Petty Pony: Why can’t Colt McCoy stop talking about his old Browns coaches?

by Cleveland Frowns on December 1, 2011

NOTE: In the Yahoo! Sports piece linked below, the author cites this 2008 report by Dan Wetzel in which Wetzel refers to McCoy’s college coach Mack Brown as a “notorious enabler,” and notes that if you “ask most NFL coaches which current collegiate program puts out the most spoiled stars and Brown, for a change, wouldn’t have to beg for votes.” McCoy’s absurd refusal to take responsibility for his crushing fourth-quarter interception last Sunday is relevant here as well, of course.

—————

Last Friday, Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports published one of the stranger in-season reports that an NFL fan could hope to read about his favorite team. Of course it’s about the Browns, and while none of the answers to the questions raised by it are especially good, they might nevertheless be useful as the team prepares for the 2012 draft with Colt McCoy perched atop its quarterback depth chart.

"Who's the slimy little communist sh*t, twinkle-toed c*cksucker down here who just signed his own death warrant?"

Bearing the headline “McCoy De-velops Thick Skin After Rookie Hazing,” the story details what’s described as an “onslaught of negativity McCoy experienced [last season] as a rookie” at the hands of then-coach Eric Mangini and his staff — and offensive coordinator Brian Daboll in particular. (Daboll now holds the same position with the Miami Dolphins.) “Daboll disparaged McCoy loudly and relentlessly,” according to Silver, “sometimes to his face, sometimes through the earpiece in the quarterback’s helmet. Click here to continue reading at Cleveland Scene …

  • Anonymous

    That’s a nice tight article with a good point. Colt’s a pretty pony, and either he grows up now or goes to pasture. I would still say that if Daboll was actually as reported, it’s a bit of a stretch to call that effective “tough love,” and some evidence of a kind of regime schism that certainly wasn’t going to help anything.

    • Anonymous

      Yeah, a regime schism resulting from Holmgren’s inflexible thinking and plain intent to turn the Browns into Uncle Fritz Enterprises* from day 1. Agreed that that didn’t help anything.

      *A division of Lamonte Industries.

      And I would still say that if Daboll was actually as reported that it was nothing that anybody hasn’t heard from his high school coaches.

      • Anonymous

        >>>And I would still say that if Daboll was actually as reported that it
        was nothing that anybody hasn’t heard from his high school coaches.>>>

        There might be a slightly different standard in the NFL. I’m not sure how you can get around NFL vets saying they had never heard anything like that, nor does it sound very productive to me, but who knows what really went on.

        There’s no question the whole thing is mildly embarrassing and evidence of a clusterf. While it’s certainly possible that you’re right about the core of that, that the whole thing is just evidence that Holmgren is nothing more than a mendacious grifter out to loot Randy, and Mangini and Daboll and Ryan (we’ll leave out Kokinis) were making all the right calls and moves, it’s equally possible that it takes two to tango and sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s leading.

        • Anonymous

          “I’m not sure how you can get around NFL vets saying they had never heard anything like that.”

          For starters you can get around it by the fact that no NFL vet actually went on the record to say that.

          For finishers you can note that no NFL vet had ever seen a quarterback daddied into the NFL the way Colt was.

          That’s plenty for me.

          • Anonymous

            Daddied into the NFL?  he was the 85th pick, he was the 3rd stringer and only got to play due to injuries.  And then when he got in he showed some toughness and gave the front office some confidence in rolling the dice with him this year.  unfortunately he was not given the tools he had at his disposal last season, mainly a healthy offensive line, backfield, and a relatively healthy receiving corps.  

            If Jake doesn’t get hurt and plays decently the entire season, I doubt Colt would be the starter this year..  It seems like the plan was for Jake to start 2 years while Colt learned the ropes..

          • Anonymous

            “The McCoy family hopped from school district to school district in west Texas so that young Colt could play with “stud athletes” on a team coached by his father, who went on to ensure that “a cover letter pointing out a nice round number of fifty touchdowns in one season” went out to college coaches. Silver notes that McCoy’s eventual college coach, Mack Brown, “has a reputation for coddling players.”‘

            Anyway, yeah, if only Colt had all those weapons he had last year, I’m sure it would be like night and day.

          • Anonymous

            they looked pretty decent against a Top 5 defense this past Sunday. with Hillis back there..  we’ll see how they do this week..  hopefully the drops are down..  

          • Anonymous

            and it doesn’t have to be “night and day”, we have missed big plays by inches, centimeters.. having a stud RB and healthy offensive line can most definitely increase the chances of making those plays

          • Anonymous

            LOL “Top 5 defense.”

            You’ll see a real one of those next week. I’m guessing it will look a lot like the Niners and Texans did.

