Browns third-year center Alex Mack got a lot of press yesterday for saying, as the Plain Dealer’s Mary Kay Cabot puts it, that “[Browns] players felt humiliated under [former head coach Eric] Mangini’s watch by having their mistakes pointed out in front of the whole squad, instead of in smaller position meetings.”
Mangini made the Browns watch game film in front of the whole squad, you guys. Just try and think for a minute about how humiliating that must have been.
"Sometimes when I feel like the whole world is against me I like to just lay down and feel the wet grass on my skin."
Jeff Schudel has the full scoop at the News Herald:
Alex Mack says [film review sessions] under Coach Pat Shurmur are much different than they were under former coach Eric Mangini.
For one thing, Shurmur has instructed his assistants to review the game with the segment of the team each coaches. George Warhop meets with the offensive linemen, Mark Whipple meets with the quarterbacks, Jerome Henderson meets with the defensive backs, etc.
Mangini preferred to gather the team as a whole for the review. It is a method that works well for Patriots coach Bill Belichick — Mangini’s former mentor.
No way. Well, Bill Belichick is Bill Belichick, and he’s a genius. Obviously not everybody can get away with employing such oppressive tactics. How could Mangini not have known that? How could anyone not know that?
Mack prefers the Shurmur method. There is a lot less tension, he says.
“It’s not acceptable to make mistakes (under Shurmur), but it’s — tolerable is the wrong word — a learning experience more than a lynching experience,” Mack said Monday. “We had a lot of team corrections (the last two years). The theory behind it was as a team you’d see where people made mistakes and hold everyone accountable.
Accountability? As a team? A football team? Insane. What was it that Mangini thought he was trying to coach lynch, anyway? Lynching!
“On the same hand, other guys don’t know what you’re coached. If you keep it in your own meeting group and get it aired out, that’s better. Everyone knows you. But to have a DB get beat and have the coach yell at him — I don’t know how to cover anyone, and I don’t need to know. It’s hard for him to get embarrassed in front of the whole team. If it’s just your group of core guys, and they know how good the receiver is. It’s easier to bear.”
And thank god for that. Can you imagine what a drag it would be if these guys had to know any more than they already do about what happened on the football field they play on for a living, or if they had to know how well guys who play other positions were living up to their obligations to the team … wait … think, what if #TEAMDBSWAG has VIP on lock at Barley, or if there’s a party up at JT’s lake house, all the post-game meals at Sushi Rock? The less you know about the rest, the better. Of course.
Mack said another advantage of spending more time with position coaches, as the Browns do now, is the coach can be more detailed when pointing out corrections.
Which sounds like a follow-up question that Mack said “yes” to. But when I was in high school, back in the 90s, we did both. We had a team film session shortly after the game, and throughout the week we’d have the position meetings where we’d focus on more detail. We had a lot less time in high school, presumably, than the Browns do for this kind of thing, so let’s assume Mangini’s Browns did both the position and full team sessions as well and forgive Schudel for leaving that distracting bit out of his story.
Soooo, when you ask less of an NFL football team, the players will like you better for it. At least at the beginning. As long as you can squeak by the crumbling Colts. Alright.
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Relatedly, Nate Jackson, formerly of the Browns practice squad, writing at Deadspin.
[C]oaching philosophies are changing. Just look at the Dolphins. They’ve totally abandoned their running game in favor of some hybrid form of the Patriots offense. Brian Daboll is the offensive coordinator. He used to be a position coach in New England, and he was the OC in Cleveland when I was there for a week. How was Cleveland’s offense in 2009? It wasn’t surprising to see so much miscommunication and bad timing in their passing game. It was an irritatingly complicated offensive scheme that was lost on its players. The terminology had no rhyme or reason to it. It seemed to be a bunch of arbitrary numbers and words thrown together. The goal was to confuse the defense by doing a lot of shifts and motions, but the naming of all the groups, formations, and movements seemed to confuse only the offensive players. I was there late during training camp. The team had been practicing for five months, and no one could explain anything to me. Even the tight ends coach was lost. When figuring out where to line up is devouring all your time and energy, your team will likely suck.
But “irritatingly complicated” is just what many young offensive coordinators want these days.
And the 2009 Browns are conclusive proof of this.
It was instructive watching the imitation go up against the real thing on Monday. The Patriots, it seems, play by a whole different set of rules. Everything they do works. All their personnel clicks into place. They utilize two athletic tight-ends who can stretch the field down the middle. They use a slot receiver who can read defenses effectively. They have good receivers on the outside who can beat man coverage when it happens. And they have a quarterback who can make sense of all of it, digest it instantly, and tell everyone what to do. Couple this with an endless number of personnel groups and formations, and the ability to do it all without a huddle, effectively preventing the defense from making substitutions, and you have the model for passing-game efficiency in the NFL.
But those are the Patriots. No one does it better.
Of course, and no one should even try. Especially not guys who came up through the Patriots system. What could those guys be thinking? Not that they’d have any more than two seasons one season or a quarterback any better than Seneca Wallace to make it work, we hope.
Think less play faster think less play faster think less play faster Browns Browns Browns. See you guys at Barley.
