1) Only the Browns could follow the news of Mike Holmgren being hired with the news that Brady Quinn is out for the season with a left foot injury. Eric Mangini apparently was vague about the specifics (I know that's surprising), but foot injuries always conjure the dreaded Lis Franc to mind, especially when Mangini says the recovery could take "a little while." Here's a case where secrecy helps nobody. Just state the injury, the treatment and the prognosis. He's on IR so there's no competitive advantage. Fans deserve to know. Yet one more unbelievable happening in a pretty unbelievable year.
As for Holmgren …
2) Sea legs. That's the image I keep coming up with when I think of his addition as president. He gives the Browns their sea legs. This team has had leaders, but none came from the football end. None brought the depth of experience on the football end that Holmgren has. He's coached, been involved in building teams, he's smart and he's worked with and presumably learned from smart people. He can address issues, ask "why" and help the team ride out the little crises every team experiences without them becoming traumatic or overly dramatic. He gives the Browns their sea legs to get through the waves and — hopefully — to calmer water.
3) The General Manager will be a very, very important hire. I throw out some these names: Tom Heckert Jr. of the Philadelphia Eagles and Eric DeCosta of the Baltimore Ravens. Heckert would be outstanding, but it will be very tough to get him out of Philadelphia. DeCosta knows the division, but I would imagine if the Browns call Ozzie Newsome one more time to ask for permission to interview one of his guys he might go hide in Edgar Allen Poe's grave. This will be fascinating to see how Holmgren proceeds on the GM.
4) It will also be interesting to see if he keeps Eric Mangini. Mangini was not his hire. He does not run the West Coast offense that Holmgren loves. Mangini's style with the media, though very cordial, is not the same as Holmgren's. Their cultures are much different. That being said, Holmgren was a coach, and he knows that it's not entirely fair to give a guy one year. But he also has to know that George Kokinis has filed an arbitration case against the Browns, claiming Mangini did not let him do his job. This seems like a very tenuous situation for the coach.
5) It seems to me we might be looking at this the wrong way. Mangini came to Cleveland with what he perceived as a lot of power. He re-arranged the building, spent a ton of money, had a mural of Hall of Famers removed (it never returned) and acted like the king of the mountain. Like most kids, though, he has learned he can be pushed off the mountain. I wonder this: Does Mangini want to be part of a team where he has to surrender power and work for a guy who didn't hire him? Because if he stays, the perception will be that he's on a one-year tryout.
6) If there is going to be a change, it almost seems like the best thing for Mangini and the Browns is to do it quickly and with dignity the day after the season. Make the move, thank Mangini for his work and simply state that the new president would like to hire his coach. That's the fairest approach to a difficult situation for Mangini. It's also fair to the team, the organization, and fair to the fans. Whether Mangini stays or goes, this team is starting over — from the bottom of the pack.
7) As for that win over Kansas City … exciting … interesting … bizarre in some ways … entertaining. Any win is a good win, and two in a row is better.
8) It's predictable, though. In fact it was predictable back in October when the Browns were losing. The December portion of the schedule had some games against teams struggling as badly as the Browns. Kansas City, Oakland, those kind of teams. If the Browns didn't compete against them, we'd have known the bottom truly had dropped out. They beat Pittsburgh impressively, and followed with a good win against Kansas City. It's good, but it doesn't suddenly mean that everything that happened earlier doesn't matter. Let's keep in mind that in every win this season the Browns quarterback threw for less than 100 yards. It all matters, the losses as well as the wins. But let's not do back flips. It's not justified to put extra meaning on a meaningless December game against a team with three wins. It is, as Bill Clinton might say, what it is.
9) Jerome Harrison gains 286 yards rushing, prompting football types everywhere to say: Where did THAT come from? Harrison goes from ineffective to the Hall of Fame in about three weeks. He has games where you think he'll never make it to a game where you think he should be the featured back. No doubt Harrison was helped by the fact that the Chiefs were without two starting linemen, but 286 yards goes beyond any injury or injuries. It's special. (By the by … fullback Lawrence Vickers? A football player.) Now it's up to Harrison to prove he's the real deal and not the second coming of Lee Suggs.