          • Anonymous

            i expect us to look a lot better than we did against those teams now that we have Hillis back and the line is healthier.  

      • zarathustra

        a division of Lamonte Industries?  Didn’t you know that Homgren was not even aware that his lifelong friend and agent represented old friend Fritz’s nephew?

        • Anonymous

          How could I forget. Sorry.

  • Anonymous

    Colt McCoy, starting QB in the NFL or not, is still a national media darling so of course a writer with national distribution would find some value in writing a story like this.  Most people from Texas love him and plenty others across the country are fans of his, due to his winning ways down there and I would have to believe his publicly known religious beliefs and off the field wokr have helped with his national branding as well.  

    Dissiregardless, it’s not just Colt who was quoted, several other players on and off the record backed the story up, so..   Even though the coaches referenced are gone, I still thought it was an interesting read, besides, it’s rare that we get some national press regarding the Clownies!  

    • Anonymous

      I don’t think Frowns is questioning the facts of the story so much as what they imply about Colt. Maybe the biggest question here is what does it say about Colt (and his people) that they apparently thought this kind of thing would reflect well on him?

    • Anonymous

      Yes! National coverage! Awesome!

      Here are the three players who went on the record for this story besides McCoy:

      Evan Moore: “There was a lot of pressure put on Colt, and some of it was over the top. He was coming off winning 45 of 53 games in college, and it was the first time he was dealing with adversity.”

      Shucks the coaches made McCoy deal with adversity for the first time in his life. Why isn’t that a good thing? Why are we talking about this with reporters again?

      Scott Fujita (who’s the Browns union rep, it should be noted): “I remember [Daboll] yelling into Colt’s headset when he was the scout team quarterback, in the two-minute drill, when they were servicing us. Daboll was talking into the microphone, very animated. I looked at Colt and he said, ‘He does that all the time. He’s constantly [expletive] me in the headset.’”

      A football coach constantly yelling! And at an historically pampered rookie no less! Stop the press! 

      And Alex Mack: “When I got here as a rookie, I got hazed much worse by the coaching staff than I did by any player.”

      Bawwwww. Leave aside questions as to any distinctions between “coaching” and “hazing” here, how could Mack’s statement be any surprise when the “veteran leadership” in the Browns locker room when Mack arrived as a rookie amounted to Braylon and Shawn Rogers?

      The whole thing is just an embarrassment, any way you look at it.

      • Anonymous

        yes an embarrassment to EM, which of course I revel in..  bawwwww

      • Anonymous

        when Mack arrived as a rookie, you had 3rd year Vet/All-Pro Joe Thomas, 6th year vet Eric Steinbach, 9 year vet Jamaal Lewis, 8 year vet Floyd Womack, 7 year vet John St. Clair, 10 year vet Steve Heiden, just on the offense.. 

        as far as the defense, we were filled with vets, THREE players with 10 years experience (Barton, Bowens, and Robaire) 

        • Anonymous

          Yeah I don’t know why Pork Chop didn’t step up. Thomas was probably fishing though. Seriously, some leaders are less outspoken than others, and as I understand it, Braylon, K2 and Rogers dominated that locker room. Barton, Bowens and Robaire had just gotten to town, too.

          Anyway, it’s really beside the point.

          • Anonymous

            yeah, i agree, not sure why these guys are crying about hazing.  just do your job Alex and Colt!   

            oh wait, i thought he was hand picked by Mangini because of his work ethic and intelligence?  Mack should know better not to rip on the guy who made him a 1st round selection.

      • jimkanicki

        stanford, berkeley, and berkeley.

        these guys aren’t petty doofuses.  could be that there are valid grievances behind their comments.

        • Anonymous

          Oh so they played football at decent schools, so it’s impossible for them to be petty and self-centered? Or even less likely? In my experience that cuts both ways, and one might think especially so with respect to professional football players.

  • Anonymous

    As a Texas alum and fan of the collegiate exploits of Colt McCoy, you might think that I would somehow try to defend the kid, but I can’t.   I don’t know if it’s because I read his book and came away feeling turned off after reading about all of his father’s hypocrisy and maneuvering.   I won’t argue that Mack Brown doesn’t coddle players because he does.  I doubt he’s the only one.  If you’re a star at UT, you are literally on top of the football world as far as the state of Texas goes.  If you’re a QB, it’s even higher.  Mack does a very good job of keeping things tight-lipped in the program and he controls the negative news.   I don’t see the same type of drop off with Texas defensive players in the NFL that I do with offensive guys but that’s probably my perception.

