Super Bowl, guys! Super Bowl! Look!
Marla Ridenour in Monday’s Akron Beacon Journal:
If Pat Shurmur had any worries that he wasn’t ready for this moment, wasn’t ready to be an NFL coach, his demeanor never showed it.
There was not a glimpse of anxiety or doubt on his face, at least during occasional glances his way during the Browns’ 27-17 preseason-opening victory over the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers on Saturday night.
Shurmur looked calm and professional, unruffled by a few inevitable mistakes after the NFL lockout robbed his young team of valuable offseason work.
He seemed in control, almost like a born leader.
“That’s exactly what it is,” Browns cornerback Joe Haden said. “He has that ‘it.’”
[T]wo miscues could have opened the floodgates for disaster, or at least disorganization. But the Browns regained their composure, perhaps because their leader never lost his. . . .
It’s too soon to tell if Shurmur is the one to keep the dark clouds at bay or even chase them away …
Too soon? Come on, Marla. COME ON.
But when his first game was over, he was open about injuries and honest in his assessment of individual players.
See, see, see! Not too soon at all.
Because if five thousand years of recorded human history has taught us anything at all, it’s that the most determinative factor of success for a head football coach in the NFL, by far, is how forthcoming he is about player injuries with the media. OF COURSE.
And further:
[Shurmur] was self-deprecating and authoritative at the same time.. .. .
And sensitive, but firm. He made me feel like I was the only person in the room, without being overbearing. I quite liked it, actually.
Shurmur said he slept well the night before his debut and didn’t get butterflies.
“I don’t know what I get, but they aren’t butterflies,” he said.
No no no not butterflies, just the mixture of supernatural elements that’s been coursing through Pat Shurmur’s endocrine system since his virgin birth, known as “laser juice” in the Shurmur house. It would be offputting if he just came out and told you that though, Marla.
[Second-year cornerback Joe] Haden, … sounded like Shurmur’s biggest fan outside of the front office.
Why is the twenty-two year-old football player with a five year 50 million dollar contract with $26 million guaranteed so happy?
Haden said Shurmur “has a swag to him, just like a really good coach.”
“I like his aura,” Haden said. “It’s really good and it rubs off on the players.”
LASER JUICE. Which creates an aura that’s entirely different from the kind of aura that comes from growing up with an uncle who took a six-figure salary for some twenty-years for being a defensive coordinator in the NFL, and then having your uncle’s old pal, basically, also your uncle, hand you a seven-figure job as the head coach of your own NFL football team right as the roster is set to peak after three consecutive years of intelligent use of high draft slotting and two years of dirty work by the guy who had the job before you in cleaning up a room full of sociopaths and turning it into a room full of “students of the game.”*
SWAG.
SUPER BOWL.
BROWNS!!!!!!!!1!!1112!!!!!!
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*”Coach Mangini’s one of the smartest coaches I’ve ever been around, as far as recall, as far as remembering anything, far as just being a student of the game,” said fourth-year Browns linebacker Titus Young to Tony Grossi this week. “He instilled that in all the players. I took the skill set from him and try to apply it to this defense.”
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[Colt] McCoy called [Brett] Favre and asked if he could come to his hometown in Hattiesburg, Miss., to work with him on the precision scheme, one that Favre ran for 20 years. Favre obliged, and the two spent about four days together pouring over the offense** and throwing passes.
And somebody should tell Mary Kay Cabot that “pouring” is for whiskey.
Which is all for today. Back in the morning to discuss tomorrow night’s fight for ALL THE MARBLES. Hope everyone has a decent go of it until then.
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**”The offense.”
