Five around Cleveland – OSU, CSU, QBs, Jhon, & AB
November 26, 2013Browns reportedly sign “trick shot” quarterback Alex Tanney
November 26, 2013I really wonder how much of Joe Banner’s legendary arrogance is dripping over in Berea right now. We’ve all heard the stories from Philly about power struggles and ego that I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to assume the Browns are operating with a fair amount of arrogance, do you? How else can you explain the fact that the Browns – despite losing one of their QBs to an ACL injury in early October – are headed into a week of regular season NFL action with their third ((used to be first, but currently is undoubtedly third)) QB slated to start with no actual backup on the roster? (Caleb Hanie might be signed by the time you’re reading this, but the point stands.) How else do you explain some trading maneuvers, that even if smart in the long run, have left their team woefully thin at the end of their very first NFL campaign at the helm? Regardless of how you feel about the future and how the Browns have set themselves up, there’s no denying that this year’s team has under-performed in a down year in the division with a somewhat easy schedule.
This isn’t to question all the Browns’ moves or their future. The Browns don’t need Shamarko Thomas (the guy who was taken with the draft pick they traded to Pittsburgh) and hindsight proves pretty well that they didn’t need Trent Richardson. That doesn’t mean that the Browns don’t need a running back at all, however. Further, their game on Sunday against a largely disappointing Steelers team indicates they’re in need of plenty more.
How would you characterize the way the Browns have attacked their needs this season? Does anyone think they’ve made even a modest attempt to win as much as possible right now within reason? I’d say the feeling I get from Berea is that they’ve been largely content to let this bad hand ride. In their first season with a chance to make a good first impression, I find that a little presumptuous at minimum. I might actually be giving the Browns the benefit of the doubt by saying they’re being run arrogantly right now. The alternatives are that they’re either inept or they don’t care.
Is it just a matter of me having unrealistic expectations? Some will undoubtedly say that, but I don’t think so. I’ve run through this before. This Browns team wasn’t the same one that Mangini took over from Romeo Crennel. This team was young and seemed to have been built pretty well through the line of scrimmage. It was bolstered in the off-season through free agency… on the defensive side of the ball. The Browns made one move on offense that I liked, bringing in Davone Bess, even if it hasn’t turned out well. They also did a nice job upgrading the backup quarterbacks when they brought in Jason Campbell and Brian Hoyer. If quarterback was the only issue this Browns season, I wouldn’t have (m)any complaints. In many ways the Browns prepared adequately enough and if it hadn’t been for injuries to both Hoyer and Campbell, I’m guessing this season would shine much brighter, but it’s more than that.
Even though they’ve struggled with the kind of QB health that can doom any franchise in any given year, I still have the feeling they’ve let opportunities slip by. As I said prior, they didn’t sign another QB once Hoyer went down. It’s not the fact that they traded Trent Richardson – although I was admittedly livid at that maneuver – it was the fact that they rolled through Bobby Rainey and Willis McGahee as options and seemingly sat back satisfied with the horrendous output. It wasn’t wrong that they wanted to see what Greg Little, Davone Bess and Josh Gordon could do and then Bess and Little under-performed. That happens to even the best front offices. It’s the fact that their best options thereafter were Josh Cooper2 and Brian Tyms.3
Maybe the next best replacements for those guys wouldn’t have made a difference, but the entirety of those moves feels like a betrayal to this season. Even if the moves don’t work, the appearance of trying would be a vast improvement. We hear about player workouts happening around the league all the time. Other than some punter workouts, when the season was still interesting before the Cincinnati loss, how many workouts did the Browns conduct with players who might be able to help them? Maybe admitting that Willis McGahee can’t play anymore would be a start. My point is that perception matters and my perception of their efforts this season are not good.
As it stands today, I’ll always think of this season as one where they didn’t try hard enough. No, they weren’t ever likely to make the playoffs this year, but to see them seemingly so satisfied watching any slim chance of playoffs flush down the drain prior to and including a gut-wrenching, boring loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers at home on Sunday is downright infuriating.
