Browns are using Karlos Dansby’s body wash at camp
August 6, 2015
Debate Day: The Best Browns Coach Since ’99
August 6, 2015If you think the fans of the Cleveland Browns are fed up with the constant turnover and turmoil in Berea, it appears the players are right there with them. In an excellent profile of Browns offensive tackle Joe Thomas written by Grantland’s Robert Mays, it’s reported that roughly one dozen veterans on the team met with majority owner Jimmy Haslam and team president Alec Scheiner with one message in mind: Enough is enough.
A bus ride like this typically would have been quiet. The Browns had just finished a 4-12 season with a two-score loss in Pittsburgh, but as they rolled away from the stadium, the chatter began.
When Rob Chudzinski was hired as Cleveland’s head coach in January 2013, there were hopes of replicating that fleeting but magical 2007 season. Chudzinski was the offensive coordinator for the 10-win Browns team when Thomas was a rookie. That offseason, Thomas figured that the Chudzinski era would finally usher in a period of stability. “I think everyone had the impression that it would be this way for four or five years,” Thomas says. “I kind of thought that would be the last coach I ever had.” By the time the bus parked, the news had already spread. Chudzinski had been fired, 350 days after taking the job.
Of all the changes, this was the most frustrating, especially for the aging players on Cleveland’s roster. With each transition, Thomas realized the setback wasn’t just for a season. This meant three, maybe four years of rebuilding ahead. “When you’re in charge of an NFL franchise as an owner or president, sometimes you feel like you have to take that step back to get where you want to go,” Thomas says. “And guys like that have a lot longer timeline than a player in his eighth or ninth season.”
A group of Browns veterans — 10 or 12 starters and captains, Thomas estimates — met with owner Jimmy Haslam and team president Alec Scheiner. Both sides presented their positions, with management laying out its case for the change and the players making it known that the constant turnover was a barrier to building a consistent winner. They felt heard, but that was all. The cycle had started again. “Once you fire a coach,” Thomas says, “it’s over. It’s not like we were gonna convince them to keep the coach.”
Cleveland is entering this season with the same head coach and general manager as last year — but again, Thomas and the Browns offense have a new offensive coordinator and quarterback, with Josh McCown starting Week 1 and Johnny Manziel hoping to eventually erase the memories of last year’s disastrous debut. Thomas says other coaches were surprised when last year’s coordinator, Kyle Shanahan, chose to leave for the same job in Atlanta. But nothing shocks him anymore. “I can’t think of a year,” he says, “when we’ve had the same staff, top to bottom.”
The entire piece is well worth your time. There’s a section about second-year offensive lineman Joel Bitonio; one about Thomas’ time in Wisconsin; and one about Thomas, an aging Hall of Fame-bound tackle who is starting to watch his peers call it a career.
While it appears that the Browns have found their head coach in Mike Pettine, nearly every national pundit is expecting a multi-game regression from the team’s seven-win season a year ago. ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter recently forecasted a 3-13 season, for example. What this means for Pettine and general manager Ray Farmer remains to be seen, but if we are to take Haslam for his word, there will be no more ‘blowing things up.’ Thomas may have had to block for a complete abomination of a quarterback list over his career, but if his actions led to the team’s desire to work through issues rather than hiring and firing, this may have been the biggest win of his illustrious career.
78 Comments
Dang. And that’s why you are the master.
Btw (and this is like a big revelation in the show Lost), we are all eternally damned here. Look around…Cleveland sports’ forum. (Apostrophe intended)
Abandon Hope, indeed.
is Abandon Hope our new QB coach?
Don’t want to get into specifics, but it’s interesting that so many times in the summer we decide the Browns have “upgraded” multiple positions, coaches, GMs, even owners, and yet the team has achieved mediocrity, what, twice since ’99?
The talented player was a cancer or didn’t fit the system, the good soldier player had no talent. The last coach a system rather than to talent, or his problem was having no team identity. The last GM didn’t work with the coach, or worse, listened to the coach. Last owner was absent and slow and just wants to delegate so people stop screaming at him, the new one is meddling and rash and a swindler. We will know things are upgraded when the team’s performance is upgraded.
