Bleacher Report - Articles by Triple-S Go Browns

If Not Bill Cowher, Then Who? Cleveland Browns Coaching Search (Part 1)

Triple-S Go Browns — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:41:00 -0500

If not Bill Cowher, then who? I'm going to go out on a limb here, call it a gut feeling, I don't see Cowher on the Browns sideline.

I'm not saying, I don't want him, which is quite the opposite of how I feel on hiring him. I just can easily see one of two scenarios happening, Phil pretty much still having his gig and hiring his own man, or Randy offering Cowher the job and him quietly declining it.

That being needed to be said, what qualities should the Browns look as a new coach of this storied franchise, which is a shell of its former self, and who fits the mold.

Romeo Crennel is a good coordinator/position coach, just not a head coach. He's quite successful at being a player-friendly coach, while the headman be it Belichick or Parcells gets to play the general.

As a head coach, this doesn't work for a number of reasons. The nice guy doesn't win ball games as a head coach, it takes a man with passion and fire for the game, a man that will win at all costs.

Romeo seems afraid to bruise a player's ego by telling him to get it in gear. This doesn't work. That being said here are some things that I and fellow Browns fans want to see.

A Passion to Win

“You play to win the game”, so said Herm Edwards, it echoes what every football fan across the planet and especially in the Buckeye state, feels in their veins.

Romeo just sits with this grimace across his face and a “We'll get 'em next time” type of attitude. This doesn't sit well with a group of fans who have a fiery coach like Woody Hayes or a stoic one like Paul Brown who did whatever it took to win and put this as the most important thing when running their team.

No one individual was above the rest on those teams, and they were all united in one common goal and that was to win.

”Must play well with others”

An underrated quality in a head coach. You can't have the head coach, GM, players and president all locking horns and bickering all the time. Common sense, really.

Defense wins championships

The last time Cleveland has had a great defense?...even just a GOOD defense. The Dawg Defense is the lone that stands out since the Super Bowl Era. You can't win the division with a sub par defense, let alone the one that currently stands in at the current positions.

With teams like Pittsburgh and Baltimore being built on the aforementioned philosophy, you can't get by them with an offensive powered team. We need to at least get a Good defense, and make it able to last for years on end much like our inter-conference rivals.

Understand what football and this team means to this city.

Sports and especially football in the state of Ohio and Cleveland means a lot to people, we're somewhat Blue Collar when it comes to sports, and expect the same type of attitude from our teams.

We can tell when someone exhibits that attitude or when they half-ass it. Lately its been the latter. Also when you talk about the Browns, you're not talking about your average run-of-the-mill franchises.

This is Bernie Kosar's team, The home of the Dawg Pound, the Kardiac Kids, Jim Browns, Otto Grahams, Paul Browns. This is a franchise that was once considered the New York Yankees of Pro Football, the eight-time champions, and this is something I don't think Romeo seemed to be able to grasp.

“We HATE The Steelers”

Ohioans and Clevelanders have many natural rivals in the sports world. With the Tribe you have the Yankees, Red Sox and the White Sox. With the Cavs, it used to be the Jordan led Bulls, but in the King James era it has become the Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards.

The Buckeyes hatred of Michigan is more than just a rivalry here, it transcends sports. With the Browns there's several, in the 80's it was Denver, and currently it's supposed to be Baltimore and Pittsburgh...the last one is not supposed to be a joke, but to many Steeler fans it has.

The sad fact is the last time the Browns have beaten the Steelers was Tim Couch's last hurrah in 2003 when he beat them 33-13 in Pittsburgh, since then the Steelers have dominated the Browns in pretty much every category, in wins, division championships, even during the 2005 and 2006 seasons, there was more Steeler fans than Browns fan by virtue of jersey sightings in my area of Akron/Canton. The new coach has to make this a goal in making this rivalry return to its former glory.

An Identity.

The Browns are like the drummer from REO Speedwagon; no one knows who they are. Every NFL team that has ever been successful has a moniker or is known for what they do and what they do best. The Cowboys are America's team, The Rams were “The Greatest Show on Turf”, The much-hated Steelers (in these parts anyway), had the Steel Curtain.

Even the Browns back in the 80's were known as an offensive team that would never say die, “The Kardiac Kids”, were a moniker that the Browns had from 1978-1982, the last identity the Browns truly have had was from 1985 to 1993, during the Kosar/Dawg defense days.

Since then, there hasn't been one, and until one is made, we will be stuck in the same rut we have been since the Browns came back in 1999.

“Lets get the Gleam!”

These are the words that were said by Marty Schottenheimer, the Browns haven't gotten the gleam since 1964, and havn't even come close to sniffing since the 1989 season where they lost in the AFC Championship to the Elway's Broncos.

There's only one current Cleveland sports team that's close to getting the gleam is playing at the Quicken Loans Arena, and God's Speed to them, but the current coach has to be one that wants to rise Cleveland's first Lombardi in a near future February.

And these are the very broad characteristics that I want in my coach of the Cleveland Browns, part two will be the candidates (other than Bill), who could fit the mold.

Also, if you have not yet, I encourage all my fellow Dawgs to vote at cowher09.com.

Browns Fans: Time for a Pep Talk

Triple-S Go Browns — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:01:55 -0500

I know our team has underperformed this season, and it's been the same old song and dance.