To add insult to injury, Joe Banner has been trotting around Cleveland this week talking to city council about what a good partner the Browns are. There might be truth to that, but I’m left wondering what that actually means right now for someone like Joe Banner who almost literally just got here. You don’t just get to walk around saying you’re a good partner as you’re making your first deal on the biggest stadium expenditure the city’s had to choke down since agreeing to build the bland box in the first place. I don’t want to rehash the entire stadium ordeal all over again, but even if the Browns made a good deal with Cleveland compared to other NFL teams in their respective cities, that doesn’t mean it’s a “good deal” for Cleveland at all. And the burden of proof to consider yourself a good partner to the city is bigger than just saying it before you’ve had a chance to prove it.
Equally, on the football side of things, you don’t get to talk about how impatient you are as a team CEO and then trot practice squad players in and out of the city while simultaneously having your best player constantly rumored on the trading block when the team on the field is in dire need of help. Doing those kinds of things is taking Cleveland’s fans for granted. Maybe it shows a good level of knowledge of how to boldly build a franchise for the long run, but I just can’t stomach the idea that in today’s NFL with a decent baseline of talent on the lines of scrimmage that years need to be wasted. This isn’t the NBA where getting into the Wild Card is a death sentence of constant mediocrity. This is Cleveland where mediocrity from the football team is considered an unreasonable expectation.
Am I being unfair? I don’t know. Asking for more than the current 4-7 record doesn’t seem too crazy, but anything’s possible, I guess. Well seemingly anything except the Browns being one of those teams that turns it around quickly and without another agonizing “process” that further demoralizes fans.
Image via Scott Sargent/WFNY
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I really wonder how much of Joe Banner’s legendary arrogance is dripping over in Berea right now. We’ve all heard the stories from Philly about power struggles and ego that I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to assume the Browns are operating with a fair amount of arrogance, do you? How else can you explain the fact that the Browns – despite losing one of their QBs to an ACL injury in early October – are headed into a week of regular season NFL action with their third ((used to be first, but currently is undoubtedly third [↩]
- Has he touched the field yet this season? [↩]
- Who? [↩]
81 Comments
How else do you explain some trading maneuvers, that even if smart in the long run, have left their team woefully thin at the end of their very first NFL campaign at the helm?
Are you talking about trading Richardson? Because there has been ZERO dropoff (he sucked when he was here) and now we have an first round draft pick with his departure
Why do I have a feeling we are going to put up a sign saying “Cleveland Browns Superbowl Next Year” next to the “Free Beer Tomorrow” sign
Why do I have a feeling we are going to put up a sign saying “Cleveland Browns Superbowl Next Year” next to the “Free Beer Tomorrow” sign
“This is Cleveland where mediocrity from the football team is considered an unreasonable expectation.” How very true.
I haven’t trusted the front office to want to win at any point in this season. Everyone from Joe Banner to Alec Scheiner to Kevin Griffin to Ray Farmer… the entire front office was choosing their words super carefully about what their expectations were for the season. My understanding of what they said is something along the lines of, “We want to be competitive now without mortgaging our future.” What that really means is they think the roster needs more work to be competitive, and they expect high draft picks to bolster it while creating year-to-year spacing regarding how much/when they have to pay players.
Zero dropoff while woefully awful isn’t the goal…
Just a Devil’s Advocate-esque point:
How prepared for injury or underperformance can a team realistically be? I’ll concede the point about not picking up another QB after Hoyer went down and it was already obvious that Weeden was really bad.
RE: Wide Receivers
It’s true that there are few-to-no options behind Gordon, Bess, and Little. But how many other teams can claim they have strong options at WR at the bottom of their roster?
Not the Patriots, who had to watch rookies named Tompkins, Dobson, and Boyce stumble through the early season until Gronk returned. Not the 49ers who have no one else their roster with Manningham and Crabtree down.
Only the Packers seem to have depth at wide out to survive injury and under performance. Honestly, if Bess was playing the way everyone thought he should be, we’d have no complaints with a Gordon-Bess tandem, with Little and Benjamin in the wings.