    I read Michael Silver’s article and came away more troubled than before.  Why would anyone agree to be interviewed for this?  What is the motivation behind this story?  Why would Colt throw this out there?  What good would come of it?   Well, the carefully polished image of Colt McCoy is slowly unraveling for this Texas fan.  He’s starting to throw people under the bus.  That’s very unlike the God-fearing, measured Colt McCoy that was a collegiate star.  Could Colt really be so stupid as to burn a bridge like that?  He will be in search of a job at some point and burning bridges, especially in a late and unsolicited way is such bad form.

    Then it hit me…

    Perhaps the “unnamed Browns sources” are really Holmgren and his crew.  Maybe they’re tired of reading how they made a move with the coaching staff and this crew will likely finish no better (5-11 if they get swept by Baltimore and Pittsburgh) or perhaps even worse (4-12 if they lose to Arizona too).   Maybe they’re trying to cast negative light on Daboll and Mangini so as to divert our attention.

    Just my .02.  I could be wrong.

    • Anonymous

      Rod-o,
      Do we know each  other?
      Please pardon my arrogance, I was there for a long time Double Major and I came back after med school.
      I had the; (please pardon my arrogance again), freakish lab readings.  leg extensions, Vo2, 100 meters and long jump.
      Did you work with any of the researchers at Belmont?
      Please tell me you noticed their lack of empirical integrity.
      I went from 270lbs of silver backed gorilla, to 180 lbs of skinless cyclist while I was there.
      A year with almost no protein was tough.

      • Anonymous

        No, I didnt do any research at Belmont. Where did you go to med school?

  • Ess Eh

    Hilarious, I had no idea Colt went from school to school to play with the top athletes.  So instead of him making his teammates better, he needed to have his teammates make him look good.  Sounds like a leader to me.

  • Anonymous

    so i super loved all of that.

    maybe colt should’ve played some high school girls volleyball [like i did] – there was lots of screaming at players (and some were singled out for lots more screaming than others – pretty much he screamed the most at the ones he thought should be playing the best).  nobody cried; there were no right-ups in the school paper (although sure we hated on our coach amongst ourselves sometimes); we won lots of games. (which doesn’t mean you have to be screamy to win – but it means that screaminess certainly doesn’t preclude winning, and in some cases it actually does work as a motivator  (in the “i’ll show that a*shole what i can do” sort of way and also in the “let’s bond as a team around the fact that we all have to deal with this a*shole” sort of way). look – i’m not saying screaming is the healthiest or best way to get there, but it can be an effective way, that’s all). 

    btw if you read this out of context, what would you think: “He set it up so I could come down there for a couple of days, and he picked me up from the airport in his Ford truck, wearing his Wranglers.”  yep.  that’s our starting qb.  talking about another qb (in the yahoo article).  #bromance.

    *which isn’t to say that colt wasn’t 100% accurate – favre really does make quite an impression in those wranglers. 

    • Zulads4

      I see some Farve in Colt.  Particularly those rolling-out-throw-into-triple-coverage-off-my-back-foot-while-getting-hit type plays.  Plus they are both gamers, and play for the love of the game and all that.

      • Anonymous

        lol.  

    • Anonymous

      p_4,
      We were meant for each other….   I love volleyball women!

      I always chased the Volleyball women at UT.  (Especially one who was engaged to a very famous person.  I am an idiot.)
      I was in a “pick-up” b-ball group with the worst of the screaming V-Ball coaches and since he yelled at my sweetie I took the opportunity to pound my hip into his head on a rebound.  I told him why I did it as he flopped around on the ground.   (I  protect my friends like I protect my dogs.)
      Funny story, well at least for me.   I dated a 6’3″ volleyball superstar at UT, on our first date we went for a walk to a very secluded, romantic, bottomless spring.  (I am only 6’2″.)
      As we walked I reached out for her hand and I felt like I was 6 years old holding my dad’s hand.
      Even though she was only about an inch taller, her hands were twice as big as my hands.
      We kicked off our shoes, (and everything else of course), before we dove in.
      She wore a woman’s size 13 and I wore a men’s 8 and a half.
      We laughed about her respective size advantage. 
      I should have married that girl.
      Rod-o is most assuredly well aware of who I am writing about.

      • Anonymous

        aww – i like this story. the best part is when you make her laugh about her big hands (i bet you thought the best part was when you beat up the screamer* – but that’s the part that proves my point about screaming being good for team building (you rally around each other because you all hate the screamer so much and want to protect each other from him)). the part i don’t understand is how you can be that tall and only be a size 8 1/2.
        oh – and a bottomless spring sounds sort of scary – are you sure it was romantic? that might be why the whole thing didn’t work out :/

        *ok wait i take that back – i bet you thought the best part was the kicking “everything else off” part, but this is a G rated site and i didn’t want to bring to frownie’s attention that you were once again breaking his rules.

