Report: Phil Savage Fired
December 28, 2008While We’re Waiting…
December 29, 2008
Well, it didn’t take long for Randy Lerner to drop the hammer on one of the two people who share the responsibility for the Browns’ embarrassing season. Now, I know that a lot of us are feeling awfully vengeful right about now due to the embarrassing season that we have just endured. At the same time, I am not sure that the book has been completely written on the Phil Savage era in Cleveland. Obviously there were a lot of things that went wrong this season that must be blamed on Savage. Most notably, the Kellen Winslow situation and the ridiculous email to a fan immediately following the Buffalo game were too much for Randy Lerner to take. I can’t say that I disagree with the firing, but I do think that from a pure talent acquisition standpoint the Browns are better off than before Phil Savage started. Whether we miss Savage or not will obviously depend on who replaces him and how that person does.
And as I said, the book isn’t closed on the Phil Savage era. We will continue to see the fruits of Savage’s labor for the next three-to-five years as his draft picks continue to hit or miss under whatever coaching regime happens to roll into town. Just so we can all keep it in mind, here is a list of Savage’s acquisitions over the last few years.
First, in the draft.
2008 (Round Player College)
4 Beau Bell UNLV
4 Martin Rucker Missouri
6 Ahtyba Rubin Iowa State
6 Paul Hubbard Wisconsin
7 Alex Hall St. Augustine’s
2007
1 Joe Thomas Wisconsin
1 Brady Quinn Notre Dame
2 Eric Wright Nevada-Las Vegas
5 Brandon McDonald Memphis
6 Melila Purcell Hawaii
7 Chase Pittman Louisiana State
7 Syndric Steptoe Arizona
2006
1 Kamerion Wimbley Florida State
2 D’Qwell Jackson Maryland
3 Travis Wilson Oklahoma
4 Leon Williams Miami (FL)
4 Isaac Sowells Indiana
5 Jerome Harrison Washington State
5 DeMario Minter Georgia
6 Lawrence Vickers Colorado
6 Babatunde Oshinowo Stanford
7 Justin Hamilton Virginia Tech
2005
1 Braylon Edwards Michigan
2 Brodney Pool Oklahoma
3 Charlie Frye Akron
4 Antonio Perkins Oklahoma
5 David McMillan Kansas
6 Nick Speegle New Mexico
6 Andrew Hoffman Virginia
7 Jon Dunn Virginia Tech
Next, in free agency, I couldn’t find a complete list so I did a little research and went from memory. I am sure I will miss some.
Ted Washington
Dave Zastudil
LeCharles Bentley
Kevin Shaffer
Joe Jurevicius
Willie McGinest
Eric Steinbach
Donte Stallworth
Derek Anderson
Antwan Peek
Hank Fraley
Jamal Lewis
Seth McKinney
Robaire Smith
Mike Adams
Charles Ali
Josh Cribbs
27 Comments
i am so sick of the browns. get cohwer.
Savage is gone, I’m happy, but still who we going to bring in? Even if it is a top GM, or one with a good rep, the next season has to play out. I don’t care if Browns picked up 20 pro bowlers next season, never would happen, but still. They have to win games for me to even get excited now. This season ruined the off season hope and excitement forever.
om a pure talent acquisition standpoint; the Browns talent went 4-12 this season
Looking at all those draft picks…. Joe Thomas looks like a good pick. Brady Quinn maybe. The bottom of those drafts is just sad. Sigh. Wait till next year.
When you have this many things going on and this many coaches, etc, I don’t think you can just reduce it to that. I mean, yes, they went 4-12 this season, but the record doesn’t tell the whole story.
It doesn’t say anything for the future. While the future might not be particularly bright right now, I am still happy with a few things. I am happy with Shaun Rogers. I am reasonably happy with the safeties. I am reasonably happy with the left side of the offensive line.
It is a bad result this year, but if the team overperformed last season, then they definitely underperformed this year. I would take a split of the difference for next year.
Indeed, I agree the Browns are better off from a pure talent standpoint than they were before Savage arrived.