RE: Running Backs
I contend that the Browns did not get worse for trading Richardson. He is so bad that Willis (for as poorly as he’s played) is an equivalent player. We’ve also had 2 RBs go down to season ending injuries. While it hurts that we passed on him, Tampa Bay’s back-up plan was Bobby Rainey, who likewise wasn’t on the team to start the season. Until Pittsburgh got Bell back, they were cycling through a host of has-beens and never-weres. Indy, despite making a big move for Trent, is relying upon a guy named Donald Brown, who no one in the world would know of absent fantasy football waiver wires.
As an aside, I think the Browns failure to run the ball rests on the OLine as much as it does their crappy running backs.
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The Browns have suffered multiple injuries at RB, had a franchise back who is miserable, made a smart trade for a WR who has unfortunately underperformed, and lost a back-up WR to injury.
I’m not trying to make a case that the Browns are the deepest team in the NFL, or that the Browns are even a particularly good team. But, you can’t expect to have a pro bowler at every position, and you certainly can’t expect to have pro bowlers waiting at the bottom of your depth chart or on your practice squad. Likewise, you can’t rebuild an entire team in one off-season.
Any lack of depth or skill on this team is solely the responsibility of the prior regime; in particular, the abject failure that was the 2012 draft.
I’m sure this may be too much to ask, but how about some realistic expectations? Who exactly were the Browns supposed to sign during the off-season? Mike Wallace? Shonn Greene? Steven Jackson? Seriously, to whine and cry about how the team didn’t sign anyone is a an extremely short-sighted and narrow view point. Would you really rather see us sign highly-paid, low production players, in order for the potential of 3, maybe 4 more wins? Sure, a 7-9 season may sound good, but what does that do for the future? And speaking of ridiculous, bordering on insanity, player work-outs? That’s a crux of your argument? Player work outs? Because other teams are doing something, we should be doing that too? Of all these “mid-season player work outs”, which one has really shined as a true beacon of a great signing? Which team has picked up that practice player and really burst through the mediocrity of their situation? None, because mid-season signings come as a result of injury, and players are not signed before the season for a reason. And really, isn’t your true point of the article just to show everyone your dislike of Joe Banner? As if that makes you some sort of genius, or as every Cleveland fan/writer prefers, a martyr? And yet the fact that you are still trying to justify your anger at the Trent Richardson trade, is laughable. Everyone was angry and upset, it hurt, it felt like team had given up, but they didn’t, and it has had no effect on the current season. And to keep complaining about trading a 4th round pick (Thomas) for a 3rd rounder, is farcical at best. In his first season alone, Banner has upgraded an entire round, and received a first round pick for a running back averaging 2.8 yards per carry. Your article is a parody of sports writing, an obvious grasping for the lowest common denominator, to incite discord and dislike, towards someone you don’t agree with and obviously dislike. Skip Bayless would be proud.
Ahhh the daily Craig whines about the Browns article I see
Bobby Rainey is doing pretty well in Tampa. Our guards are pitiful!!! You need good guard play to run the ball.
What is the goal? Sign some of these wonderful practice squad players midway through a season that constantly works out great for everybody?
As noted below, Rainey is probably the strongest counterpoint. But I agree with you otherwise.
I’m a fan of Rainey, but the man had one excellent game and looks to be a practice squad talent-level of player. Where do you suggest we select these Guards from? The practice squad? Right Guard is a position that has been deeply affected by injury, and to suggest that we can just sign one off the street, give them a playbook and expect success, is outlandish.
You forgot the $26M in unspent cap space they didn’t invest in the roster but instead pocketed for Haslam’s legal defense fund.
AND that is the dirty little secret no one wants to talk about. We don’t have a run-blocking line, we built our line for pass-defense. Sign whoever you want to, without a hole to run through our rushing attack will continue to be feeble.
Completely agree on the QB situation. If you’re looking at your 4th QB of the season, all is already lost.