        • Anonymous

           COOL IT

        • Anonymous

          No, violence is always the wrong recourse.  I have had to resort to it on occasion, but I would prefer a world with people who thought first and hit last.
          The woman in question stayed at UT to get her MBA then her PhD.
          Smart girls are always far above the unwashed masses.
          Sorry to be such a wussy, but women with power, confidence and drive are amazingly alluring.

          • Anonymous

            She is with a really famous guy now.

          • Anonymous

            nothing could be less wussy. also lol i’m watching mr. mom right now (halftime of the w.va. game) so that might be influencing me. hahaha the big race at the boss’s house is an oft overlooked great sporting moment in movie history.

          • Anonymous

            Is ur hubby Mr mom.
            I am Mr. Mom and a Maury Povich rerun at the same time.
            Love the kid, no clue about daddy.

            Sent from T-Mobile G2 with Google

        • Wladdie

          lol, I suffer from small feet as well, I am 6′ or 6’1″ and just bought a pair of sizes 9′s today.

          • Anonymous

            Sorry sorry I really didn’t mean to imply small feet are so bad – just interesting thay they can go along with such a tall body, is all. I’m sure both you and acto wear it well, and it makes me glad you saw the lol in the situation too.

          • Anonymous

            Coaches always said that I would not be able to play on wet or ice filled fields because of my 8.5′s.
            However, that is where I excelled.
            I grew up in the tundra of Cleveland Ohio, I knew what to do.
            (Shoe size does not matter, it is more important to take small steps, keep your feet narrow underneath you at all times and just knock the receivers on their asses at the snap.)
            Crazy small hands too, I almost always had to use two hands to dunk.
            And, a new football was easy to catch, but I could not throw it unless it was scuffed a bit.

      • Anonymous

        COOL IT

    • Anonymous

      COOL IT

      • Anonymous

        I love you too Bupa!

  • Zulads4

    For a Texas guy, Colt sure is not built Ford tough when it comes to ridicule.  It is pretty clear that Daboll was trying to create some adversity and motivation for a guy who had things basically handed to him (the Browns QB spot included).  It is also pretty clear that such adversity and motivation could be a good thing for a guy low on physical attributes. 

    It is becoming pretty obvious (at least to me) that Shurmur and this FO is comfortable with letting McCoy start the season next year.  The main reason for this is time.  Like it or not, it takes about three years to develop a WCO QB (the best examples are Rodgers and Farve).  That’s why I am pretty sure they are going to go hard at Matt Flynn.  It just makes too much sense.  He has sat behind the best QB in the league and learned an offense at least comparable to ours.  This also opens up our draft picks to fill other holes (a wr with some speed please).  In addition, you have healthy competition for Colt, which hopefully he can handle.     

    Through the last 3 games there has been a change in control of the offense.  It seems as though McCoy has a bit more control over what happens at the line of scrimmage and before the snap.  I would have been interesting to see what the play was on the 3rd down in which Colt got blown up before he took a step back (I believe in the 3rd quarter).  There was a lot of chatter at the line of scrimmage, and I wanted to see if Colt could recognize (as everyone did) that the Bengals were bringing the house.  It will be interesting if they can continue the limited success they have had over the last two weeks against much stiffer opposition. 

    PS – sorry to go off on a tangent, just had a bunch of stuff on the mind.

    • Anonymous

      yeah, i’m looking forward to seeing how we do against the Ravens as well.  they are ranked in Top 3 in most power rankings.  thought getting Hillis back was a big boost and we hung tough against a consensus Top 13 team in the Bengals..  

  • http://twitter.com/cnp3 Chris P.

    please.

    i got yelled at playing sports in high school.  i got called a disappointment to god in math class.  i got screamed at from 4 inches away calling me *explicitave* when preparing to be on academic challenge for christ sakes, although no yelling by an ordinary alcoholic teahcer can prepare you for the vapor scent that eminates from don webster on that stage.

    the idea that this hurt colt’s feelings or retarded his development or whatever is the kind of thing you whine about in middle school cross country or 8 year old little league or something at that level of importance. 

    being unable to “take it like a man” by the time you are in your early/mid 20′s and a professional athlete is laughable. 

    the thing that strikes me most though about this whole mccoy saga is this – this is the kind of stuff that comes out after you retire, or in the waning years of your career – this isn’t what you talk about 16 games or so into your career. 