Regardless, he hasn’t gotten it done.
Miami and Atlanta were arguably in worse shape in 2007 than the Browns have been since their expansion year.
New regimes in those cities went from 1-15 and last place to a division championship and the 3rd NFC playoff seed in Miami, and from 4-12, last place, and reeling from the Michael Vick scandal to an 11-5 playoff team with the 2nd best record in the NFC in Atlanta.
Both organizations have done more–and haven’t even completed their first full year!–than Savage accomplished in four.
And thank you for compiling all of Savage’s draft picks, Craig. I’ve been saying his record was decidedly mediocre, but hadn’t looked up all the picks. It’s astonishing to see it laid out like that.
Only two of seven 2005 picks remain with the team–
Five of ten remain from 2006.
Five of seven from 2007, with nice finds in Wright (2nd) and McDonald (5th).
And while it is still early to judge, it’s worth noting that not one single player from the 2008 draft had an impact on the team this year. One could argue that Rogers is their stellar draft pick for this year, but with the record contract Savage handed to him, he really was more of a FA acquisition than a draft pick… and Cory Williams hasn’t exactly turned any heads. Quinn may yet pay off as our 2008 first rounder, but he’s still a question mark right now.
We also need to keep in mind that we’ve already lost half of our upcoming draft… three of our four picks were dealt to trade up for the likes of Beau Belle and Martin Rucker…
In all, that doesn’t strike me as a stellar record, by any means. And especially when current trends in the NFL show that successful (playoff) teams are getting immediate production from their draft picks.
I’d love to have Savage as head scout, but as GM? I say good riddance. And that’s not coming from a place of anger, it’s because he’s failed to produce (see Dimitroff, Tom, or Ireland, Jeff.)
“We also need to keep in mind that we’ve already lost half of our upcoming draft… three of our four picks were dealt to trade up for the likes of Beau Belle and Martin Rucker…”
***Sorry for the typo… obviously should have typed “three of seven” for next year, not “three of four.”
I just hope that the Browns don’t put all their eggs in a basket with cowher and the Patriots VP. Its well known that if the chin expresses any desire to coach again, 5-10 more jobs could become open just for the chance at the chin. How about this for a darkhorse Savage replacement…Bill Parcels. If the Wayne H. sells his majority share of the dolphins, the Tuna can opt out of his contract and go to anyone he wants without them having to compensate the dolphins in any way. There was a clause in the Tuna’s contract to where he only has to answer to Wayne H and Wayne H only! So lets hope for the best, whatever that may be.
I want Parcels here too. He turned a talentless dolphins team into a division winner, and thats with getting rid of their top 2 defensive players before the season started. this guy knows how to build teams, and he will have full reign to get whoever and whatever he needs to win here. Also, he took a first time head coach into possibly the coach of the year. Savage may have brought in people who have talent, but they dont work together. Parcels will get a team, not a bunch of players with talent. I was just like most browns fans this offseason praising Savage, but after watching this season its over. The team imploded and fell right on Romeo and Savage.
A good head coach, and some luck with QBs not getting hurt, and this team goes 8-8. So many of these teams problems are a result of not having a head coach that commands respect and is an authoritative figure, not to mention knows a thing or two about football (to be fair, Savage hired Crennel). Yes, the talent isn’t great, but its definitely not bad. We might look back on this day and regret that we got rid of Savage, lets be honest, if he handled the Winslow situation better and didn’t send that email, he probably still has a job. Lets say we get Pioli (did I spell that right), he will probably hire another Belichek “apprentice”. Are we in better shape then? Lets face it, assistant coaches under Belichek have not done well at all as head coaches. Romeo, crap. Mangini, not terrible, but closer to crap than good and his players don’t like him. Weis, fat crap. Getting another one of his guys won’t make this team better, not to mention we don’t know how much of a role Pioli has in talent evaluation. I get that Savage hasn’t been great, but there is way more talent on this Browns team than when he got here. And you can’t expect him to turn it around in a year like Atlanta or Miami. Those sorts of things are rare, and Miami can thank Brett Favre for their success.