I’m a little less forgiving about the RB situation though. I have to believe that there are some young bodies out there to give a chance to.
T-Rich “sucked” when he was here? I know it was last year, but he had 12 TD’s (11 rushing). What do the Browns have running backs have this year, 1 total through 11 games? They have more fumbles returned for TD’s against them.
Not that any practice squad player is a savior by any means, but it just seems like an insane lack of preparation not to even bring in another QB to workout until you are down to only 1 guy. That’s just crazy to me, especially when Hoyer went out for the season.
Here’s why I basically agree with you, Craig:
– In response to the obvious question of when fans should expect to see on-field results after years of being lectured about patience and “process,” Banner made the following strong declaration at his initial presser, which he repeated in the second one (paraphrase): “We can’t tell you exactly when, but we expect results. I guarantee you there are not two more impatient people in this room than Jimmy and me.” And then he deferred on two consecutive middle round draft selections and decided on a rusty old RB who hadn’t played in a year. Banner set the expectations with his proclamations. I have a right to hold him to those words while accounting for unknowns that have since occurred.
– The team needs a culture change as bad as any team in any sport I can remember. No one here knows how to win. Imbeciles like Greg Little say they’ll trade a crucial 15-yard penalty for the right to defend their manhood any day, and we should go ask Phil Taylor, and no one calls him out. A culture change requires winning, any way, any how, screw your draft placement in April. You cannot win with a stupid big-armed QB who now is as scared as a rabbit, who everyone knows is the walking dead. But Banner went into the bye-week with a sore-ribbed back-up QB and did nothing to prepare for his inevitable departure until … today.
Banner proclaimed urgency when in fact Weeden’s meltdown made him default to Waiting for My Real Quarterback mode. Yeah, I’m gonna call him out. That was total insincere hot air, he’s not trying to win right now. And btw, I personally don’t care how arrogant he is if he’s right. But if he’s both wrong on his QB choice in April and arrogant to boot, heaven help him.
I think interpreting the quote “We can’t tell you exactly when, but we expect results. I guarantee you there are not two more impatient people in this room than Jimmy and me,” as a declaration of some sort of “win-now” type season is ludicrous.
In fact, it is absolutely not that.
Have to agree with the comments below. The D is pretty stacked with depth; the only issues they have are when multiple people in the same position go down, which is something you can’t do anything about – with 53 on a roster including three specialists, by definition only 28 subs will be there for 22 starters.
The Browns’ biggest issues this year have been when their backups have gone down: Hoyer, Pinkston/Lavauo, D. Lewis, etc.
What QB should they have brought in that’s better than Weeden? [At least as compared to what anyone thought going into the season.] They tried Rainey, he didn’t work out. What decent WR is willing to come to a non-contender to play on their practice squad? By definition your 5th/6th/7th choices will be scrub-level.
Agreed, I have found Alec Scheiner to be adept at this in interviews, as well. They have a knack for saying things that sound positive about this season, but are in fact purposefully noncommittal.
This is an excellent comment. Wish I could upvote multiple time. Front Office should get credit for not trading Gordon as well. Walrus completely swung in missed on the ’12 draft. You can’t expect them to win without the QB. That’s all that really matters. The fact that they got a 1st rounder for TRich is the greatest FO move of the season by anyone.
And I think they have to be, especially when they think there is still a dearth of talent, particularly on offense.
If we want to take the statement at it’s plain meaning, we can say that there have absolutely been results on the defensive side of the football, where the Browns have gone from one of the worst teams in the league to one of the best.
Nope. Didn’t say he promised win now. He promised try now, and he isn’t, and the players see that. They ain’t trying.
Also, appreciate your stalking me today, Ben! Not sure whether to be flattered or paranoid.
The brain is already in Thanksgiving-mode. So commenting is providing a welcome reprieve from my work-based reality 🙂
I feel like Banner and Chud have both said that as well… they don’t want to commit to saying that the results they are looking for will translate into wins, but they want to see the team moving in a positive direction and they want the players to improve. (For the record, this is what Pat Shurmur always said as well).
