May 22, 2013

NFL News: Browns interviewing Rob Chudzinski for HC vacancy

January 9, 2013 by 63 Comments

In addition to Cincinnati Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, the Cleveland Browns are interviewing Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski for their head coaching vacancy Wednesday.

Chudzinski, as many may recall, is partly responsible for turning Derek Anderson into a Pro Bowler as the offensive coordinator under Romeo Crennel. Prior to his stint as OC, he was the tight ends coach in 2004. A Toledo native, Chudzinski was relieved of his duties once Eric Mangini came to town and had three head coaching interviews last offseason alone.

Most recently, his tight end-friendly vertical passing attack has been featured in Carolina with Cam Newton. The Panthers, in 2012, were 19th in total offense, amassing 22.3 points per game.

[Related: Browns coach search and why the excitement over Chip Kelly was justified]

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  • Vindictive_Pat

    NO! Absolutely not. Bad Dawgs!!! We don’t do that on the carpet!

    Are you kidding me? This guy had zero personality while he was here in Cleveland… you couldn’t tell him apart from the ball boys. What’s worse was the way the Browns’ offense and its players regressed under him. Put up big numbers in 2007, only to fall to 2nd worst in the league in 2008 with no real changes in offensive personnel. Please do not hire this guy.

  • Garry_Owen

    While he might take some credit for turning DA into a “Pro Bowler,” doesn’t he also get responsibility for all of the putrid putrifying putridness of the rest of his tenure in Cleveland? I mean, that team was the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked.

  • Harv 21

    Love this idea. When he was given the keys to the offense post-Mo Carthon he immediately made it hum. And no one else has been able to hide DA’s deficiencies like Chud. Was not his fault if Mr. Oh-No Hands On Helmet is rock dumb, he did more than ok with what he had. Don’t care if he’s not a screamer, that’s surface stuff harped on by frustrated fans who want screamers because they’re screaming.

    And the name: Coach Chudzinski. For you people who think “Ohio roots” really matter when a guy is locked in windowless meeting rooms 17 hours a day, is that Cleveland enough for you?

  • Harv 21

    Chud had an excellent year before ’08. No doubt Anderson sucked, but remember this was a team now fully in the throes of Camp Romeo, with no discipline and re-negotiated contracts. They benched DA, brought in the rookie Quinn to QB, he looks like a rookie and then breaks a finger, so they have to bring back DA, but he tears a knee and they sign Gradkowski to play. Let’s be fair. Don’t remember anyone blaming Chud for that train wreck season. I was actually hoping Mangini might keep him before I understood Mangini’s m.o. of surrounding himself with acolytes.

  • Vindictive_Pat

    I think you could just as easily point to the regression of DA and the rest of the offense in 2008 and attribute it to Chudzinski. Why lock into the first part and say that the offensive boost was all Chudzinski, but ignore the second part and blame DA for the regression to the mean? This guy has 2 years as OC with DA (awful QB, 1 good year, 1 bad year) and 2 years as OC with Cam Newton (ultra-talented QB, 2 good years). I just don’t know why this guy gets labeled as a whiz kid and an offensive guru. His offenses never seemed that great to me.

  • Garry_Owen

    Well, to be fair, I blamed him – at least for a good share of it.

    All of those points are well taken, and demonstrate a recollection of detail that is far better than mine; but I seem to remember maddeningly unoriginal, unimaginative and inexcusable (even with QB injuries) play calling. Wasn’t this the stretch where we went something like 9 straight games (maybe more?) without scoring an offensive touchdown? Or am I confusing my Maurice Carthons and Brian Dabolls with my Rod Chudzinskis?

    Anyway, I was at the last game of the year where we lost to the Bengals 20-0. I sat through the entire thing, in minus 15 degree (Kelvin) temperatures. My toes and fingers still don’t have circulation. I blame Chud for this.

    I’m also currently bald, which is at least partially Chud’s fault.

  • Harv 21

    I kind of remember 4 straight games with no TDs, with Quinn beginning his Capt. Checkdown career, DA coming back weirdly petulant (but just as color blind to opposing jerseys and just as stupid) after his benching, and then the QB street signing. Mo didn’t really want anyone throw the ball except St. Lawrence Vickers (cue heavenly synthesizer strings, bow head). Daboll was … aw come on, we don’t have to relive this, do we?