    • Anonymous

      >>the idea that this hurt colt’s feelings or retarded his development or whatever is the kind of thing you whine about in middle school cross country or 8 year old little league or something at that level of importance. <<

      indeed, all you have to do is look at the records in this respect (for fairness' sake we can take a snapshot of games since EM/BD's time with Colt was truncated), do we have anyone who will put up the record(s), wnning percentages with Colt as a starter under both coaches?

  • jimkanicki

    Somebody asked him about what happened and he answered.  It doesn’t appear that he piled on.  He seemed to provide a factual accounting of how he was treated.  He’s got good right to be pissed but he doesn’t come off as petty in the article (my opinion).

    This is the shit where Mangini lost me.  ’Ok rookies, the buses are outside for the 10 hour out, 10 hour back bus ride to my football camp.  Voluntary of course.’  Character building.  ’Ok we’re all one team and want everyone to pull together.  Oh and Colt, no weekly game plan for you.’  Team building.  And now revealed constant douche-baggery of the OC toward the QB countenanced by the head coach.  Professionalism.

    “Guys could hear him yelling, and they’d say, ‘Just take it off.’ People said to me, ‘Man, I ain’t never seen anything like that. Just hang in there.’”
    If the goal was to crap on Colt, the result was that the entire team viewed their OC as a DB.  Goal = fail.  How is that effective coaching or management?  What is the point?  Im sorry if Daboll was paddled as a child but if he wants to manage men he needs to rise above it.  

    All the professionalism Mangini and Daboll brought to mastery of their craft with impressive growth through the ranks and unquestioned work-ethic in game planning brought an opportunity to gain the respect of grown men.  Lead by example.  Hard work and smart prep delivers huge upset wins over NE and NO.  

    Wins overcome management problems for awhile.  You can be a jack-ass sales manager but if everyone is hitting their number all is well.  Two down quarters though and things spiral out of control because there is no respected authority in whom the team can trust.  In this discussion, the Jax game applies.

    You may look at McCoy and Fujita and Mack and see football players but they’re also graduates of Austin and Berkeley.  They’ve worked and achieved to where they’re in the top 0.1% of their trade.  Have they not earned an expectation of some respect for their accomplishments?  Did Daboll/Mangini think the players would go home and bite their pillows?  Unlikely.  More likely, they went out together after practice and talked about what dicks they have for coaches.

    Bad management.

    Pity too because that seems like the easiest part of the job.  All you have to do is treat your people how you’d expect to be treated.

    • http://twitter.com/cpmack Chris M

      Oh, here we go with the bus ride again. Maybe next time, Mangini will wise up and transport the 700+ underprivileged kids and 200+ volunteers to the dozen or so rookies instead. That would certainly be a more productive use of resources.

      Colt wasn’t supposed to play at all, and if he was going to it would have been a huge surprise. No team preps their 3rd string quarterback to play every week. There isn’t enough time in practice to get it done.

      Kanicki, we get along just fine. I think this is a bit over the top though. Especially when we see how good the offense is when Shurmur promptly burps McCoy after every meal.

      • jimkanicki

        lol.. i know, i know.  and i didnt really need to post on this.  but it’s always bothered me.  if i had to guess, holmgren’s talk about wanting someone on the same page had more to do with ‘same management style’ than it ever did with ‘WCO practitioner.’

        • http://twitter.com/cpmack Chris M

          And his talk about “wanting to win right now ” had more to do with “winning the same amount or fewer games but doing it my way”.

          • jimkanicki

            that was revealed as jive when heckert sat on his cap space during free agency.

      • Anonymous

        >>use of resources>>

        The problem is treating people as wholly owned assets. It’s also counterproductive from the point of view of moral education to tell people how and where they have to serve the community and which communities they have to serve. If some kind of service was mandatory with Mangini’s pet cause one option on how to fulfill it, that would be one thing. A good thing. But the bus ride is emblematic of the darker side of mangini’s management style.  You should be able to see the problem with this even if you think it’s overblown.

        >>>we see how good the offense is when Shurmur promptly burps McCoy after every meal.>>>

        Well put.

        • http://twitter.com/cpmack Chris M

          We may have gone over this a different time, so I’ll keep it short. Bus rides aren’t inherently evil things. If someone has to decide between the guy who will take a long ass bus ride to help some poor kids out, and the guy who won’t, then the choice is easy.

          The players were not shackled to each other and loaded on to prison buses with shotguns pointed at them. They were free to come and go as they pleased.

          Don’t take the ride then bitch about it. Just stand up, be a man, and outright refuse to do it.

      • Anonymous

        Did anyone mention that Mangini rode the bus back with them?  Did anyone mention that the players had a blast once they saw the kids’ faces?

        Cry me a river…

    • Anonymous

      You make some fine points here but I highly doubt they’re as transferable to this situation as you suggest. And none of it explains why these guys would talk about this stuff to the press, which is what’s especially bothersome.