10) Josh Cribbs has overtaken Joe Thomas for my personal Player of the Year choice. Talk about an amazing player. Two kickoff returns in one game? Simply defies any and all odds. This proves a few things to me. Cribbs is one special player when used properly, and for him being used properly means as a returner and out of the backfield running the ball. A receiver he's not. Second, it's not surprising in one way. The Browns have a lot of good special teams players on the roster and they were facing a team that does not have a great roster, which means their special teams are not strong. If a standout can have a big game, it would be against a special teams group like Kansas City's. Finally, Cribbs is one special, special player — worth every penny he's going to be paid. Cribbs is a guy who might benefit from Holmgren's presence. A number of years back, the Packers had a tight end named Mark Chmura, who was pretty good. They traded for Keith Jackson from Miami, and he was pretty good. Once Jackson joined the team, Holmgren used both tight ends with two wide receivers. He lined them up alongside each other. Teams didn't know who to cover, and it was very effective. Holmgren is the kind of guy who might come up with some new ways to use Cribbs in the offense.
And … because it's the Browns … a bonus 11 …
11) One other fallout from the hiring of Holmgren will be the positive reaction among players around the league. The impression of the team a week ago was not positive, and it would have made it more difficult to sign a free agent. Holmgren's credibility might open some possibilities that did previously did not exist. Which is a good thing. I know he has to prove himself in the new job, but he sure brings a lot of positives.
Three and Out
Dear Pat,
If I'm Mike Holmgren, I would tell Eric Mangini I want him to come to my home in Seattle the day after the season ends to discuss his future … then hand him a Cleveland-to-Seattle Greyhound bus ticket.
Don't you think we should withhold judgment on Holmgren for a month or two to see if he holds the door for Ahtyba Rubin at the local Panera, or gives Jim Brown's executive parking space at Berea to Jerome Harrison?
Brian D.
Twinsburg
Dear Brian,
I was all set for a "let me guess … you're here all week" response.
But you brought up holding the door at Panera. Have I told anyone that Brady Quinn once held the door for me at Panera? He didn't have to, but he did. He was walking in as I was walking out, and he stopped and held the door so I could go first.
These are the moments we need to recall during the holidays.
Dear Pat,
I just spent the better part of the morning reading the Seattle Times sports blogs and my conclusion is the majority of their fans are not happy Holmgren is leaving Seattle. Some astute fans even put out facts showing how good a GM he was by pointing out the players he signed, the fact that the offensive rankings of the team are all very high, and the fun fact that he is loved in the area.
Wow. I hope this works out.
It's also interesting is how many posts said how the Browns have real fans who will appreciate a great football mind and wished him well.
Maybe a red carpet World B Free coming-to-town party is required here.
Jeffrey B. Lucas
Dear Jeffrey B.,
Perspective is everything. To be honest, I'd have to say that Holmgren's tenure as GM was not great, but the team he coached did reach the Super Bowl so something was going right. I know this has yet to prove itself to be a wise move in Cleveland. I know he's never been a team president. But I also know that there are many reasons to believe it can work — as the fans in Seattle pointed out.
Dear Pat,
Landing Holmgren (is) awesome. But as a Browns fan you have to approach everything with some skepticism or even cynicism. Otherwise your heart turns to mush too quickly. I know you can relate.
I see that many post blogs about your articles being too cynical blah blah blah. Hey, this is the Browns. No other team has put its fans through such heartbreak. So some cynicism is called for.
So that is why I am writing about Holmgren. So many positives are being reported about the meetings he has had with the Browns.
