Mike Pettine is qualified, but what can he achieve?

“I’m going to try and cobble together an opinion of Mike Pettine now.” That’s what I said in the daily WFNY email chain in anticipation of writing this post about the soon-to-be defensive coordinator from the Buffalo Bills. The problem is obvious. There’s no way for most fans to know much more than superficial things about head coaching candidates in the NFL. We scour their résumés with hopes of proving our pre-conceived notions of whether these guys are good or bad as if those résumés aren’t tied to so many other variables as to look largely meaningless. With that in mind, I will still try to tell you my thoughts on Mike Pettine.

How about we start with some bullet points?

• Mike Pettine is qualified for the job. So were Rob Chudzinski and Pat Shurmur, but still this is important. It might have been tougher to say the same thing about Denver offensive coordinator Adam Gase. Mike Pettine was Rex Ryan’s key assistant with the Ravens and then the New York Jets. He left the comfort of Ryan’s shadow to coach the Bills in the last season and the Bills defense played well.
• The Bills have good defensive personnel and Pettine only coordinated on his own away from Rex Ryan for one season. I don’t know if that’s a full-blown concern, but it’s an observation.
• Pettine has been in the NFL working actively and seemingly achieving for a decade plus now. His rise has been steady and consistent.
• Pettine’s Bills defense wasn’t short on talent, but they also provided results commensurate with that talent. The Bills scored 57 sacks in 2013 while notching six wins in the AFC East. Pettine’s defense played opposite a rookie quarterback, E.J. Manuel when he was healthy, and also former Browns QB Thad Lewis and the jokeishly-named Jeff Tuel, who the Browns got to see in a 37-24 victory after Manuel got hurt.
• Despite the Browns’ much-maligned coaching search after their much-maligned firing of first-year head coach Rob Chudzinski, most around the league seem to be pretty high on Mike Pettine. See Greg Rosenthal’s tweet on the right.
• Mike Pettine is a defensive coach as opposed to Rob Chudzinski who was a former offensive coordinator. It seems a bit strange that the Browns would make an about-face on this point. That’s alright, and I certainly don’t mind it as the Browns face off in a division with three head coaches all with backgrounds on the defensive side of the ball. Yes, that’s the definition of anecdotal evidence.

Ultimately, that’s what we know and it isn’t much. I’d argue that there’s not much we can ever know about NFL head coaching candidates unless they have previously been head coaches in the NFL. And even then, Mike Shanahan’s tenure with the Washington Redskins (among others) proves that past performance isn’t indicative of future returns.

Mike Pettine has the chance to be a good one. He has the chance to be a bad one. There will be a great many factors that contribute to either outcome, but mostly people will consider it an uphill battle. They will consider it that way because everything the Browns do right now is perceived to be an uphill battle because of the way they’ve handled their business the past year.

I was talking on Twitter this morning and something occurred to me. I get the sense that people think the Browns wouldn’t be this big of a joke if people stopped taking pot shots about them. As if they wouldn’t be a joke if media and fans around the nation weren’t making jokes. The reason that the Browns are a punchline right now is their own actions in the past year since Jimmy Haslam bought the team. Nobody was joking about them when they were riding out Pat Shurmur and watching the fun TV show on the Travel Channel. People don’t have a desire to ridicule the Browns, necessarily.

Yes, it’s a bit unfair to the team right now because there’s nothing they can do to change perception until either they win more games or make giant splashes in the draft and free agency. Simultaneously, don’t blame the people talking about the team, blame the team that put themselves in an easy position to be the subject of ridicule.

Keep that in mind as you listen to Mike Pettine’s forthcoming presser announcing he’s going to take over the coaching duties. Remember that he’s coming to an organization that has even more to prove than the last time they did this just a year ago with Rob Chudzinski. That doesn’t mean you should have pity on him, but look for that tone or timbre in what he says and how he says it that will somehow breathe some life-giving oxygenated credibility back in a locker room that was blown away when Chud was fired. Look for that same stuff in the guy who will have to help the Browns overcome their reputation when it comes time to lure free agents with not just money, but the promise of a future that might even include winning.

Beyond what we can read on Mike Pettine’s Wikipedia page or on Pro Football Focus, that will likely go furthest to determine his success in Cleveland with the Browns assuming he’s given the full chance to achieve all his potential.