Who does Tony Grossi know? What does he know? What does he have pictures of? What could the Pain Dealer’s publishers possibly be doing in these pictures? After reading last Sunday’s edition, we can at least be sure the folks in charge of the paper don’t hate us as much as we thought they did, because nobody can be that mean. This must be hurting them too. But at this point they have to realize that a witness protection program would be better than this. Or that whatever’s in the pictures just couldn’t be this embarrassing.
That’s the bright side, because after Grossi’s latest Sunday mailbag column we have to be as close as we’ve ever been to the PD publishers waking up to this reality. It really couldn’t have been a bigger day for Grossi, the journalist who’s paid more than anyone is to shine light on Cleveland’s most cherished public resource, who on Sunday finally, proudly, copped to running former Browns head coach Eric Mangini out of Cleveland, and only a few breaths after telling us that the Cleveland Browns are two drafts away from having the talent necessary to consistently compete in the NFL (after a season where the Browns lost by more than a touchdown only four times).* As one might expect, this admission has been tremendously liberating for the Pain Dealer scribe, who immediately took advantage of his newfound freedom to fill us in on some heretofore unrevealed conclusions that underpin his professional analysis and his vendetta for the ex-Browns head coach.
First, the biggie: Thanks to Grossi, we think we finally understand about the Browns’ 2009 Draft. Not only has that draft now been conclusively established as an historic Cleveland tragedy on the order of The Drive, The Fumble, and Red Right 88, but we can finally see now that it’s been such a profound suck on the space-time continuum in Brownstown that it’s worked backward in time as well as forward, thus is probably largely responsible for most of the failures of Romeo Crennel’s tenure in Cleveland, and a significant part of the Butch Davis era as well. Look at how simple this is:
Hey, Tony: Given that in the end it is player personnel that wins or loses, how much do you think the 2009 draft doomed the Mangini regime or at least was a major contributor? . . . — Glenn Studevant, Tucson, Ariz.
Hey, Glenn: The 2009 draft certainly contributed to Mangini’s demise. The second season of those players should have boosted the team to a higher level. Instead, many were cut and a couple regressed or stayed the same. Yes, Alex Mack earned a trip to the Pro Bowl (after two player injuries ahead of him). But if your best player out of a whole draft is a center, well, that’s why the team is in so need of playmakers. . . .
* * *
Hey, Tony: The Drive, The Fumble, Red Right 88 and … The Draft 2009? Seriously, how bad did Mangini butcher that draft? — Tori Stephens, Nashville, Tenn.
Hey, Tori: I have written on this topic, of course, and the usual response is: How bad could it be if he got a Pro Bowl center (Alex Mack)? Sigh.
* * *
Hey, Tony: It is the morning of the 2009 NFL draft, and without any warning or preparation you are asked to draft players in the first four rounds. No preparation, no help, just you. Would you have drafted better? — Jim O’Connor, Rocky River
Hey, Jim: I believe my dog Bella would have, too.
Hey, Tony: Why do the Browns even play with a center? Why can’t the quarterback just pick the goddam ball up off the ground on every play? Wouldn’t there be room for more playmakers on the field if they did that?
Oh, right, yeah, the top NFL beat writer for Cleveland’s flagship newspaper did just say in his Sunday column that his dog would have done a better job than Eric Mangini, George Kokinis and the rest of the Browns front office did with the 2009 Draft. Not just that, but Grossi’s dog would have done better with no warning, no preparation, and no help, just starting on the morning of the Draft. “Hey, Bella, draft day. Let’s go.”
So where does one even start with this? If a man impregnated his own daughter, then the resulting granddaughter, then the resulting great-granddaughter, would it then be possible for the quality of this analysis to be replicated anywhere in the universe but in the Cleveland sports press? We could spend weeks here, and don’t want to get sucked in, so let’s just assume for now that the godfather of NFL draft experts, Mel Kiper Jr., is at least half right when he says that you can’t really grade an NFL draft for “at least a few years.” Let’s also assume that the realities presented by NFL defensive lines will continue to require all teams to play with a center for the foreseeable future, that there’s no good reason to think that Mohammed Massaquoi and Brian Robiskie won’t end up as good #2 and #3 NFL receivers (or that they wouldn’t already be established as such if they’d had the chance to play with anything close to some combination of at least one legitimate NFL #1 receiver or starting quarterback), and that the book hasn’t been closed on Kaluka Maiava or even Coye Francies just yet.
There’s also that Grossi wrote in this very column that “It’s extremely tough to get five main contributors from one draft class,” that “three is good and four is real good.”
So if Robiskie and Massaquoi aren’t fairly “main contributors” yet, but turn out to be next season (their third, when many NFL receivers tend to blossom), it’s still a “good” draft. If Maiava ends up taking a starting inside position (that he filled decently as a rookie in 2009) this draft becomes “real good” in 2011. But don’t even dream about Francies, because however it turns out, Grossi’s dog would have done better than any and all of these guys, on five hours prep, max (he didn’t say she’d have to wake up especially early). And Grossi has no problem telling anyone this, so it’s not just the players. Mike Holmgren, Tom Heckert and Pat Shurmur are all on notice.
