We always try to wrap up the workweek on a high note, which is especially easy this week now that we know there’s no reason to worry about the Raiders on Sunday, or really anything else that happens with the Browns this season thanks to Vic Carucci at ClevelandBrowns.com:
From the time he first assembled his team at training camp in July, [new Browns head coach Pat] Shurmur has presented himself as a steady, even-tempered leader. He has displayed a remarkable knack for not letting his emotions run too high or too low, and for simply keeping his focus on doing everything possible to help a young team to get better.
And the Browns are young. And their youth does make the process for improvement difficult because of the many mistakes that inevitably happen along the way.
But Shurmur, who is also going through a learning process of his own, must make the most of the extra time that he and his assistant coaches have through the bye to find ways to get the team on the right track.
Knowing how he has handled things thus far, it’s fair to say that he is unlikely to panic and make radical changes. Still, some adjustments are warranted.
Adjustments? Knowing Shurmur’s remarkable knack for not letting his emotions run too high or too low, and for simply keeping his focus on doing everything possible to help a young team to get better, could there be any question that he’ll make exactly the right ones? In due time, of course, allowing plenty for the process for improvement to unfold given the many mistakes that inevitably happen with a young team. But still. How many times did you ask yourself over the last two years about why Eric Mangini was always letting his emotions get the better of him, and also about what was wrong with Mangini’s focus, why he couldn’t keep it on doing everything possible to help the Browns get better, and why he just didn’t seem to have a remarkable knack or any knack at all for avoiding focusing on all of those other things that didn’t relate to the Browns getting better? Thirty billion times if once, of course.
And you know Carucci’s got to be right, because he was handpicked by the Holmgren regime to give Browns fans “insights on a regular basis.”
So what’s more amazing, that the Browns think so much of their fans as to pass this stuff off on them with a straight face, or that outlets like WKNR and Cleveland.com regularly feature Carucci’s work as though he was anything but a PR flack? We’ll call it a tie for now.
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In other news, the Boston Red Sox are a thoroughly loathsome organization (imagine how much less energy they’d have for such treachery if they had to compete with 29 other baseball clubs on equal terms … could there be a more predictable result of such inequity?);
The New York Jets are the New York Jets;
And the naming of the new Canton NBA D-League team marks another missed opportunity.
Ah, we’ll get it right next time, and this weekend when we’ll be back with the college and pro football picks on Saturday and Sunday (9-2 over the last two weeks with the NFL picks against the spread), and the Cheddar Bay open thread will be as live as ever.
Hope everyone’s weekend gets off to a decent start.
