Browns' Lerner knows criticism to come with his game plan
The Browns seem prepared to move down the road toward hiring Eric Mangini as their coach and George Kokinis as their personnel guru.
This train seems loaded. Whether it rolls will be answered when Kokinis interviews, and that won't happen until Sunday (according to Cleveland.com).
Mangini impressed Browns owner Randy Lerner greatly in an interview, and Kokinis (the Baltimore Ravens' director of pro personnel) is very close to Mangini, dating to their days working for Bill Belichick in Cleveland.
The moves will be scrutinized.
This isn't the hiring of Bill Cowher or Mike Shanahan or Mike Holmgren, and Lerner knows that he might have to ''sell'' the new team that will run his team.
But he feels strongly that this new team will help the Browns win.
And that's what matters to him. Because when all is said and done, all the questions about Mangini this or Kokinis that will go away - if the Browns win.
Lerner has remained mum about the hires, instead choosing to bury himself in the job. But discussions with NFL folks who have talked to people who have been interviewed and with other NFL folks who have observed the process have painted a picture of how the Browns got to this point.
They did it by making a decision that it didn't necessarily matter if the coach or GM were hired first and by making some judgments about the qualifications wanted in a coach.
Two factors were key, both of which sprung from the four-year experience with GM Phil Savage and coach Romeo Crennel.
That pair wound up not seeing eye to eye, and differences between them affected the team's ability to win, especially last season.
Lerner did not want a repeat.
So he insisted that the two people whom he hired be able to work together, which means they had to know each other and get along.
He also saw that Crennel hired two coordinators who eventually were replaced. A rookie coach, his research showed, was more likely to make mistakes with his key hires than one who had been through the battles.
That led him to conclude that the Browns of today need a coach with head coaching experience.
As Lerner studied and reflected on the experience of Belichick, he also decided that the best thing that the New England Patriots did was to create an environment where he could succeed. Forget Belichick's personality, forget the media complaints - make it where the guy can win and let him do his job.
That's what Lerner decided the best thing would be for the Browns - find the right guy, then create the environment and circumstances where he could win.
Lerner did not enter the search determined to find a GM or coach first. He instead focused on finding the ''right guy'' for either job.
Before interviewing, he went to several teams to ask: Who makes the decision on personnel?
With the Pittsburgh Steelers, decisions are agreed on by all, and the owner breaks any tie.
Other teams gave different answers. One team said the coach, another the GM, and others said it had to be a complete team decision.
That led Lerner to conclude that the most important thing was to find people who could work together.
Thus he requested and was granted permission to interview Kokinis, a come-from-nowhere dark horse who entered the picture because he and Mangini are very close. Clearly Mangini recommended him, and Lerner believes strongly enough in Mangini that he is willing to consider and perhaps go with Kokinis.
This gives a lot of influence to a guy who was fired from the New York Jets. But Lerner was intrigued the second that he heard Mangini had been fired.
He called him quickly, and when he interviewed Mangini, Lerner was more than impressed with Mangini's knowledge, his ability to explain that knowledge and his ability to show he could apply it.
He liked Mangini's plans for everything from putting in a disciplinary structure (something the Browns think was missing with Crennel) to how to run training camp to how to game-plan for a specific opponent.
He found him to be anything but ''Romeo Light,'' the term being used to knock Mangini's candidacy by those who thought that he was another hire just like Crennel.
These feelings blended well with other studies the Browns had conducted, studies that favored hiring a coach who had experience in one place but was still young in his development.
The team thinks that this would get the coach on the good side of the learning curve, so to speak, because he could learn from his mistakes.
Other candidates
It's why the Browns decided not to wait on Mike Shanahan, who had worked almost his entire NFL career with one owner and who wanted to take two weeks off after that owner fired him.
The Browns reached out to Shanahan several times, but eventually viewed him as being too emotional to take another job so quickly.
Brian Billick's approach did not fit what they wanted.
Mike Holmgren was committed to taking a year off.
There was never a real desire to go back to a Marty Schottenheimer.
