Six Step Plan (For Dummies) To Fix a Football Team: Cleveland Browns Edition

So the Cleveland Browns are bad, real bad, bad like the last 10 years since they came back never happened and all of Cleveland has just been transported back to 1999 and the expansion year.

So the question that every keeps asking is, what to do now?

Sad to say this, but whatever we (as fans) want to see, will most likely not happen at all, but here is a list that I put together as a Six Step Dummies Guide to help fix the Browns right now.

Step one: Fire Eric Mangini.

This is one that is a no-brainer because first and foremost look at the New York Jets right now. Some of those players played for Mangini and then there are a bunch of new guys that head coach Rex Ryan brought on board with him and they are now 3-0.

Ryan obviously was more than willing to trade away all of Mangini's dead weight, and fortunately for Ryan, Mangini wanted all of that dead weight, so all those players got traded here to Cleveland.

This should have been a clue when Mangini keep bringing on all of his average and mediocre talent from the Jets, but we as fans were too caught up in the "bringing his guys to help teach his ways" thing that was being preached to us.

I hate being preached to and I even bought into it.

Step two: Promote Assistant Head Coach Brad Seely to Head Coach.

Seely has been a Special Teams Guru for many years and it is unfortunate that he just came from the Patriots, because I'm not really a fan of the Patriots coaching tree anymore, but Seely is a little bit different than most that have come out of New England.

He has been coaching in the NFL for 20 years now for teams besides the Patroits including: the Colts, Panthers, and Jets.

Seely was with the Patriots most recently and since 1999, but the fact that he has held other positions with other teams makes him a viable option.

Either the Browns give Seely his shot right now or another team will and since he has been in the NFL for so long he may actually be successful as a head coach.

Step three: Trade away Derek Anderson before the trading deadline.

So Quinn may not be much better, but at least Quinn protects that ball and doesn't throw three interceptions in one half of a game.

Anderson may not have much value at all, but the Browns should still be able to get at least a fifth round pick for him, which is better than nothing.

Step four: Bench cornerback Brandon McDonald.

McDonald is just a below average corner that was grandfathered into a starting role somehow.

If you take a look at the Ravens game again, you will see that almost every single pass that Joe Flacco threw was to the receiver that McDonald was covering (or attempting to cover).

He is no more than a nickel or dime back at most, and it is time to move up rookie cornerback Coye Francies into the starting spot to see what he is made of.

Yes, opposing offenses will throw at Francies a lot, but his aggressiveness may also produce better results than what McDonald is doing.

Step five: Play the rookies and younger players immediately.

So the Browns do not like to play most of their rookies for some insane reason, but then you see every other NFL team playing their rookies and getting production out of them.

What a concept!

Now is the time to to start Mohamed Massaquoi at wide receiver and bring in Brian Robiskie as the No. 3 and slot receiver.

Also, it is time to bench linebacker David Bowens for David Veikune and Alex Hall. Bowens is washed up and with two young players waiting in the wings, your time is up Bowens.

And please get Brodney Pool out of the starting lineup and keep Mike Adams in the game at safety. Sorry Pool, but you just don't have what it takes to be a starter at the NFL level (Elam gets a pass, but he is only a little better than Pool).

Eric Barton may be teaching D'Qwell Jackson how to be a leader on the defense, but Barton needs to move out of the way at and Kaluka Maiava get some reps, because Maiava is a berserker (Veikune is a berserker too) and he needs to be in the lineup making plays like he is back home hunting wild boar with his bare hands.

Get cornerback Gerard Lawson into the game and bury Hank Poteat into the deepest depths of the depth chart. Lawson may be raw, but he has talent, speed, and he plays aggressive defense too. The Browns need all the aggressive play they can get right now because in the second half of the Ravens game the whole team looked flat.

Step six: Loosen up on these players a bit.

Perfect example of this is look at head coach Tom Coughlin before the Giants won the Super Bowl.

Coughlin was a disciplined, hard-nosed, my way or the highway coach and that only brought drama and peril to that team.

Then Coughlin loosened up the next year, partly because he had to or he probably would have been fired, and look what happened...they won a Super Bowl.

Sometimes being a hard-nosed disciplinarian can be a bad thing and the Browns do not need an a-hole, they need someone who will tell them when they are wrong and discipline them, but they also need a guy who will tell them when they have done good things too (something I don't think Mangini does at all).

In the end, this may or may not happen, but what do you think the Browns should do to get better? Sound it off.

(Article originally posted on Dawg Scooper)