They brought in Caleb Hanie and he wasn’t signed to a contract.
Because they had to spend the money? Apparently you don’t understand the concept of the salary cap.
I think saying “They ain’t trying” isn’t fair. They spent an s-load of money to go after Des Bryant and Paul Krueger and signed Groves.
Being cautious and measured (waiting to see on young guys like Weeden, Gordon, Sheard, Pinkston, Skrine, TRich, Little, etc) was prudent. Because some of the key offensive players didn’t show marked improvement, and in fact showed regression (Weeden, Little, TRich), doesn’t mean we can say the FO didn’t try.
There was actually huge drop off in Richardson… It was from last year to this year though, not post trade.
whoa, there. I’m saying what they’ve done in-season on offense. Yesterday I made part of your point: that the expenditures and the draft choices devoted to defense mean Horton had no excuse for putting no pressure on the QB or not stuffing the run yesterday.
No backup QB in the bye week + McGinest as spackling is indeed a joke, it’s another way of saying “screw it, Norv, you’ll come up with something.” The players see they can’t win with Weeden, and no Henry V locker room speeches will change that.
whoa, there. I’m saying what they’ve done in-season on offense. Yesterday I made part of your point: that the expenditures and the draft choices devoted to defense mean Horton had no excuse for putting no pressure on the QB or not stuffing the run yesterday.
No backup QB in the bye week + McGinest as spackling is indeed a joke, it’s another way of saying “screw it, Norv, you’ll come up with something.” The players see they can’t win with Weeden, and no Henry V locker room speeches will change that.
Sorry. My mistake. I re-read. I agree to an extent that they could be doing a better show of things offensively “in season,” but let’s face it…who out there in the signable world is going to actually make a difference? I may be in the minority here, but I appreciate no further attempt to put lipstick on this pig.
I agree with you though–in employing this strategy–Banner & Co. (his a nice stately ring to it), has put itself in the cross hairs. They really had better get it right in the draft. No pressure though right? Easy peasy.
How quaint. Don’t tell me winning is your priority when you aren’t spending the money you have on available upgrades. We rolled into this season without a QB, RB, RT, CB, FS or K.
K, FS, and CB have all been fine this year. They had to see what Weeden was in a new offense. T-Rich was on the roster in the beginning of the year and RT was coming off a good rookie season. Nice try though!
Ok, if we’re drilling down to the essence of opinions, here’s where I think Banner is tone-deaf:
– your best chance to change the losing culture is when you first walk through that door, so even the guys you bring in get it right away.
– The QB is the one guy who can destroy the team’s will to win. There’s been no equivalent in baseball since they started having different starting pitchers in consecutive games.
– As stupid and immature as TJ Ward’s post-game comments were, they told me the team is fully aware that with only Weeden all resistance is futile.
No, a FO can’t always prevent that with injuries and bad performances. But every guy saw who was in the jack-in-the-box to be next man up when Campbell was already hurt. The guy who can’t play, can’t lead and is psyched out. You can’t ask the players to go balls out in this brutal game if you’re folding the tent. Or they play for “the tape,” not the team. And you lose. Again.
Next time after they get obliterated and embarrassed by a divisional rival and drive all the home fans out of their stadium before the third quarter is over I’ll be sure to write a nice thank you note.
Chris Owens is one of tee worst starting CBs in the league. Your free safety missed four tackles on Sunday and is 33rd out of 42 every-down safeties. Not sure I’d qualify that as “fine.”
You have an interesting definition of “fine”. Our offense was bottom 5 last year with your vaunted RT, RB and QB (who was ranked last amongst all starters last year). Our K is 16/19 which I guess you could say is ok % wise but abyssmal when you consider the drop off in attempts over 40 yards versus Dawson.
Not sure how you arrive at the conclusion we are fine at FS and CB but perhaps if you state your case you could convince me.
Buster Skrine is actually the starter at CB and he has played well. Up until last week Horton stated pubicly that Gibson was the MVP of the defense.