You know what this reminds me of? A girl about to get dumped. "Sweetheart, it´s not you, it´s me." … "You´re a beautiful girl … Everything I could ask for … But I just feel … Ehh … Like I have to move on and focus on myself for a while … I love you … But I´m just not IN love with you …"
We shall see. But those are my impressions from the seats located in section "C"ynical.
Reed Dustin
Fresno, CA
Dear Reed,
Excuse my cynicism, but I'm not quite following the girlfriend thinking. Did you heist that Bailey's I was looking for last night?
(Want to be recognized in “Three and Out”? It’s a rare treat. Comment here or send an e-mail to pmcmanamon@thebeaconjournal.com, and put “First and 10” in the subject line.)
Please end the speculation: Morningweig isn't coming, please, please, please no. He's a good coordinator, but he couldn't get it together with the Lions back before the wheels had completely fallen off in Detroit.
I'd almost take another year of Captain Happy Pants before I'd go in for MartyMania!
Hopefully Holmgren won't bring in Tim Ruskell or Ruston Webster from Seattle as GM.
How about Marc Ross from the Giants? He's supposed to be very highly regarded.
Holmgren and Ruskell did not get along.
And to Pat's point, we need another front office guy from Baltimore like we need a bullet in the brain.
If you are going to pluck someone from the G-Men, why not Ernie Accorsi's recommendation to Lerner last year – Dave Gettleman, Giants director of pro personnel.
Are you going to cry for the next 6 months on your blog about the freaking mural when Holmgren doesn't put it back either? Let it go. Seriously.
Let it go.
I was thinking that with Holmgren, maybe the Browns will finally have someone to make announcements and answer questions about official team business…then I saw that they are now using Twitter for that:
http://twitter.com/OfficialBrowns
Maybe they can just have a hologram of Paul Brown on the field to coach the team.
I vote for day after season ends. Thank You Mr. Mangini but the President wishes to choose his own coach. So many bridges have been burned this year. Since it's already blown up, no great shakes. This team is going to run a 4-3 defense and a west coast offense. An abosolute about face from what we have now. It just makes total sense and gets rid of the baggage.
1) Are you kidding me ? Does it get any better for Quinn ? 1st year he is on the bench . Year 2 he gets to play – goes on IR. Year 3 Wins the job in camp , is benched , brought back to start , after he can't get his bonus mind you . Mike is hired , Quinn on IR again next day. Has any other QB went through so much ? Are the Browns trying to recoup trade value in Anderson ? Did Mike already decide that he wants Anderson to be "the QB "? Timing again so questionable.
The Browns now have won 2 interesting , watchable games in a row . Yes they were against 2 teams that are seeing some tough times. Well you can't choose who you play and when. What you can see is a new coaching staff and a team coming together at the end of the season . Moving Forward , Improving. We are learning how to run the ball very well . The passing game is not there yet with a 3rd year QB working with rookies and a 2nd year TE. You could say in a sense that this is all their rookie years.
2) Sea legs ? Seahawks . Aw come on Mike gives us sea wings to fly upon Weee up the standings . Fly over the waves of issues we have. How about these issues , We don't have QB Farve or RB Alexander.
3) How strong of a GM do we need ? What role will he play ? What powers will he have ? Important hire because you , we don't trust Mike's ability to draft players?
4) The west coast offense Mike loves . Can the west coast offense beat the Bengals , Ravens , and the Steelers ? How have Mike's teams faired against the 3 teams ?
5) 6) Will Mangini want to stay ? Eric was hired . Cleaned up the roster of me 1st players . Took the hard hits , did the dirty work and took the heat. Now he is having the rug pulled out from his feet after some progess is starting to show. If he is fired after the season it WOULD NOT be fair to him . It doesn't matter how you spin it.
7)
9) 10) Harrissom and Cribbs should thank their blockers. Yes they are special players but don't forget about the other 10 players on the field.
11) Free agents – No salery cap – teams cutting high price veteran mistakes – This off season is going to be interesting.
Hey, didn't Tiger Woods bang the dreaded Lis Franc?