      I think the war/military metaphor applies much more than the “sales
      force” comparison you apply here, as much as I’m sure the millionaires
      club (and their union rep members) might like it to be different. Nobody’s saying that the old regime “mistreated” Fujita and Mack. It’s about McCoy, who’s a very specific case. You’re talking about men and a boy here, and one who was daddied into the league in a, um, very special way.

      And again, agree to disagree that it’s impossible or even less likely that a football player could be petty or self centered just because he played for a respected academic institution.

      What Chris said on the bus ride.

      And why the hell are these guys talking to reporters about this, again?

      • Anonymous

        >>>And none of it explains why these guys would talk about this stuff to the press, which is what’s especially bothersome>>>

        I don’t disagree with that. I don’t disagree with it when Cribbs does it either.

        >>>Nobody’s saying that the old regime “mistreated” Fujita and Mack.>>>

        Actually I remember mack very gently suggesting exactly that, and getting called a big baby for it on the collection of electrons you manage here. Fujita’s been a bit ambiguous too. I think you can read between the lines on whether or not those guys appreciated Mangini’s management style as much as you do. Different strokes for different folks.

        • Anonymous

          As noted re: Cribbs, it’s less disturbing when somebody wants to talk about the guys who are still here and what’s going on right now than when they talk about last year and the guys who are long gone.

          I suppose that Daboll’s alleged mistreatment of McCoy and Mack’s distaste for the “whole-team” film sessions are different enough issues but neither of the complainers come off well.  

          • Anonymous

            >>>As noted re: Cribbs, it’s less disturbing when somebody wants to talk
            about the guys who are still here and what’s going on right now than
            when they talk about last year and the guys who are long gone. >>>

            Less disturbing to the team, or the moral sensibilities of the fans like you and me? I still like the way JC puts it out there on the field, but his attempts to go over management’s head using his popularity, trying to parley it into dollars and power is starting to look corrosive to me.

            >>>neither of the complainers come off well.>>>

            True.

      • Anonymous

        >>>And none of it explains why these guys would talk about this stuff to the press, which is what’s especially bothersome>>>

        I don’t disagree with that. I don’t disagree with it when Cribbs does it either.

        >>>Nobody’s saying that the old regime “mistreated” Fujita and Mack.>>>

        Actually I remember mack very gently suggesting exactly that, and getting called a big baby for it on the collection of electrons you manage here. Fujita’s been a bit ambiguous too. I think you can read between the lines on whether or not those guys appreciated Mangini’s management style as much as you do. Different strokes for different folks.

  • Brian Sipe

    Funny… Colt never looked better this year than last….  and if you think Heckart is any good then there is more talent this year than last on the team

    Holmgren had them re-run the strory… the same one ran in week 2

    • Anonymous

      “if you think Heckart is any good then there is more talent this year than last on the team” – yes, they added talent on defense.  not much addition on offense except Greg Little and getting Hardesty back.  but losing Peyton, Steinbach, and B.Jax and having a banged up MoMass and Watson trumps all of that, so no, I don’t agree that the offense is not more talented than last year.  

      • Anonymous

        1) Second year McCoy > revolving door of injured Delhomme/Seneca/rookie McCoy at varying degrees of health

        2) Pashos > St. Clair

        3) Second year Lauvao > First year Lauvao

        4) Greg Little > No Greg Little

        5) Another year of experience for everybody who stayed.

        Massaquoi missed plenty of time to injury last year, too, and so did Cribbs. BJax wasn’t even here, neither was Hardesty.

        So it’s really just Hillis and Steinbach against all the above, though Womack/Yates was probably better than Pinkston. 

        • Anonymous

          rookie McCoy surprised a lot of people last year, guys tend to surprise when there’s no expectations and even less game footage for the opposing teams.   this year it’s a different story and he doesn’t have the same running attack and OL as he had for most of last year.  

          Hillis is a BEAST!  i think the offense as a whole has much more confidence with him back there picking up 5-6 on 1st downs.   he totally helped us last week and it was great to have him back.  
          and yes, the offensive line was MUCH better last year.  but they have improved the 2nd half of the season, let’s see if they can keep it up.. Lauvao?  he barely played last season my friend, never recovered from his injury, got spot duty, only 1 start..  

          • Anonymous

            I have to say, I don’t think the offensive personnel is any better this year on the whole, mostly because of how little Hillis has played. Hillis is really the only plus player on the entire offense outside of Mack and Thomas.