And when Cowher said thanks but no thanks, the feeling grew that perhaps some of these coaches were just too entrenched with their former team. That no matter how hard a guy like Cowher tried, he would always be a Pittsburgh Steeler.
Scott Pioli interviewed to be the GM, but there has been no indication that he was eager to leave the Patriots, much less join the Browns.
Rich McKay of the Atlanta Falcons was considered strongly, but he delayed his interview and did not seem eager. His hiring also would entail hiring a personnel man and a coach, and Lerner evidently thought that he could accomplish the same thing without the extra layer of management with Mangini and Kokinis.
Deciding to hire a coach with some experience but not one entrenched and branded with a team limited the pool, especially because Lerner also did not want to wait for a coach in the playoffs.
Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey coached the Buffalo Bills for two years but was not viewed as having the same strategic abilities as Mangini.
Cam Cameron and Dick LeBeau are with playoff teams.
Back to Mangini
Which leads the road back to Mangini, a Belichick-trained assistant who rose quickly with the Patriots to become defensive coordinator before he took the job with the Jets.
There are positives about him, starting with three years of head coaching experience and two winning seasons.
He is bright, organized (perhaps to a fault) and a workaholic.
He started his career as an intern in the Browns' public relations department, and when the Jets visited Cleveland two years ago, he sent the media lunch with a note that said: ''I don't forget where I came from.''
Concerns come mainly from his personality rather than his football IQ. He was said to be very difficult to work for, especially in his first season.
He ended the past season terribly, as an 8-3 record turned into a 9-7 finish. Losses came to the Miami Dolphins in the finale, but also to the Oakland Raiders, San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks. Between them, they won 16 games.
Some point to the fact that quarterback Brett Favre had a terrible December, and that Favre was foisted on Mangini late in training camp by owner Woody Johnson and GM Mike Tannenbaum.
Mangini also was criticized for some of the same on-field decisions that Crennel heard criticism. Field goals vs. touchdowns. Punting vs. kicking a field goal. Some of those calls, especially in a late-season loss to the Seahawks, did not sit well with Jets fans and media.
The Browns think that he will learn from those mistakes (if they were mistakes) and grow given a second chance.
Finally, Mangini is cut from the Belichick cloth that a hamstring injury is a ''leg'' injury and the timetable for return is ''day to day.'' He also wants a cone of silence around his team and reportedly fined players for talking about injuries and/or saying more to the media than he liked.
Hopefully he'll learn that being honest about injuries and being honest in general really does not affect who wins or loses. Especially because he's walking into an environment where fans are frustrated and being open will help heal some of the wounds.
Bottom line is winning
The Browns, and Lerner, understand the questions.
They don't hide from them. They just believe that the positives outweigh the negatives, and that a guy who is willing to learn and grow will be better the second time because of the things that happened the first.
Too, they see some of these things as decorations on the cake.
What matters to Lerner, and the team, is winning.
In a sense, this is the first time that Lerner has stepped with both feet into the operations of his team. John Collins was team president when Savage and Crennel were hired, and he had as much to do with their hiring as anyone.
Mike Keenan now is the team's president, but he's more of a financial/business guy. Lerner is making these hires.
He wants a coach with experience working with a front office guy whom he can trust and work together with.
No matter who was hired first, coach or GM, Lerner was going to ask the same question: Can you work with (insert name here)? If he found two people who could work together, his job was then to create an environment where the two could succeed.
He knows that he will have to sell this team, but he believes that he's on the right track.
And he believes that the wins and losses will justify sending the train out of the station.
(c)2008 The Akron Beacon Journal
Vikings' Wade Has Spoken: Bears Have No Chance Against the Pack Tonight
The Vikings, who no longer "control their own destiny" after losing at home to the Falcons yesterday, really need the Bears to fall tonight. A Chicago loss at home to the Packers means Minnesota locks up the NFC North, regardless of what goes down next weekend. (If the Bears win, the Vikings can still take the division by beating the Giants.) If you're asking Vikings WR Bobby Wade, then it's pretty much a lock that the Bears season ends on Monday Night Football this evening:
"We need the Bears to blow it," Wade told reporters in Minneapolis with a laugh. "Where are they playing, at home? Great. They'll definitely blow it."
