Losing Chip Kelly who is going to be the BEST COACH EVAR!!!11!1! (Nobody knows this); “Getting played” by Kelly and/or the Eagles (The indications are that we did the exact opposite of getting played).
Things I do care about: Continuing to wallow in mediocrity. Hiring Chip Kelly may not have been the only right decision. It may not have been a good decision at all. But it also would not have been what hiring Rob Chudzinski was – a mediocre decision. Those people who thought that perhaps this new regime would be something other than mediocre should be learning their lesson right about now.
This team continues to shoot itself in the foot in its attempts to improve. They justify decisions narrowly without conceiving of the bigger picture, and they do it so often that it’s clear they can’t conceive of a bigger picture. They make decisions based on convenience and plausible deniability rather than an overarching plan. Every decision that they’ve made this offseason smacks of that same habit. They fired the sole competent executive the new Browns have ever had, because it was the easy straightforward thing to do within the executive structure they had conceived of and no one could blame them for it. They are going to revamp the defense, again, because a new regime should be allowed to. Has it occurred to them that Chudzinski is an offensive coach and there is nothing at all stopping him from hiring a coordinator who can further improve the already solid D? It doesn’t matter to them – this is their coach and they can’t tell “their” coach that anything outside of “their” plan is worth respecting. In that vein, will it occur to Chud that he has a gem in Richardson, and he should run more than his ideal offensive scheme would indicate? I’m not hopeful. After all, he can defend himself by saying that Richardson is a holdover and that he needs to install his guys (over a period of two to three years.)
This is only tangentially related to the Chip Kelly thing, but it’s connected in the sense that if they had any idea of what they actually wanted, they might be able to go and get it. But from the moves they’ve made it’s clear that like all the previous regimes the only idea they have is that they’d like to seem as though they have a plan.
Potential facts is the wrong phrase. Assumptions? I’m not sure what exactly you want to use here.
I’m not sure where the psychopath idea is coming from. At worst, he used us to leverage a better deal. If that makes him a psychopath, then there are a lot of them in this country. And I’ve already agreed that the best case scenario is that we’re a patsy.
And I don’t think you’ll find anyone complaining about the cost. It’s frustration somewhere between ‘the pretty girl turned us down after getting us to do her homework’ and ‘oh god, these guys aren’t any better than Lerner’. It’s still frustrating.
You know who else is smarter than me and knows much, much more about football, and was also in all the rooms for all the relevant discussions? Al Lerner, Carmen Policy, Dwight Clark, Butch Davis, Phil Savage, Romeo Crennel, Eric Mangini, George Kokinis, Mike Holmgren, Pat Shurmur, and so on. Despite this, all of those brilliant football minds have subjected us to terrible football and league wide ridicule based not only on performance but on off-field hijinks.
So when a new group comes in and its first move further subjects the Browns to league wide ridicule, (and nobody can contest that) excuse me for not deferring to their brilliance and experience.
“then there are a lot of them in this country”
something we can agree on…
I am just so completely apathetic to every decision this club makes at this point, I can no longer understand the passion people feel over these decisions.
Every single choice the Browns have made over the last two decades (lets be generous) have been completely and utterly terrible. Yet we still find ways to wring our hands and spill countless ink over which one of the two (or three) terrible options we should take.
The Cleveland Browns are Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru made tangible. There are no correct options. There is no winning. It’s all just different degrees of failure.
While I have never hired a head coach, I have hired executives to run multi-million dollar businesses and, in my experience, you look at the resumes, decide who looks best on paper, rank ’em and start your interviews with the top 3 and you hope to fill the job out of those three. I have to believe that with the weeks they had leading up to Black Monday, they went through a similar process — it was focused and thorough and they knew who they really hoped to hire.
But if Kelly wasn’t their first choice as you say, their strategy of heading out to AZ to “just kick the tires” really doesn’t give me great confidence in their ability to turn this boat around. I know that I wouldn’t head across the country to spend time with people if I wasn’t damn sure that I thought they were a fit and a guy like Haslam certainly doesn’t seem to like to have his time wasted from what I can tell from here on the left coast.