Everyone here want Cowher? Well you better want to give him GM powers, which works almost NEVER. You also better be willing to overpay like crazy for him, but I guess we don’t write the checks. They say Cowher doesn’t know if he is ready to work 12 hours a day again. Well if he is coach and GM he better be ready to do more than that. We have been down that road before with Butch Davis, I’d like not to do it again.
Parcells would be pretty sweet actually. Not gonna lie. He knows how to win, end of story.
Its hard to look at Savage’s drafts. Do people wish we didn’t trade for Shaun Rogers? Didn’t think so. Anyone think that this is the real Braylon Edwards? Me neither. Evaluating late picks from the past 2 years is ridiculous because most times if they were NFL ready they wouldn’t have been drafted in the 5th round. You need a head coach to develop that talent, which we do not have
I think this move is a mistake. Savage has really raised the talent level of this team over the last few years. I would put most of the blame on Crennel and the rest of the coaching staff. I guess Lerner has his reasons though.
We’ll see what happens with whoever fills his place. Savage has a bright future in this league though.
“Its hard to look at Savage’s drafts. Do people wish we didn’t trade for Shaun Rogers? Didn’t think so.”
If he drafted better, Rogers wouldn’t have been necessary. Savage handed Haloti Ngata (“the best player in the draft” according to Belichick) to Baltimore on a silver platter for Wimbley. Getting Rogers, and having to pay him a record contract, was just one example of Savage scrambling to cover past missteps… and sacrificing the team’s future in the process.
That’s part of the problem with Savage–he overpays for everything. Whether it’s in salary (Kevin Shaeffer, Dante Stallworth) or in trade. This team is going to have genuine problems signing players the next two years due to salary cap issues, as the new regime deals with the fallout of Savage’s mismanagement. I daresay when it’s all said and done, Savage will have done more harm than good to this organization, and possibly even left it worse off then he found it after Butch Davis. It’ll take a year or two to fully evaluate, but there will be severe consequences for the team.
“Evaluating late picks from the past 2 years is ridiculous because most times if they were NFL ready they wouldn’t have been drafted in the 5th round.”
It’s also hard to develop players that were such bad picks that they’re not even in the league. If you don’t want to look at the last two years of Savage’s drafts, let’s look at his first two. How many of those 2nd day picks are starters for the Browns? Exactly one (Lawrence Vickers.) Of the rest, I don’t know that any of them are even still in the league.
When other teams are finding the Steve Slatons and Frank Gores and Lance Briggs and Justin Tucks in the third round, Phil Savage is busy stocking our roster with the Charlie Fryes and Travis Wilsons and trading away #3 picks for the likes of Beau Bell and Martin Ruckers…
Sorry, but he just wasn’t that good. He’ll make a fine scout for some team, but he can’t handle making the decisions at a GM level, not to mention his complete inability to behave in a professional manner consistent with the position.
Here’s to hoping Randy Lerner’s first calls will be to find out if Parcells is going to opt out of his contract with the Dolphins’ change of ownership.
phil was not the problem
Browns were 4-12 this year. They were 10-6 with the easiest schedule imaginable last year, and they got every break a team could possibly get.
Savage sucks, Romeo sucks, the players suck, the offensive schemes suck, the defensive schemes suck, the talent evaluation sucks, the drafting sucks, the free agent signings suck, the effort sucks, the excuses sucks, the staph infections suck, the season sucks. I’m not happy with ANY of it.
As far as I’m concerned they can just cancel the season next year. Enough is enough and I’ve had it. They might not be the Lions, but they’re not far from it in my mind. Get it together of GTFO. It makes me sick inside. Really.
I was a fan of Phil, and expect him to get a Pro Personnel Director job somewhere, and watch that team go to Super Bowls. Just the way it is here in Believeland.