We have all seen it: Braylon dropping passes, D.A. going into a downward spiral, and Romeo's bad playcalling and lack of excitement on the sideline. Getting beat by the usual suspects in Denver and Pittsburgh haven't exactly helped matters.

Frankly, it looks pretty bleak right now.

As bleak as it was perhaps in '05 and '06, when we were flat-out terrible and Pittsburgh was enjoying success. Believe me, I know how it feels, and reliving the pain is no great feeling for me. Nothing pains me more than seeing this team just give up on things, rather than never giving up.

The "Kardiac Kids" never did that, neither did Kosar's Browns or Jim Brown's Cleveland team, and you sure as hell would never see the great teams of the Paul Brown eight-time pro football champion Browns perform and act as despondent as this.

As Cleveland fans, we expect so much better out of our team, and we have so little that we can do, other than stand-by them during the bad times and party like there's no tomorrow during the great times.

As much as our rival fans try and kick us while we're down, we always brush ourselves off and get right back up, while lesser fans would just quit and pick another team.

Few cities and franchises have gone through the amount of heartbreak that ours has, but again, we're always looking forward. I see a lot of talent on this team.

Perhaps Quinn will be good in the future. He showed his ability on Thursday night, despite being on the losing end.

Cribbs showed a lot of heart in the last two games and could be a great weapon for us. We've got some talent to work with, unlike the '05 and '06 seasons, when we had very little, if anything.

To quote one of the greatest sports broadcaster in Cleveland sports history, Casey Coleman, may he rest in peace, "The thing that 'Red Right 88,' 'The Drive,' and 'The Fumble' all have in common is that the sun came up the next day."

There will always be next season for us; nobody can take that away from us (unless you want to count Modell, but he was unsuccessful in doing so). I'm not saying to act all peppy, cheery, and goodie gumdrops about it. Hell, complaining about how lousy we're doing is part of the Cleveland Browns' fan experience. No matter what though, this is your team.

You didn't just randomly pick this team out of a hat; you have a strong connection with this franchise, and it's very hard to suddenly decide to quit being a fan. Not only that, I consider that treasonous.

Things will get better. Look forward to next year's draft and free agency, root against Pittsburgh in the playoffs, and pray Cowher decides to come here.

Right now, just heal a bit, and remember two things—Pittsburgh still sucks and there's always next year.

Why Cleveland Browns Fans Want Bill Cowher

Triple-S Go Browns — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 13:19:33 -0500

The frustration of the Baltimore game still resides in me while writing this. A game that should've been won but was lost after a poor man's Derek Anderson, a D-IAA QB, a rookie burned our team and burned them badly.

This sucks because of a lot of reasons. We have possibly one of the better nose tackles in the league in Shaun Rogers, a couple of developing corners in Eric "Eazy-E" Wright and Brandon McDonald, and an offense that was probably one of the better offenses in the league. We're a team picked to make the playoffs that has lost very winnable games.

There are multiple reasons why the Browns are underpreforming, but there's one very basic one that needs to be solved before we got to the others. Leadership, and I believe that if we were able to lure Bill Cowher, or at least someone similar in his mold, we could finally have a shot at yet again chasing the "gleam" and maybe even finally getting it.

If you are like me, a few years back, you would be wondering why you would want the chin anywhere near the banks of Lake Erie in Brown and Orange. The guy was a coach for our biggest enemies in the sports world and led them to two Super Bowls and one NFL title. The man would have little interest in ever leading Cleveland to a Super Bowl.

Dig a little deeper though, and you discover the man has many connections to this franchise, witnessing what a lot of the hardcore Cleveland Browns fans have experienced, mirroring what a lot of them have seen and been through. A player for the Browns during the Kardiac Kids era of Browns football, he was witness to the joys of victory like the Dave Logan game, or the bitterness of defeat in RedRight 88.

His first coaching gig in the league came as an assistant to Marty Schottenheimer here during the Kosar and Dawg Pound era. Again, witnessing what many of us saw, the glories of a game like the 1986 New York Jets playoff game, and Elway breaking the hearts of an entire city twice.

Did I mention that he was in the running for the job that was eventually given to Belichick in 1990? Or that when the new Browns were brought back in '99, the Steelers were so paranoid that he might leave they offered him a contract extension. Even his former players such as Ben Roethlisberger have suggested that Cowher's next gig would be Cleveland.

Could Cowher come back to a team and a city that helped make him into the successful coach he is today? Why not? Randy Lerner is loaded with money and is pretty much willing to do whatever it takes to win. Even though he's not as vocal as say a Jerry Jones, this is not a money-making thing for him, but also a franchise he wants to see do well.

No one ever wants to own a loser. With that in mind, one source of frustration was that the Rooneys were very cheap and not willing to let him spend more money on getting the players that Cowher wanted.

Considering the success that Cowher had with that sort of owner, one can only imagine if Lerner hands him a blank check. And if Phil Savage decides to stick around to help "get the groceries," the Browns have the chance to be scary good.

He also would have little work to cut, as we're talented already on both sides of the ball. An O-line that needs little work, a group of running backs that are fit for the AFC North, a receiving corps that contains two Pro Bowlers, and a young QB that can easily be molded into a great player.

Not to mention a defense that just needs a little help in the secondary and linebacking corps, both of which just happen to be Cowhers speciality.

Sadly all of this seems all too perfect for a Cleveland fan. As much as I plead for him to come back to my Cleveland Browns, I can easily see him quietly saying no, and us asking what could have been, this time next year. But a man can dream, can't he?