We’ll never know with certainty, but if these guys are as smart as people want to give them credit for, I have to believe they headed out to AZ to get Chip and they couldn’t close the deal. Why? Who knows, but that’s ok since it has to be a fit for the candidate too. Whether or not someone played another someone is kind immaterial, but you gotta admit that the Browns did look kind of stupid waiting at a table for two and the “date” never showed up for dinner..with the owner, his president, their lawyers, etc….again, you don’t bring the posse along unless you’re hirin’!
As I said on another board, they could have handled the PR a bit better, but JImmy thought he had Chippy in the bag…he’s used to getting what he wants, so why manage the spin?
But back to the top 3 resumes…I think Has-Ban really felt that they had an offer too good to refuse and never thought that they’d have to look at the rest of the resumes that didn’t make the top 3 which is why the speed dating occurred after they couldn’t consummate the wedding in AZ.
Was Chips the best candidate? Hell I don’t know (and don’t think so, I wanted Trestman), but if they thought Chud was their number 1 initially, they would have headed to the Carolinas and not AZ.
Regardless, the decision has been made and now it is time to sit back and see how it turns out.
Lotta good points here.
I will say this in Has/Ban’s defense – seems like more than a few teams with openings this year are interviewing a lot of candidates. Bears did 12, I think.
I’ve heard Peter King (I know, I know) point out that some execs and owners have said they interview guys just to get an idea of how other teams and organizations run their show. Not sure if this is true or not.
I kinda think he may be doing better in his rehab in Cleveland.
great points. I concur…
i totally agree. thanks for saving me the ink. it figures that mgbode and i stand on the same side of reason. again.
I don’t agree with you, but this is the most reasoned explanation from that side of the table.
hey – did anybody think that maybe Kelly actually wanted to be HC of the Browns but decided to take his other interviews anyways? It’s like a #1 recruit taking all of his visits – he SHOULD take all his visits. And maybe Kelly liked Philly better when he visited.
could be as simple as that.
Clue schmue…your blog is showing Jim. Honestly nobody but Kelly, Banner and Haslam know what was said and offered and decided over that weekend.
Win. Just freaking win and all of this goes into abyss.
Thank you. The notion that Lurie and Roseman schooled Banner and Haslam sounds like typical ESPN zombie speak.
he either is a buffoon who someone was able to keep at arms length for 3+ years despite he and his family having the ability to meet her at many points during that time. also, lying about meeting her multiple times to the media (and who was he talking while falling asleep for 3 mo’s while this girl was in a coma?)
or he is a psychopath who conjured the entire thing up and kept it going and also killed off his illusion right after his own grandmother died (and let’s not forget visiting leukemia patients w/ the media during this as well).
or he is gay, started this fake relationship to keep teammates and others away from that side of his life and the story kept growing to the point he couldn’t take it anymore w/ the grief he had with his grandmother passing (and the story just took a life of it’s own from there). but, in 2012?
what scenario is out there that makes Teo come out okay?
so all we have to do is cheat? well, it worked for the steelers in the late 60s/early 70s (as they were among the first teams to go full bore with steroids)
Well at least Lebron is coming back
It’s the simple side for sure
Now az fullback is saying he must this girl?
Unfortunately this event does further separate Teo from Ryan Shazier in the all important fake dead girlfriend statistic.
Two points:
A “sprain” in a knee is actually a small tear, meaning the first ligament (I think it was his LCL) was already slightly torn; the only way to completely recover from that is to rest it and let it heal. In the Ligament Healing Handbook, Rule #1 is DO NOT PLAY FREAKIN’ FOOTBALL – just guessing here, my handbook is old and tattered. One week off is not nearly enough for that injury to heal.
And, the terrible grass did not cause the injury, it was the motion of twisting to try and get to the bad snap; when he did that, the torque on the knee caused the ligaments to say “F— this, we quit!” and explode the rest of the way. (I believe if you listen closely to the field mics, you can actually hear that).
I do agree that poor turf condition can be a factor in getting players hurt, but it was neither the cause nor that much of a factor in this case; you are 100% correct that he “was an injured player who shouldn’t be playing” and that is the issue.