The Browns have a lot of talent? Really? Is that based on last years performances against the easiest schedule in the league? I called 4-12 at the start of the year. Granted I figured we’d probably end up closer to 6-10 or 7-9, if the planets aligned. With the exception of Thomas, Rogers, Winslow and Steinbach every player on this team would be fighting for seats on a bench on any playoff team. Don’t tell me steaming pile from Michigan is a starter either, because he would’ve been benched by any decent coach.
It simple, win or GTFO. I’ve stopped waiting for next year with this team.
When you have a coach who is as bad as Romeo has been, it is really tough to tell exactly what you have. That is why I was saying that the story of Phil Savage will be told in the next couple of years assuming the Browns get some kind of decent coaching staff in place. Without a coaching staff, it doesn’t matter who you have on the team.
Every play of every game is scripted by coaches. This isn’t like basketball where Doc Rivers can be the worst coach in the league and it doesn’t matter because the players are talented.
Hopefully we end up with a coach that knows how to take advantage of the strengths in his personnel and also knows how to hide the weaknesses. Romeo HIGHLIGHTED the weaknesses of this team by insisting on playing a 3-4 when his linebackers weren’t that strong.
I am also hoping that Kamerion Wimbley’s regression over the last two years can be helped by a new coach. It sure looks like he has the athletic ability to be a great player. He just doesn’t seem to know how to best use it.
Yes, yes, yes, the talent under Savage is better, but what kind of praise is that? Before him, the Browns would have drafted better if they had just used a 3 month old Street and Smith’s magazine on draft day. Savage may some day be a good GM, after using this job to learn from, just as Belichik did as a coach. Right now, he is clearly lacking certain skills for the responsibility he demanded when signing on here.
The question now is: will they select new people who are already competent at the positions for which they are selected, or are we about to be tortured with another 3 years of watching the “Peter Principle.” If Lerner is left with no options but to hire more “can’t miss” GM and head coach prospects, this may turn into Ground Hog Day.
Sorry for the long rant but one last point: a better record next year does NOT necessarily mean the right decisions were made. The NFL is built for parity. The schedule will be easier, the draft choices higher. How ’bout 2 playoff appearances in a row? Then we may be onto something.
LOL. Craig is always writing clear and informed posts with actual substance while I rant like a 5 year old who isn’t geting his way. I guess that’s why he writes for this site and I just comment… haha.
I’m having a hard time getting too excited by Bill Cowher. Didn’t he lose to the expansion Browns? Didn’t he have a reputation for choking in the playoffs until the flukiest SB run ever (beating a crummy Seattle team, btw)? Isn’t he responsible for Kordell Stewart era? Let’s be honest: the Lerners, for all their good qualities, picked both Butch Davis (total fraud) and Savage (not made of the right stuff). Their enthusiasm for Cowher does not fill me with confidence.
Unless the Lerners find a way to identify and recruit talented football leadership, they’ll continue to suck.
Agree with Nick and David.
Savage was part of the solution, not the problem. Unfortunately, when things go horribly wrong, the people at the top of the food chain get their heads chopped off.
Savage wasn’t perfect, but he was comfortably above average. Hopefuly we end up with someone better….
Cowher turned Lerner down. That’s good in my opinion.
I heard he fired him before the game. Wouldn’t it have been better to sit him and make him WATCH the game? You’re already paying him millions to go away, make him suffer!
I posted on the other report about RAC getting the boot that it is time to take a breath and wait a few until we know what happens with Parcells. I already hear reports he would be interested in a similar position with the Browns. Lets just wait till the playoffs are over and the Fins get sold so Parcells can get out of his contract. Let him come along and take over the position, find a coach and scheme and let him work his magic. Every place he goes, they get way better in year one and get tougher. I would take that right now. Wait for Parcells Lerner, don’t do anything hasty!!!!
It’s not like Lerner is completely clueless owner. His English Premier League team has been turned into a winner, after years of being middle of the road at best.
I know this is a very old thread, but I had to say that Savage should be fired based on that HORRIBLE shirt. Seriously.
Does he pick out his wardrobe at 12am when he’s all hammered? Oh wait, that’s his text messaging time….
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