Well lets see how DA improves his QB rating….. Oh the humanity$$$$$$********Calling Dr. Howard….Calling Dr. Fine…..Calling Dr. Howard……
Hey, Pat — next week when Holmgren has a press conference, maybe you could ask him for the details of Quinn's injury?
Whatever offense Fauvre ran in Green Bay, it didn't look anything like the offense Montana ran under Walsh. Are you sure Holmgren always has run the west coast offense? Anyone?
Holmgren's success here in Cleveland will depend on how successful the people who run the team will be. Does he have the confidence in Mangini, Dabol and Ryan to run the systems he is familiar with. If you become a company president, you want your generals, captains and sargents to be extremely skilled in systems you are very comfortable with. The legacy you leave here in Cleveland will depend upon these people. I believe "wii" will see some changes.
Holmgren is a plus on the mgt. side,now we wait and see what fruit it bears.
Quinn? Do not think he'll be around long.Of all the QB's in the league he's right there with the bottom 6,not a keeper.
The Kansas City Chiefs special-teams had only given up 37 yards maximum on the longest kickoff return this year before Joshua Cribbs rewrote that. They might be a weak team but they took pride in their special-teams at least before last Sunday. Give Mangini one more year to prove himself. He inherited a lot of underachievers and looks like he's turned things around here in the last few weeks. Go Browns!
ESPN John Clayton when asked if Mangini is out he said bluntly in 2 weeks hes GONE….Mike was HIRED to change the mentality of the franchise and even though he likes eric he will bring in his people ……12/22/09 7:07pm Hey Pat any Baileys for eric?
Odds are that Mangini will go.
yeah, mangini's really turned things around. the team only gave up 500 yards to the chiefs on sunday and brady quinn had a 27 qb rating. let's give him a raise and sign him up for another quarter century.
Mangini must go.
So I was just wondering are there any ties between Mike Holmgren and Charley Weis ? Lerner and Kosar did meet with him too ?
Quinn must go ? I don't know Kenny. Maybe so . We now have somebody else who can fall in love with Anderson's big time arm. Yes he was better than Frye , but is he better than Quinn ? I don't think so. Anderson now has two games to show what he can do.
Injuries , mismanaged , under coached , over coached , I don't know what to think about Quinn. Wrong system ? Not on the same page with the young wide outs . Whose fault ? QB's – Rec's – Coaching staff ?
It sounds like Holmgren is a real "football guy."
Well the Cougars really put a good shave on the Beavers…………………… in the Las Vegas Bowl 44-20 final
If Holmgren wants a West Coast offense guy, why not keep Mangini and replace Brian Daboll with an OC that knows the WCO? I think Mangini has made this a much more thoughtful, disciplined team … with the right talent and support, Eric Mangini can take the Browns to the playoffs – and sooner than we'll get there starting from scratch.
nice oh by the way they won the game v kc……….nice pat…you bitch constantly about mangini b/c at the time he was 2-11…..but when he does win..( & i presume your bitching b/c he hasn't won..but don't let taking over a 4-12 team & less than one year on the job get in the way of your "objective judgement")
but hey, there are different types of 2-11 eh pat? the one where the coach irritates you & the one where the coach doesn't…right pat?
I think Holmgren will be a good hire albeit WAYYYY over priced! $50 million? I think Mangini should stay and work with Holmgren. Bringing two different perspectives might result in a winning combination. We do have many good players on this team. Next season with healthy players back from the IR, a solid draft, a few quality free agents, and the experience factor that should provide greater depth and who knows how much better this team will be?
I agree with Jay C. Eric Mangini did what he was hired to do. He got rid of a lot of locker room cancers and finally got a team of young guys and average players to buy into his system. This team is not the old Cleveland Browns and never will be. They need to build their own tradition, hence get rid of the mural. We need a team that wants to make their own idenity.
