Cleveland Browns-Kansas City Chiefs: Holmgren Will Be Watching

For those who may have forgotten, there are three more games left in the Cleveland Browns' 2009 season, starting with a contest in Kansas City.

Beating the Steelers was great and all—and it would’ve been nice to end this otherwise dismal season on that note—but that’s not what the schedule makers had in mind, so the Browns have to play out the string.

Not only do the Browns have to finish the season, they now have to play Kansas City with the idea that Mike Holmgren may be their head coach and general manager come Monday.

I’ve now completely soured on the idea of Mike Holmgren as the Browns' new head decisionmaker after his radio show on Friday. He basically told the world he wants to do it all, and that never ends well.

Holmgren tried to do it all in Seattle his first four years before being stripped of his GM duties after the 2002 season due to being spread too thin.

Butch Davis tried to do it all in Cleveland before he realized he was spread too thin; the team was falling apart and he resigned before the 2004 season ended.

Eric Mangini has been trying to do it all since he was hired in January, and so far he has a 2-11 record and a long string of failed personnel moves.

To be fair to Mangini, his waiver-wire pickups the last few weeks have been as close to home runs as you can get, but you have to ask yourself if that’s luck or skill at this point.

Mangini also has the team playing better the last few weeks. But once again, has the team really turned a corner?

Is this just another Cleveland mirage that will collapse faster than the Steelers offensive line?

Both are fair questions. I have no good answers for you.

What I do know is if Holmgren comes here to try and do it all, then once again, owner Randy Lerner has fooled himself.

This organization needs a head of football operations, a general manager and a head coach. That’s three different positions for three different people.

I don’t know what part of that equation Lerner fails to grasp, but the only common denominator in this gigantic math problem is Lerner’s desire to make Aston Villa the best English Premier League Football Club it can be.

Like Mangini last year, Lerner thinks he’s found someone who will take this giant headache of an American football club off his hands and do something positive with it, so he doesn’t have to deal with it anymore.

Now that Lerner has a new crush, he’s trying to close the deal as fast as possible so he can get back to what he enjoys doing: winning championships across the pond.

Whether or not Mangini stays or goes is irrelevant. Cleveland is stuck with an owner who pays lip service to his own organization and its fanbase. Every “search” for a “serious, credible” leader has been a joke from the moment it has been announced, and the search that looks likely to land Holmgren is no different.

Without good leadership at the top providing direction and an identity, you get what Cleveland has put on the field for the last few years: rudderless losers just waiting for the offseason.

Should Holmgren sign, I wish him the best of luck, but I have no higher hopes than I did when Mangini was brought in.

The matchups for today’s game aren’t very interesting. The Chiefs have a slightly better defense than the Browns do; that is, they have the 30th ranked defense in the league while the Browns have the 31st.

Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel has thrown a lot of interceptions (13) but the Browns' defense only has six interceptions all season, last in the league.

The Chiefs only are averaging 272.4 yards per game, but that’s still better than the Browns 243.4 YPG—once again, good for last in the league.

Joshua Cribbs probably will figure big in this game again, and Brady Quinn has another opportunity to show he’s the quarterback of the future.

Other than that, this game doesn’t mean much except that the loser gets a higher draft position.

Prediction: Kansas City 24, Browns 21