          • Anonymous

            exactamundo

    • Anonymous

      “if you think Heckart is any good then there is more talent this year than last on the team” – yes, they added talent on defense.  not much addition on offense except Greg Little and getting Hardesty back.  but losing Peyton, Steinbach, and B.Jax and having a banged up MoMass and Watson trumps all of that, so no, I don’t agree that the offense is not more talented than last year.  

  • Anonymous

    Mike Velton was the best football coach I ever had.  I can remember practicing freshman year, and all you would see (and hear) across the field at the varsity practice was this hulking figure of a man ripping every one  of his players a new a#$hole every single drill.  A couple other players and I would talk about how we would quit if he were our coach the next year.  Sophomore year comes around and Velton ends up being my positions coach for both offense and defense.  When I f’d up, he let me know about it…always at the top of his lungs.  When I did a good job he let me know…also at the top of his lungs.  He had a passion for the game that he wanted to instill in his players.  He was never afraid to give me a pat on the back or a kick in the ass, depending on which I needed more at the time, but he almost always did it at full volume.  I didn’t take me long to admire him for it, and I still look back on his coaching as the best I had ever received at any level.

    • Anonymous

      NFL coaching is a little different than Friday Night Lights, more like Any Given Sunday..  

      • Anonymous

        1. Any Given Sunday was a horrible movie…except for the Willie Beaman rap.
        2. My point was more along the lines of, just because a coach is screaming at a player doesn’t necessarily mean he is trying to rattle, demean, or otherwise ruin that player.
        3. Varsity Blues!!!

        • Anonymous

          1.   My name is Willie… Willie Beamen,
          I keep the ladies… cream-in’,
          And all my fans… are screa-min’
          You gon’ defeat me? You drea-min’.

          2.  I agree, but these guys are supposed to be pros, yelling and screaming is more appropos for college and especially high school.  Daboll is like the guy who got hazed on the most during pledging and then as soon as he gets in he’s the biggest hazer on the planet.  Classic fatboy syndrome.  

          3.  The Game Plan??  

          • Anonymous

            You got the “like” for the Beamen lyrics. Never saw “The Game Plan” but there is no way that it is better than “The Little Giants.”

  • Anonymous

    colt is not a franchise QB and will only be a starter for bad/mediocre teams. 

    all i now am concerned with is whether Matt Barkley, Landry Jones and Robert Griffith go pro or go back to college.  if they all enter the draft, we can probably even wait to get  a QB w/ the ATL first rounder.  

    • Ess Eh

      yeah, that is going to be the interesting part.  right now the teams ahead of us that I could see taking a QB are:

      1. Colts
      6. Dolphins
      7. Redskins
      11. Seahawks.
      12. Browns’ pick

      I think all 4 QBs have legit shots to be stars in the NFL.

      • Anonymous

        can you believe a team as horrible as ours is almost middle of the pack draft-wise? Isn’t it amazing we seem to get high picks in weak drafts and lower pick in stud ones? Does our weaker schedule coincide like this to hint at a pattern? Ever notice we always loose our ‘coveted’ pick a few choices before ours to another team and end up doing something relatively dumb with it? Draft day is always around my birthday and I never get what I want …. :(

        • Ess Eh

          completely agree… I had total man crushes on Eric Berry and AJ Green in the last two drafts and both were taken before the Browns picks. argh!

          • Anonymous

            Eric Berry blew out his ACL this year, that sounds like someone who the Browns would’ve ended up getting.

  • zarathustra

    WVU -1.5 over South Florida***

    Last week was not the first time that these guys burned me,
    but I feel confident about them tonight. 
    Sure Holgorsen looks like a guy who spends a lot of time at the dog
    track but that doesn’t mean he might not be one of the smartest guys roaming the college sidelines. 
    He’s an offensive innovator with weapons, but that is not the reason to
    like the ‘neers tonight.  The first half
    last week was not pretty against a good Pitt defense, so you know what he did?  He eschewed much of his trademarked offensive
    philosophy and challenged his offensive line to get physical in the running
    game and rely on his defense to play up to their talent level.   And it
    worked. To not be dogmatic in your philosophy and accept the world as it is and
    not how you would like it be is the mark of a great mind. Moreover, if not for
    a couple unfortunate fumbled punts in their own territory the Mountaineers
    would have covered last week. 

    South Florida is at home and playing for a bowl berth, but I
    have to believe a disappointing season that has seen some tough losses the last
    couple weeks has taken its toll and they won’t be able to handle the better
    team tonight. 

  • toddandtheporpi

    Not to defend anyone in all of this but if screaming were necessary and important to winning wouldn’t Notre Dame be 12-0?  Brian Kelly looks like he might swallow his players whole at times. 

    I couldn’t agree more with frowns on his point about strange and this article.  Why was it written?  Seems like someone with an axe to grind.  I believe I will dismiss everything in the article unless a similar article comes out about the well coiffed Matt Moore next year.