First off, it sounds like Wade was joking when he made those comments (the "laugh" part would probably give that away), although that didn't stop Matt Snyder over at FanHouse from bashing Wade, saying that "casual fans wouldn't recognize the difference between him and a used car salesman." Burn. Players in the NFL wear helmets with large facemasks -- the casual fan probably wouldn't even recognize Adrian Peterson at the supermarket.
Snyder does go on to list six reasons why the Bears will win tonight, all of which seem reasonable enough. Except there is just one thing to keep in mind: The Packers have nothing left to play for but the chance to ruin their rival's season. You can never underestimate the motivation this can provide. Just ask the Eagles.
The Bears are favored by four. Bet what possessions you may have left on the Pack. I'm only down like $80 this season, you can totally trust me.
(c)2008 SportingNews.com
Against NFL Triumphalism
In the middle of a really interesting article that's mostly about education, Malcom Gladwell offers this aside:
NFL teams don't run the spread. They can't. The defenders in the pros are so much faster than their college counterparts that they would shoot through those big gaps in the offensive line and flatten the quarterback.
Some version of this explanation has actually been floating around for as long as I've been a football fan.Anything that happens in the college game but not the pro game is because the NFL is too fast. Thirty years ago, the West Coast offense was a college offense that wouldn't work in the NFL because the defenders were too fast. Same with the 3-4 defense, the one-back offense, and pretty much every other major football innovation.
The reality is that college football is a much more innovative game than pro football. Why? Two main reasons spring to mind. First, NFL coaches are more likely to get fired, and thus more afraid to do something that defies the conventional wisdom. Coaches who employ innovative strategies that don't succeed right away are not liekly to keep their jobs long enough to see the long-run payoff. Second, unlike the NFL, where the draft tends to even out the talent pool, college programs have enormous long-run disparities in talent. There's a huge incentive for underdog programs to experiment with innovative strategies.
The upshot is that college football always has a far more diverse set of offensive and defensive styles, and NFL fans who observe the difference will always assert that this is because NFL players are too fast for any other strategy to work. The logic seldom makes much sense. Gladwell, for instance, says that wide splits between offensive linemen can't work in the pro game because NFL defenders are faster. This is true, though he doesn't consider the fact that NFL linemen are faster as well. You could easily tell a story about how the spread offense works in the NFL but not college because all NFL linemen are quick athletes who can cover a lot of ground, while colege linemen are just fat, unathletic tubs of goo.
Last month, Matthew Yglesias linked to a video of three trick plays Boise State pulled off in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, before tempering his enthusiasm thusly:
I much prefer the pro game to the college version, but if you're going to watch college football it's much more entertaining to see teams that really college it up with options, trick plays, and generally goofy stunts that you couldn't get away with against the too-fast, too-athletic NFL defenses.
Go watch the video, and tell me how any of those plays depended upon defenses not being fast enough. If anything, they all employed the defenders' speed against them -- faster playes would have just run further in the wrong direction before they figured out what was happening. On the first play, a hook-and-ladder, the reciever does beat and out-of-position defender to the sideline, and it's possible that a super-fast defender might have caught him, but in the NFL the receiver would be faster, too. The speed explanation becomes particularly strained when you realize that the defense, Oklahoma, was stacked with NFL-calibre athletes while the Boise State offense was dramatically less athletic. Boise's lack of athletic talent is exactly why it's devised such innovative offensive strategies.
The New Republic (c) 2007 - 2008
Rams take ineptitude to another level
ST. LOUIS -- Observations and opinions after watching the Bears dissect the Rams and throw away the body parts in a Week 12 blowout.
1. Bad timing
The Rams can pick the most inopportune times to play gawdawful football. It's bad enough to put on an embarrassing performance in front of the fans--many of whom wore Bears jerseys and screamed for the visitors all afternoon--but it's risky business to do it in front of the boss.