  • Harv 21

    tried to explain my thoughts in convo with Garry, above. [or maybe below, never sure how or why the Disqus algorithms move comments around]

  • Vindictive_Pat

    I’m actually having this same argument on dawgsbynature, but up until the switch to BQ, DA had put up 9 TDs and 9 TOs in 8 games with a rotten completion % and yards/attempt. He was having a bad season long before the switch to BQ. What was amazing about the switch to Daboll was that the offense got so much worse than it already was.

  • Vindictive_Pat

    I’m with you here… I just seems like hindsight in my opinion. When Chud was here, nobody wanted him as the head coach of anything, let alone as our offensive coordinator. I just think it’s remarkable how quick the tide seems to have changed into remembering him as “the guy who got something out of DA” rather than “the guy who was supposed to be an offensive genius, but never showed it”. Even in our successful time with DA, the offense was basically just run fly patterns with Braylon and let DA chuck it deep. This was so anti-Browns at the time that it caught the whole league off balance. When they adjusted, the offense died.

  • Garry_Owen

    So I did some “research.” It was a 7 game TD drought, stretching from the last 6 games of 2008 and through week 1 of 2009. The Browns broke the drought in Week 2 of ’09. I will readily accept that QB injuries played a big part, but that was still on Chudzinski’s watch. Surely, an effective OC would have found SOME way to find the endzone. Paydirt. The House. Nope.

  • Vindictive_Pat

    Stay away from Dawgs By Nature. The bulbous number of people who believe that Chudzinski is an offensive juggernaut with no faults is staggering. I may be the only one commenting over there who doesn’t think he’s an incredible HC candidate. I am still trying to figure out what exactly he’s done to promote this belief. With Mike Zimmer, you can follow him going from team to team and improving their defense. With Chudzinski, you have no track record like that. His arrival in Carolina coincided with the drafting of Cam Newton, so is it because Chud is awesome that their offense improved, or is Cam a mega-talented QB who has made it easy on Chud to put up numbers?

  • Garry_Owen

    Or could you make a converse argument that, given Cam Newton’s freakish talents, the Carolina offense should be exponentially better than it is, and that it isn’t better purely because of Chudzinski? I’d make that argument – but I consign it to you. WFNY is my one and only CLE sports site.

  • Vindictive_Pat

    It’s absolutely my first stop every day, so I can’t blame you. I am just having a slow work day and I wanted to debate about Chudzinski and nobody here seems that interested in doing so.

  • mgbode

    What do you mean? Daboll oversaw the most impressive offensive game ever:

    http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200910110buf.htm

  • mgbode

    Cam Newton refuses to make Converse arguments. He only makes arguments for Under Armour.

  • Garry_Owen

    Booooooo!

  • Vindictive_Pat

    I feel like I just got Rick-rolled

  • maxfnmloans

    It doesn’t really matter what he has done as an OC. I was just listening to the Jay Mohr show and he was talking to Troy Aikman (whatever you think of him as an anylast, he knows 14,000 times {approximately} more football than I do) and he brought up a good point. The Head Coach isn’t the teams main X’s and O’s guy. That’s up to the coordinators.

    i think judging potential candidates through the prism of what they could do for our “X” is fallacious. Being a Head Coach is an entirely different job that requires a different (yet similar) skill set. How’s he going to handle decision making during crunch time? How is he at managing the egos of 53 grown men? I think things like that are more important than how his offense did when he was our OC 5 years ago.

    *This is not an endorsement of Chudzinski, just trying not to put the cart before the horse

  • Harv 21

    You want to hoist Chud on a petard lebeled “DA/Quinn”? You’re not just joking, you’re .. cruel. Do you know Sid Gilman just texted me through a Ouija board that he believes, nay is certain, that Brady Quinn rejects the forward pass as overrated? And that Paul Brown just reached his skeletal arm from the freakin crypt with a note that says (in small, precise lettering) that Anderson is mentally unfit to clean practice unis?

    Chud eeked a productive year out of a guy who is to QBs what a bagpipe is to classical music: he throws hard all the time at whatever, situation, accuracy and instructions be damned. Chud should be feted, with drink and poetry, not blamed for the awful bellow once the league saw the films.

  • MrCleaveland

    eeked?

    Eek!

  • Garry_Owen

    Oh he was certainly fetid.

