Cleveland Browns: 10 Steps on the Road to Redemption
Cleveland Browns head coach Pat Shurmur faces the same tall task that left Chris Palmer, Butch Davis, Romeo Crennel and Eric Mangini in shreds: Winning an AFC North division inhabited by the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens, two of football’s most consistently successful franchises.
Each new Browns regime shuffled out before a bewildered fanbase claims some deep understanding of the Pittsburgh and Baltimore rivalries, but nothing has changed. The Browns have been manhandled within the division since their return.
Baltimore is despised by Browns fans, but with Ozzie Newsome running the show, they’ve forged an identity built on bone-crushing defense and just enough offense to win. Pittsburgh—heading to its eighth Super Bowl and third since 2005—is perhaps the most sound organization in the league, with just three coaches since 1969.
Cleveland’s had five since ’99—and it shows.
The Steelers and Ravens have beat up on the AFC North with excellent drafts, a low level of in-house chaos and a self-belief that the Super Bowl is a realistic end goal every season. Baltimore, of course, strives to be what Pittsburgh is today, while the Browns appear endlessly stuck in neutral, still in search of an identity.
Peyton Hillis captured the imagination of Browns fans this season by blowing through defensive fronts—including Baltimore’s for 144 yards in September. Hillis was an instant hit. We all heard over and over that the bruising back embodied “Browns football.”
But what is “Browns football?"
In one sense, it harks back to Cleveland’s teams of yesteryear—dominating squads that more closely resembled today’s Baltimore and Pittsburgh outfits than anything the current Browns have put on the field.
It also references the type of ball a city like Cleveland would like to see—first: a winner; second: a team that punishes on both sides of the ball; third: hard-working, salt-of-the-earth players like Hillis who get what it means to represent the city.
Since 1999, however, “Browns football” has meant something very different.
Cleveland’s running attack has long resembled that of a football team operating on the ice planet Hoth. Minus two seasons, the Browns have never finished better than 20th in the NFL in rushing.
The passing game numbers are even more abysmal, with the team finishing 23rd or worse in nine of the past 11 seasons. They finished bottom five in the league in passing three years in a row and six times since 1999.
All of this is tied to bad drafts, talent-poor rosters, obsessive-compulsive regime changes, and the fact that four games a year come against Pittsburgh and Baltimore.
The Browns generated some excitement in 2010, but they also stalled frequently, especially down the stretch.
As much as Eric Mangini is to be credited for instilling discipline back into a team that was in shambles when he arrived, the final result—especially continued problems in the passing game—were all Holmgren needed to see to call for a change.
Shurmur—like every coach before him—addressed the AFC North in his opening presser, but the division has never been tougher.
The Browns have a ways to go to compete.
What they must do to turn the ship around is no mystery, but each of the following to-dos have been elusive for this franchise. A team like Pittsburgh has checked all these boxes, and that’s why they’re in Dallas right now.
To succeed in the NFL, the Browns must…
10. Successfully Negotiate a Perilous Offseason
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When the collective bargaining agreement expires in March, if a new agreement hasn’t been reached, football as we know it will cease.
The slow pace of negotiations between the owners and the players’ union suggests that a work stoppage is almost unavoidable. For how long? We don’t know.
Tough year to be a rookie head coach. If there’s a strike, players cannot practice, rehab at team facilities or sign with new clubs. Outside of the draft in April, the Browns would have no way to gather new players and overhaul the roster as needed.
If a new CBA is reached, we aren’t sure what free agency will look like under the new deal. Without an agreement, there can be no player-for-draft-pick trades before or during the draft.
Shurmur will be challenged in forging relationships with existing players, and general manager Tom Heckert—who has acknowledged that the team needs to replace a flock of aging players—could have his hands tied.
While all teams face a similar struggle, those teams with long-standing coaching staffs and front offices are at a clear advantage. Moreover, the less-talented teams will be challenged to find ways to improve the roster.
There are a lot of unknowns here, but one positive for the Browns is that Holmgren, Shurmur and Heckert appear to be of one mind. They’ll need to be to navigate these rocky waters.
9. Nail the Draft
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The 2011 NFL Draft is set to take place regardless of the CBA drama.
This year’s draft represents one of the only guaranteed ways to add talent to the roster.
Heckert’s 2010 draft—hauling in Colt McCoy, Joe Haden and T.J. Ward (along with injured wild-card Montario Hardesty)—must be followed by another strong showing.