And let's not forget that Quinn had a bonus coming if he started 11 games for the Browns this year. He got to 9 and suddenly he's out for the last two games of the season. Lerner looking to save a couple million bucks? Quinn looked fine in the video of him leaving the field Sunday, even took time to be interfviewed, without any comment on being involved in a season ending injury.
yes eric mangini did what he was hired to do:
pretend shaun rogers doesn't exist when he was the biggest guy in the room
give the jets the #5 pick and only getting a bunch of scrubs along with the jets pick
force rookies to ride a bus to work his football camp while he flew on a plane
have the qbs split the reps in training camp while committing to neither until the week of the game
bench quinn after 10 quarters for a guy who is even worse
hinder the development of the offense by playing qb roulette and lacking the nads to commit to one guy
keep jamal lewis on the roster when he was finished last season
blow two second round picks by picking players who barely or never see the field while a couple stud lbs go elsewhere
trade braylon edwards at his lowest value
mismanage games with bad playcalling and odd usage (or non-usage) of time-outs
lose the majority of games miserably
undermine the g.m. who was supposedly his friend
if i had only breathed through my mouth for the last 40 years i could be just a gung ho about mangini as some of you are. personally, i think josh cribbs is more qualified to be the head coach since mangini is clinging to his jock for life.
All the things terje mentioned at 11:36 are significant and they add up on top of each other to a lot and he doesn't really mention (I didn't think) rigid game plans and a complete inability to improvise at halftime. The good things are fining thieves, practicing for contact in football, trying to eliminate penalties, and coaching up the practice squad players/castoffs. The bad outweighs the good.
The idea creeping in, by everything I'm seeing from lots of different sources, is that all of the many minuses and some pluses fail to take into account that Mangini is a smarmy back stabber (a regular Dickensian Uriah Heep character) who will undermine any and everyone for his own elevation. The speculation is that he may speak nice to Holmgren, but he will be working to get Holmgren fired. I guess what I'm wondering/thinking is that even though Holmgren can probably stomp on the little scorpion before he gets stung, why should he bother when he can tell him to get out?
Mark, Quinn played in 8 1/2 games plus 3 snaps in the final series of the Chicago game. Quinn needed to play in 70% of the Brown's offensive plays in order to qualify for the bonus. By my count, he played in 497 out of 846 plays – or 59%. If he played every snap of the last two games (assuming an average of 60 offensive plays/game), he would have ended up with 617/966 or 64%. Even if the Browns had 150 offensive snaps in each of the last two games and he played them all, he still would have come up short. The Brown's bean counters had it figured all out when he was benched for 4 1/2 games that there was no way to make it to 70%.
Shoot that walrus up with some truth serum. He's no dummy, all a ruse for the media's benefit, Holmgren is head coach in 2012 or late winter/early spring of 2013 at the latest.
Well, he is a "football guy" alan and that mural is not going to re-paint itself!
"Only the Browns could follow the news of Mike Holmgren being hired with the news that Brady Quinn is out for the season with a left foot injury." WHAT???? How is that unbelievable? Man, you are one bitter dude.
to Jay C. I have nothing against Quinn,maybe its the plays he's given to run or the offense is not geared to a productive passing game.Odd,though,big stong kid down for the 2nd year in a row;finger now foot.As i've always said though,"lot of overrated QB's have come out of ND". Scouts must have seen something they did not like, maube that is why he sat around the draft room soooo long.
Gary I., seems to me that you're the bitter one. Whatever.
QUINN OR ANDERSON ARE NOT CALLING THEIR OWN PLAYS THEY ARE BEING CALLED FROM THE SIDELINE AN THEY ARE JUST RUNNING THE PLAYS THAT THEY ARE TOLD TO CALL. FIRE THE OFFENSIVE CO-ORDINATOR AND HIRE CHARLIE WEIS
Are Quinn and Anderson football guys?
Quinn is more of a croquet guy.
Terge ……GOOD ONE DUDE!!!!!!!!………………………….love DOTS………………