    What’s that?

  • Garry_Owen

    Better than being Dabolled.

  • Harv 21

    fixed, thank you brother. When I’m agitated like this the keys sense it and stick.

  • MrCleaveland

    bellows, no?

  • Garry_Owen

    casus belli; jus ad bellum

  • MrCleaveland

    That rings a bell.

    /Help me.

  • Garry_Owen

    I did the math. 14,000 times is precisely correct. Well done!
    You make a good general point, but how many times have you seen an NFL head coach that doesn’t overly concern himself with the Xs and Os? Tomlin comes to mind, but I can’t think of anyone other than him.

  • Harv 21

    … and – they’re off!

  • Harv 21

    This is why everyone else hates us. Hey, let’s go, we’re late for Geek Club.

  • Garry_Owen

    Sad, isn’t it? So many legitimate reasons to hate me, and this is what they always choose. Story of my life.

  • mgbode
  • mgbode

    Daboll was undefeated when his QB threw for less than 100yds until Brady Quinn took even that away from him in wk17 last year:

    http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/201212300den.htm

  • MrCleaveland

    There’s a fine line between being a bemused, not-too-serious goofball who’s always ready with a good-natured quip and an annoying, life-sucking, infantile pest who can clear a room in no time, sort of like that guy who walks through the mall around Christmas time talking about Ford (I have dreams about carving his stupid face with the finest Ginzus, and they’re not nightmares). However, I worry that I’ve become my enemy.

  • mgbode

    does Rex do anything other than cuss and make wild proclamations?

  • Vindictive_Pat

    That would depend on whether or not there was a foot involved.

  • Vindictive_Pat

    Also of note… Derek Anderson is still with Chud in Carolina. That’s like Ben Affleck walking around with a DVD of Gigli in his pocket.

  • Garry_Owen

    Stuff like this make me want to rethink my life. And that depresses me.

  • WFNY_DP

    >>>”Put up big numbers in 2007, only to fall to 2nd worst in the league in 2008 with no real changes in offensive personnel.”<<<

    Playing Devil's Advocate, I think we can safely say that, while there were no "changes" in personnel, Jamal Lewis was a year older (his ypc dropped almost a whole yard). Braylon Edwards clearly wasn't himself. Joe Jurevicius wasn't there, and Donte Stallworth was a horrible replacement (17 catches in 11 games).

    So, yeah, the offense regressed in 2008, but it wasn't like it was the *exact* same lineup.

    (DISCLAIMER: I am, in no way, endorsing the HC candidacy of Chud.)

  • Harv 21

    no, the sound, not the twin bags.

  • Vindictive_Pat

    That’s fair, but I’m going to play devil’s advocate to your devil’s advocate. I don’t think Jamal Lewis regressed that much and I tend to think RBs have very little to do with the effectiveness of a running game (unless they are Adrian Peterson or LaDanian Tomlinson or some other freak of nature). I think there’s a reason outside of the RB as to why certain coaches tend to always have good running games (Shanahan, Norv, etc). I also think Braylon was as he’s been for the past several years now… he did not leave Cleveland and have an offensive explosion again. I also can’t ascertain the logic behind keeping Derek Anderson year after year when he has shown to be such a bad quarterback and poor sport.

  • mgbode

    what about Ryan Tucker. our offense still looked pretty good in 2008 when Ryan Tucker started

    #lynchpin

  • MrCleaveland

    Watch who you’re calling twin ‘bags, bub.

    GO and MrC

  • Harv 21

    Sorry. Time’s up.

  • mgbode

    Affleck did not make Gigli a success for any period of time though

  • Harv 21

    nice

  • MrCleaveland

    HI-YO!!!!

  • MrCleaveland

    Can I interest you in a Ford?

  • Harv 21

    I love this comment, Max. I’m always wondering why fans think the former QB coach turned HC is still staring intently into the eyes if the QB and asking him about his hopes and dreams. What is the current QB coach doing?

    As an irrelevant aside, I saw Holms at training camp on the field while the players were stretching walk right past Colt without any contact to Weedon, and spend a good 2-3 minutes murmuring sweet nothings. Poor Colt, stretching like a shmuck in hurdler’s position facing those two, undoubtedly thinking, “Oh yeah, some open competition for starter.”

  • mgbode

    person or clinic?

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