The Ravens and Steelers consistently reload the roster with home-grown talent. We can sit here and debate endlessly on who the Browns will pursue and select. Doesn’t matter. Come draft day, only Heckert and friends make the picks that count.
The draft has never been more critical for the Browns.
8. Swap out Aging Veterans for Talented Youth
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Before this season, the Browns were ranked as the 12th oldest team in the NFL with a average age of 27.18 years. That’s not a fatal when your savvy veterans lead you to the playoffs year after year (for instance, the Steelers were the seventh oldest team at 27.5 years).
Youth, on its own, solves nothing in the NFL, but failing to retool an aging (and losing roster) is an invitation for the floor to fall out.
Make no mistake about it, sweeping roster changes are ahead. The team is flush with Mangini-era Jets. If the CBA situation allows any time for transactions and overhaul, most of these 30-something Mangenius disciples won’t be on the team come September.
Beyond age, new schemes on offense and defense will require players who fit the mold. Again, a genuine challenge for a team in transition.
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7. If Switching To The 4-3, Move Swiftly
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The assumed switch to the 4-3 under defensive coordinator Dick Jauron presents immediate challenges for Cleveland.
The lack of talent along the defensive line makes switching away from the 3-4, which they’ve run since 2005, that much more difficult. While the Browns secondary won’t endure as total transition, the defensive linemen and linebackers on Cleveland’s roster were chosen for the 3-4.
(Aside from last season’s inexplicable—and, for Rob Ryan and Mangini, foreboding—trade for Jayme Mitchell, a 4-3 defensive end who questioned why the Browns even brought him on board. The move is clearer now.)
Shaun Rogers has played in a 4-3, but many of the existing Browns have not. There’s been chatter about moving Matt Roth and/or Marcus Benard from linebacker to defensive end, but a position switch often requires a full season to take root—this isn’t high school football.
The Browns switched from the 3-4 to 4-3 when Bud Carson took over for Marty Schottenheimer in 1989. They had a full offseason to finesse the move, and a roster loaded with defensive talent, headlined by defensive lineman Michael Dean Perry.
Perry wasn’t used enough during his rookie season under Schottenheimer, but his speed and explosiveness compelled Marty to experiment with four down lineman on nickel packages.
In 1989, Carson made Perry the centerpiece of his 4-3—a transition helped by a pool of talented defensive linemen. That’s not the case with today’s team.
Cleveland’s current roster will have issues running the 4-3 in 2011. Aging defenders playing out of their natural position, in a new scheme, could be a recipe for disaster in the AFC North, where the Browns (again) are the only team with new coaches and a new philosophy on both sides of the ball.
On the bright side, it’s not as if the team’s scrapping a 3-4 defense that’s accomplished much. Heckert acknowledged this month that the team—3-4 or 4-3—will see massive personnel changes.
It’s an interesting (and perhaps dangerous) time to flip defensive philosophies, but the team hired Holmgren to mold the club in his image—and he’s leaned on the 4-3 for almost his entire career.
This switch isn’t set in stone yet. Let’s see how it plays out.
6. Commit to Colt McCoy and Don't Look Back
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Colt McCoy: Maybe one of the best quarterback names ever?
McCoy certainly had his moments during eight uneven starts. He threw for nearly 300 yards against the Steelers, knocked off the New Orleans Saints and dismantled the New England Patriots in his first three NFL games—naturally, Browns fans fell in love.
McCoy also looked very much like a rookie down the stretch.
Nearly 20 years have passed since Cleveland’s had a legitimate quarterback. Many of the team’s troubles can be traced to the absence of a capable leader at the position, and you’re going nowhere in the AFC North without one. Joe Flacco has taken Baltimore to the playoffs in each of his first three seasons, and Big Ben—well, he’s right up there with Tom Brady when it comes to winning big games.
Unlike with Flacco and Roethlisberger, people question if McCoy has the arm strength to take a cold-weather team to the Super Bowl.
His height has been critiqued endlessly. And he looks 17 out there. But there’s no questioning his heart.
Sometimes, all the logical doubts don’t matter. Perhaps Colt isn’t the long-term answer at quarterback, but in the complete absence of another option, the Browns need to press into McCoy, hand him the reigns and go for it.