As far as the offense you had Richardson who played with broken ribs all year. The FO had to think a guy who was taken with the third pick would perform better than he did. Schwartz graded out very well, so they thought they were set at that position. The QB position was one where they felt Weeden was going to be in a better position to perform under Norv Turner.
I understand that people don’t want to hear them trying to build a team, but by spending boatloads in FA it doesn’t mean you will be successful. In fact, teams who spend like crazy often end up in horrendous situations and it hinders their future even more. Since I know you want me to prove my point I will name two teams right off the top of my head. Miami and Tampa Bay. So thats my point, they weren’t going to turn a bad roster into a playoff contender (and SB contender) in one offseason.
You have a whole list of reasons for Banner’s decisions, but ultimately none of them matter. The only reason people mention specific decisions is to illustrate the essential point, but the point makes itself. The ultimate proof that he has done a bad job is that we suck. The job he has done will continue to be bad until we are good.
The determination of quality eventually boils down not to whether your decisions are defensible, but to how they work out. Nobody ought to accuse any NFL front office of being stupid (well, in the heat of fan passion maybe) but when 75% of their decisions work out disastrously, and you couple that with perceived arrogance, a criminal investigations/class action fraud settlement, and the obvious implications of failing to spend the salary cap while asking the city for more money, the situation speaks for itself.
>>>But Banner went into the bye-week with a sore-ribbed back-up QB and did nothing to prepare for his inevitable departure until … today>>>
There was nothing to be done about his “inevitable” departure (maybe you should go for a sugar-ray icon instead of freud btw, since you can apparently predict game-ending blows to the head) because there are no quarterbacks falling from the skies today and there weren’t any last week either. If you want to get concrete and say “goddam it, if we only had Tebow?Garcia?Fill-in-blank? on the team, we would have won that game…” then fine. But filling in the blank is what exposes this take as empty.
Sorry, I have a hard time seeing the failure to sign Jeff Garcia as evidence of a lack of urgency.
Not stuffing the run? They were 2.5ypc. What do you call stuffing the run?
So again, what QB were they supposed to sign, midweek, that was supposed to be able to jump into a system and send the message that the Browns shall never perish from the face of the earth?
There is always a different reason we suck, but the reality stays the same. Nor does it matter what other people thought going into the season. Front offices get paid to think of things that other people don’t think of, and I don’t have to think of something they should have done to know that what they did didn’t work. Just as a counter-example, how does reality compare to what everyone thought about the Chiefs going into the season? Or the Cardinals? Are you arguing that the only way to do a bad job is to perform poorly after high expectations?
No, I’m arguing that the criticisms in the post are unfair. The D has exceeded expectations and seems to be built quite well; the moves they made on that side have paid off. They didn’t make those types of moves on offense because there were none to make at the time.
I can’t wait when TJ Ward and Alex Mack leave in FA so now the FO has let two of the best players on the team leave adding even more holes to the already bare roster. So now they have to hit on every single draft pick which we all know won’t happen and expect those picks to play at a high level which won’t happen. With the most cap space in the NFL they probably won’t sign anyone because Jimmy needs that money to settle in lawsuits. This team is a disaster I’m heading to the 480 Bridge
>>>75% of their decisions work out disastrously>>>
Jesus a ball bounces into a guy’s chest and the mountain people get away with a headshot that will definitely draw a fine, and suddenly everyone’s in the mood for the Terror.
The Richardson trade is probably the best one of the last 10 years for any team. A 1st round pick for a guy that shouldn’t and probably won’t be in the NFL more than another year. Name me another one of those. The Dez Bryant signing looks good. Mingo draft, not bad. Kruger looks OK. Bess, meh. They all but shouted that they hated Weeden from day 0 and put 2 better QB’s on the roster, one of which looks to have some NFL value. They delayed making the youngest team in the NFL younger by deferring a ’13 4th into a ’14 3rd. They’ve put together one of the top defenses in the NFL but can’t win because you can’t win in the NFL without a QB.
But this is 75% disasterous? Tough crowd.
Agree Owens has to go.