Pat Shurmur: How New Coach Can Breathe Some Life Into the Cleveland Browns

Pat Shurmur is the new head coach of the Cleveland Browns, and now he has taken on the heavy burden of trying to restore this once-proud franchise back to its glory days.

Shurmur and Team President Mike Holmgren are now united in their goal to rebuild the Browns, a fifth rebuild since Cleveland's return to the NFL in 1999. The difference between this rebuild and others is the Browns finally have everyone on the same page, and a solid organization in place to build on.

It's no secret Browns fans are a frustrated group of people. The team almost made it to three Super Bowls in the 1980's, each time thwarted by John Elway and the Denver Broncos.

Then Bill Belichick came along in the early 1990's and made a lot of changes (not all of them good). He led Cleveland to the 1994-95 NFL Playoffs, but the Browns lost to the Steelers, 29-9 in the Divisional Round. After the 1995 season, the Browns left town.

Upon the Browns return in 1999, league-imposed rules and timelines for putting the Browns together automatically put them in a bad position. By 2001, the Browns already were changing head coaches, and problems within the organization were already inhibiting the teams' development.

What followed were years of poor choices of head coaches, draft picks and free agents. Add into that mix an owner who got the team through inheritance and has done everything he can to get someone else to run the team while he cavorts with his English Premier League team, and it's no surprise the Browns have had so little success.

Eric Mangini was hired in 2009 to "fix" everything, and it's through his missteps that Holmgren, Shurmur and the rest can find the true path to success.

While Mangini brought a lot of much-needed discipline to the Browns, he didn't bring much of anything else on the field, and two 5-11 seasons are the result. Any arguments for continuity need to end there. Mangini never did enough to win, and talent aside, the head coach needs to do everything he can to win a game on Sunday.

Holmgren said after he fired Mangini he wanted to "win now." That's great, but to win consistently in the AFC North, you have to build for the long haul. You need to build a team that's going to win year after year. That was what Mangini had in mind, but when you look back at most of his moves in 2009, you have to question if he had any idea on how he ever was going to succeed with that plan.

He had a goal, but no real direction to that goal ever presented itself. It was all a "process," but it was a hollow process that didn't hold up to close scrutiny. With Holmgren's man Shurmur in place, the process now can be replaced with a true direction and identity.

The Browns' 2009 draft was pretty much a complete disaster. Alex Mack is a good center and not a bad first-round pick at all, but the Browns passed up Clay Matthews for him. Mangini was so focused on getting a center that he let elite talent go to another team that the Browns could've used to fill a position of need. That's not how you build for the long term.

With Holmgren and Shurmur supposedly united in vision along with Heckert, the Browns can come up with a road map to not only short-term success, but a plan to build a team that will win in the AFC North year after year.

What Shurmur really brings to the table, though, is a sense of what the offense needs to do to win a game. Prior to Mangini's time here, the Browns had another defensive-minded head coach in Romeo Crennel. Neither coach ever put together an elite offense.

The 2007 season produced some decent numbers, but if you look at the season as a whole, the numbers began dropping off toward the end, and that was one of the reasons the Browns missed the playoffs that year.

Mangini never played to win; the results speak for themselves. Mangini always was happy to play for the field goal, get his three points and get the defense back on the field.

With Shurmur, an offensive guy, you can bet he's not going to settle for field goals. The league is a quarterback-driven one, and you need a coach who can develop Colt McCoy, not manage him. Shurmur already has a proven track record with quarterbacks, so there's no reason to think he can't develop McCoy.

With a renewed focus on what can win games, instead of focusing on the minutiae of a "process," the Browns can begin not only winning games, but becoming a threat in the AFC North. It's the hope of a new day, and it's all Browns fans have.

Let's all hope Browns fans aren't let down again.