It’s hard to quantify Grossi’s brazen disrespect for for everything and everyone implicated by his analysis here. And it’s probably harder to underestimate how depressing it has to be to have this guy in the Browns facility every day at all, let alone as the ostensible leader of the Cleveland Browns press. But if we’re going to keep gnashing our teeth over a single NFL draft that happened less than two years ago, got us at least one Pro-Bowl caliber center, and maybe even three more decent starters, we should also take a quick look back at a pair of recent Pittsburgh Steelers drafts (“main contributors” in bold):
Here’s 2008:
1, 23: Rashard Mendenhall RB Illinois
2, 53: Limas Sweed WR Texas
3, 88: Bruce Davis LB UCLA
4, 130: Tony Hills T Texas
5, 156: Dennis Dixon QB Oregon
6, 188: Mike Humpal OLB Iowa
6, 194: Ryan Mundy FS West Virginia
And 2006, theoretically, a lot easier to judge than 2009:
1, 25: Santonio Holmes WR Ohio State
3, 83: Anthony Smith DB Syracuse
3, 95: Willie Reid WR Florida State
4, 131: Willie Colon T Hofstra
4, 133: Orien Harris DT Miami (Fla.)
5, 164: Omar Jacobs QB Bowling Green State
5, 167: Charles Davis TE Purdue
6, 201: Marvin Philip C California
7, 240: Cedric Humes RB Virginia Tech
Now neither Mendenhall nor Colon are any useless center, but that’s just two “main contributors” left from two of the last five drafts, and neither’s made a Pro Bowl even as an alternate. So how do the Steelers manage to press on? Is it “thinking TDs“? Or do they just let the K-9 unit at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette run the drafts so that the columnists can’t complain?
Wait. Special teams. We can’t be sure that some of those Steelers draftees aren’t “main contributors” on special teams, but since we’re talking about a winning organization like the Steelers we might assume that they’re not. Look:
Hey, Tony: Even though Brad Seely was given high marks for his work with the special teams, could it be that he had too much influence with Eric Mangini, leading to such an overabundance of special team linebackers? — Rich Markovich, Schaumburg, Ill.
Hey, Rich: It was Mangini’s and Seely’s philosophy to fill up the roster with special teams specialists — tacklers, gunners, etc. I believe when you do that, you improve the special teams but you also forsake roster spots that could be devoted to offensive and defensive specialists who can make plays in the major areas of a team.
And to think folks were complaining in Cleveland when Brad Seely, thought to be the top special teams coach in the NFL, left the Browns for the 49ers last week. Now that we’re finally free from Seely’s malevolent influence in Cleveland, it should be much easier for Shurmur, Heckert and Co. to resist the universal and age-old temptation to bring in special teamers where offensive and defensive playmakers should be. The list of playmakers that the Browns have missed out on thanks to Seely’s and Mangini’s philosophy, far too long for Sunday’s column. Space is limited, and there’s a quarterback’s arm strength to second guess, of course.
What else to say? Certainly not that our dog would do better than any NFL front office at any draft where the front office managed to submit the name of an eligible draftee for each of its picks. But at least we can be sure as we are of anything that if our dog was hired as the Pain Dealer’s top NFL beat writer and did what we’d expect our dog to do, which would be to never submit a single column or show up at an NFL facility even once, Cleveland and the Browns would be much better off than they are now with the Pain Dealer’s top NFL beat writer doing what it is that he does.
How hasn’t a town that accepts this guy as it’s top NFL beat writer gotten exactly what it’s deserved from it’s NFL team? Why even have a newspaper?
—————
*How else can this be reconciled?
Hey, Tony: The Browns lack talent on both sides of the ball with the largest hole being the lack of a franchise QB. I look at our division and it appears the Browns need at least three successful drafts, including the franchise QB, before they could be expected to reach and maintain a playoff-caliber level. Obviously scoring with free agents could shorten that scenario. But it sure looks like at least two more years. — Jeff Draime, Warren
Hey, Jeff: The Browns need a franchise quarterback. Is it McCoy? I don’t know. The point is, we are in a “don’t know” mode at that position. Until we do know, nothing will change. Do the Steelers know about Ben Roethlisberger? Yes. Do the Ravens know about Joe Flacco? Yes. The Browns need at least two more drafts of producing 3-4 quality, starting players each time.
* * *
Hey, Tony: What a lot of you did to Mangini and staff is without a doubt “running a coach” textbook edition. What is even more puzzling to me is how I barely see you write two words about our new coach, but you still write negative articles on Mangini weeks after he was fired. You even had multiple digs at him while tweeting from the Steelers game. I have to believe that you like many others are stunned we now have a no-name coach that no Browns fan had ever heard of and most realize is a puppet for Holmgren. Deep down you know you never in a million years imagined Pat Shurmur would be our coach, but rather had visions of a big name savior coming our way and I think that is why you can’t let the Mangini thing go. — Michael Spitale, Galena
Hey, Michael: I don’t know how Shurmur will do. I know how Mangini did (10-22).