Chip Rosenbloom and his sister, Lucia Rodriguez, the Rams' co-owners, were in attendance at the Edward Jones Dome on Sunday. They came to honor the late Carroll Rosenbloom, Chip's father, who owned the Rams from 1972 until his drowning death in April 1979. Carroll Rosenbloom's name was added to the Rams' Ring of Honor.
Wonder what he would have thought had he witnessed the effort his former team put forth.
The Rams were thoroughly inept in the 27-3 loss, their fifth defeat in a row and their 22nd in their last 27 games. They gained only 207 net yards, rushed for a paltry 14 yards, threw four interceptions and committed 11 penalties. Those were just some of the ugly numbers that defined their hideous production.
Here are some other lowlights--all from the first half:
*The Rams lost yards on six of their first eight plays from scrimmage, and at the end of the first quarter had a net offense of minus-16 yards.
*St. Louis couldn't contain the Bears' pass rush, which was practically nonexistent in recent weeks. Chicago had three sacks, including two by end Adewale Ogunleye, in the first half. His first sack, on the Rams' first offensive series, knocked out Mark Bulger for the rest of the game.
*Chicago's second touchdown, a 7-yard pass play from Kyle Orton to fullback Jason McKie, came when the Rams' outside linebacker and safety both chased after tight end Desmond Clark, who was running a corner route to the back of the end zone. McKie, left uncovered, scored easily. A disgusted Jim Hanifan, the Rams' radio analyst, referred to it as a "high school play."
*Inept performance and untimely penalties forced the Rams into overwhelmingly challenging third-down situations. In order, they faced third and 17, 20, 11, 15, 13 and 10--and they didn't convert any of them.
A promising fire of hope, which started when the Rams beat the Redskins and Cowboys back-to-back after former defensive coordinator Jim Haslett replaced Scott Linehan, has turned into a flickering flame. In the first halves of the last three games--against the Jets, 49ers and Bears--the Rams have been outscored by a combined 99-6. Ouch.
Earlier in the week, Rosenbloom told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he was "underwhelmed" by what he has seen of his football team.
"I'm underwhelmed by the performance of the front office," Rosenbloom said. "I'm underwhelmed by the performance on the field."
After Sunday's debacle, Rosenbloom's football emotions must have sunk to a new low.
2. Formidable Forte
Rookie running back Matt Forte, a second-round pick in last April's draft, has become the prime weapon in the Bears' offense. He is a combination runner and receiver who came into Sunday's game leading the league in touches from scrimmage (248). That was more than veteran running backs Adrian Peterson, Marion Barber, Clinton Portis and Michael Turner, among others. Forte had 146 yards from scrimmage Sunday--132 rushing on 20 carries and two receptions for 14 yards.
Unlike a lot of first-year players who tire around this time of the season and hit the so-called "rookie wall," Forte looks like he is going to avoid it. In fact, he has found a way to avoid it. "I don't talk about it," he said.
That's good. The Bears will need to continue to ride Forte the rest of the season for them to have a chance to win the NFC North.
3. Rams need another running back
St. Louis' running game disappears when Steven Jackson is on the sideline. Jackson, who has rushed 128 times for 524 yards (4.1-yard average) and four touchdowns this season, has missed four of the last five games. A thigh injury kept him in street clothes again Sunday.
Antonio Pittman and Kenneth Darby do not scare defenses like Jackson does. The Rams rushed 19 times for 14 yards against the Bears. Clearly, they need to bring in another back--either in free agency or the draft--who can handle the load when Jackson goes down.
4. Less may be better
Replacing kick returner Devin Hester with Danieal Manning paid immediate dividends for the Bears. Hester returned seven punts and four kickoffs for touchdowns in his first two seasons, but he has had no return TDs this season. Giving him less responsibility on special teams may boost his contributions in other areas.
Hester is a playmaker with speed, and the Bears have been trying to make him a bigger part of the offense. On Sunday, he caught five passes for 57 yards and ran twice--once on a reverse, the other time taking a direct snap in the backfield--for 32 yards.
And Manning made an instant mark. His 50-yard return of the opening kickoff set up Chicago's first touchdown.
(c) 2008 SportingNews.com