The addition of Mark Whipple has the potential to be a roaring positive. Whipple, of course, coached Big Ben during his few three seasons in the league. Roethlisberger went 13-0 as a rookie and won a Super Bowl in his second season. The Whipple hire—along with Shurmur and Holmgren in the building—provide McCoy with an all-star cadre of teachers.
5. Surround McCoy with Legitimate Targets
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The team lacks a receiver team’s need to game plan for—or even consider.
Tight end Ben Watson led the team with 763 yards receiving, and Hillis had 477. The Browns leading wide receiver, Mohamed Massaquoi had only six yards more than Hillis, with 483. The putrid receiver play only makes Hillis’ work on the ground (1,177 yards) that much more impressive.
Not to dismiss the wideouts entirely, because Massaquoi and Brian Robiskie are both growing into their roles, while Chansi Stuckey has the chance to be a serviceable possession receiver.
The problem is that none of these guys are better than a No. 2, if that. Mo Mass, if paired with a legitimate No. 1, could bloom (he had a few big games when Braylon Edwards was still with the team). Add a top-flight wideout, and suddenly, this young group of receivers isn’t half bad. Right now, they’re each playing one slot higher than where they naturally belong.
4. Embrace the WCO
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Does a shift to the West Coast Offense make sense in the brutal AFC North? Will a pass-first philosophy nullify Hillis and pull the team away from the hard-hitting style of football they played in 2010?
Shurmur and Holmgren have reiterated that the WCO doesn’t require shelving the running game (see: Shaun Alexander of the Seattle Seahawks). But, as Shurmur has stated, the offense will be “seen through the eyes of the quarterback.”
Shurmur and Whipple were hired to mentor McCoy and build an offense around the young quarterback—assuming he remains their guy. The Browns hired Holmgren to oversee football operations. It was just a matter of time before he implemented the system he knows and trusts—the one that’s helped him reach two Super Bowls and win 174 games in the NFL (including 13 in the postseason).
The organization is fully committed to the WCO and—frankly—to see the Browns on the same page about anything is a good indicator of things to come.
3. No More 2-Year Coaching Stints
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It’s a tough time to begin again, but Browns fans have no option but to ride this one out and see how Holmgren’s master plan unfolds.
This regime is not responsible for the trainwrecks of the past.
Those calling Mangini’s retention in 2010 a waste of a season are both right and wrong. It might not have been entirely fair to Mangini— if Holmgren was always planning to go in another direction. Had Mangini won 12 games, he’d still be here, but to ask him to do more than he did with this season’s injury-riddled roster was asking a lot.
Shurmur has a better chance of succeeding by inheriting what Mangini left versus what Crennell and Savage left Mangini.
The team is starting over again, but the extra year gave Holmgren a chance to overhaul the entire organization, allowing Shurmur to walk into a situation that should run like a well-oiled machine (relative, at least, to the chaos Cleveland’s endured since 1999).
The best thing for Cleveland football is a front office and coach that remain intact for a decade—with Randy Lerner sending boxes of cash from his Aston Villa owner’s box.
2. Data Wipe the Past
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Forget The Drive.
Erase memories of The Fumble.
Throw out all existing footage of Red Right 88.
And forgive Dwayne Rudd.
The terrible past must be put in a box and shipped out to sea.
The Browns will morph into a national sensation if they turn the ship around—New Orleans Saints times 1,000. A lot of that starts with clearing the memory bank and allowing this regime to operate without the weight of yesterday’s failures.
The fans have every right to feel immense frustration from the events of the past 25 years, but it might help to keep in mind that McCoy, for instance, was four months old when The Drive went down.
1. Pray
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That’s what it might take to win the AFC North next season—but stranger things have happened. In today’s NFL, every season is witness to young teams rising up unpredictably.
The Steelers and Ravens are two of football’s best, but every season is littered with variables.
The Browns, perception-wise, are annual losers, but fans who watched the team in 2010 saw a squad that played hard in almost every game and refused to give up. That’s a good indicator of a tight-knit group.
In the final analysis, the team faces some immense challenges in 2011, but the long-term plan to build a streamlined football program with everyone on the same page—well, that’s been the biggest difference between the Browns and the NFL’s elite over the past decade.
While many Browns fans are burnt out—and understandably so—it’s today’s team more than any other since the return that offers hope.
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Marc is a writer for ReadandReact. Follow Marc on Twitter @MarcSesslerNFL.
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