Oh, sure. There’s “history.” This just “feels” different. Doesn’t it? No?
Well it seems like almost everyone is pumped up and excited too.
it’s a regression. should only have one or two per thread. Tribe has 5 so Brownies get zilch. It’s not like Sir Francis Galton is about to walk through that door!
haha. “back foot”. oh man, that dude was killing me with that fadeaway jumper.
to be fair, this season’s schedule is much tougher.
hear, hear. we always look at the upgrades but conveniently forget about the former all-pro TE who left, or the capable corner who signed elsewhere, etc…
It’s like thinking about your ex-girlfriend (or boyfriend) and always remembering the good times without thinking about the fact that they smelled bad or that they cheated on you. You gotta look at the bad with the good, and the good with the bad.
and that goes along with your “upgrade” theory, technically. I mean, a full season from Mack is an upgrade from the partial season we got last year.
big – BIG – fan of s’s.
but there were multiple Thomases, which is why that apostrophe comes after a solitary S.
is that Bob’s brother?
Grandson, I think
Absolutely.
Well, and if successful w/r/t the O line, one has to hope that McCown’s ability to turn and handoff to [insert running back] is fairly commensurate to Hoyer’s.
Hoyer was only good when the play action threat was legitimate because the Browns could run.
good article Scott … i don’t think the players even needed to have this meeting. i gotta believe haslam
learned about the “continuity thing” during his time in pittsburgh. maybe the players just want to be sure.
and i like adam shefter , but there ain’t no freakin’ way they’re going 3-13 !!!!
hi TRS … not true. haslam knows what he has to do. he only got rid of banner & lombardi because they were more or less forced on him. i expect farmer & pettine to be in cleveland for a while.
Just read the article – it’s as fine as promised.
There was a popular debate before and after the ’07 draft whether it was better to build around a franchise left tackle or some of the other great players available. In retrospect that debate was irrelevant. The general incompetence and instability of this organization would have prevented any player from significantly helping because it lacked the ability to hire the right president, GM or coach. The more relevant debate would have been: is it better to have a publicity-shy owner who hires the right people and steps out of the way, or the Man of the People owner who hires the right people but insists on more active oversight? Alas, this choice was never on the table.
excellent post GARY …
no freakin’ way !!!
hi CHRIS … look at mccowns’ 2013 numbers with the bears. he’s not as bad as 2014 in tampa & probably not as good as 2013 with chicago. hartline was 3rd string in miami & bowe played on a team that had 0 td receptions by a WR … i’m pretty sure that won’t be the case this year. pryor will be lucky to see the field … bowe , hartline , hawkins , gabriel & benjamin willl get it done.
good post HARV … i may be in the minority , but i believe haslam wants to win more than anything & that his time in pittsburgh will serve him well … i gotta believe that unless something really bad happens , farmer & pettine will be around for a while.
I haven’t decided that Haslam is horrible, and I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt since the NFL’s shotgun marriage of him to Banner/Lombardi might have been somewhat out of his control. But I disagree that a Tennessee billionaire learns anything substantive simply by being one of a minority owner of a good org. I’ve never seen anything to suggest he was part of meetings with the GMs or coaches or participated at all in the Rooneys’ relationship to their FO. We know he was an investor. For all we know he has no Pittsburgh reference point for any decision he’s made with the Browns to date.
I have a problem thinking anyone was forced on Haslam but his marriage to the franchise was arranged so anything is possible. And based on the way the great minds in the NFL have handled other business in the league I could see how they might do what you think. The sad part is Randy Lerner has already been doing the very same thing and there was years of horrible examples on what not to do yet Haslam continued the trend.
he mentioned modeling his team after the steelers when he took over & brought-up continuity & stability … whether he sat in on meetings or not is fairly immaterial , it doesn’t take a genius to see the way the steelers get things done.
every browns owner or GM before him blew-it-up every 1-2 seasons … total lunacy !
we’ll obviously know the answer 3-4 years from now if/when farmer & pettine are still with the browns.
… has any coach or GM lasted more than 2 years with the browns since 1999 ?