  • Anonymous

    oh hey btw kanicki give me w.va. -1.5 south florida tonight, ok?  thx.

  • Anonymous

    I will take WVU tonight as well.  Rest to follow…

  • jimkanicki

    Seahawks +3 for me tonite.

  • kjn

    “I guess he kind of ran the wrong route; how the hell should he know what the fullback was supposed to run? ”

    Is this a serious question? How the hell should the quarterback know what route a receiver is supposed to run? Unnamed source, you are hilarious.

  • kjn

    Another point: if you were to tell me at the end of the Crennel regime that the new coaches would come in here and scream at our players 24/7, I would have been smiling from ear to ear. This anti-Mangini (and strangely now, Dabboll) revisionist history forgets a fundamental truth- the lunatics were running the asylum and somebody had to instill order.

    I’m sure more than a few starters thought to themselves: if this guy is being this crazy about the performance of the 3rd string QB, I better make sure I do my job correctly so as to not reap that whirlwind.

    ARGH! How does McCoy say this stuff? How does he give this interview?  How does Colt not say – yes, they were hard on me. I was a rookie QB in the NFL. They HAD to be hard on me. I’m better for it now.

    How can people still cheer this guy on as a leader and a classy dude?

    I’m down with the idea that the current regime promotes this type of stuff to distract from the current state of the team. Sure, we stink. But remember how gruff and unlikeable Mangini and Co. were?

    • Ess Eh

      excellent point.  wasn’t everybody in the city whining about how bad they wanted a coach that showed emotion? lol, the entire city wanted either Cowher or Gruden. are you telling me that neither of them ever screamed at a player? or regularly screamed at players?

      • Alexb

        best picture in the history of football is Bill Cowher gettin up in Greg Lloyds grill. I know i’m gonna take crap here for this but when Cowher was in Pgh I was actually a fan, not when they played the Browns mind you but I liked em. The very instant Bill Cowher wants to Coach football again the Browns need to throw the entire stadium at him.

      • Alexb

        best picture in the history of football is Bill Cowher gettin up in Greg Lloyds grill. I know i’m gonna take crap here for this but when Cowher was in Pgh I was actually a fan, not when they played the Browns mind you but I liked em. The very instant Bill Cowher wants to Coach football again the Browns need to throw the entire stadium at him.

  • Dood

    gimme some of that seahawk cheddar.  of the non-essay variety!

    • jimkanicki

      got it!

  • jimkanicki

    i’m reading MKC’s piece on josh cribbs’ effective no comment.  headline blares ‘Josh Cribbs “won’t answer” how he feels about his role.‘ she cites the same stats grossi used in his write-up about the number of greg little targets as proof point of implied cribbs neglect and the germ of a controversy or dissension is nourished.  i can easily predict that cleveland sports radio will pick up on this non-story and those of you in NEO will be bludgeoned with this nonsense.  this silly non-story will clog your ears from 6am to 7pm on two radio stations tomorrow.

    i realize that i hammer the PD’s coverage as lacking insight on a regular basis.  it gets old for me too.  but think of it:  they have grossi, mkc, pluto, manoloff, shaw, livingston plus wright, yarborough, labbe, and marona(?) covering the browns.  that’s nine or ten full time employees whose main job this time of year is to deliver information about our football team. by dint of their monopoly, they drive the conversation.  i don’t have a wide frame of reference, but it is fair.  and i’m unaware of any community so poorly serviced by their primary media source.

    silver/yahoo got this colt interview.  seattle radio got a holmgren interview.  hell, espn/wickersham got five days with mangini.  but ten full-time employees give us a succession of hillis’ strep throat, cribbs holding his tongue, and suggestions without data* that the WRs suck.  i remind you that less than two weeks after shurmur’s two FG performance in their playoff game, MKC produced a succession of reports extolling his ‘development’ of sam bradford with no mention of the rams’ league-worst yards per passing attempt.

    but my reason for writing this was actually NOT to rag on the PD.  it’s an honest to goodness and sincere thank you to frowns for providing this much-needed community service. 

    frowns covered the same story two days ago and somehow the focus didn’t get twisted into ‘Josh Cribbs, malcontent.’  it was Josh Cribbs, competitor and just as pissed as you are.’  i think frowns gets it right.  i’m moderately outraged that the PD seemingly deliberately gets it wrong.  

    good god.  yesterday rod showed how the 51 yd green pass in cincy was the same defense as the 57 yd pick route vs tennessee.  just great stuff.

    ok, that’ll do.  thanks for listening.

    *i’m way tired of hearing of about lack of separation.  jerry rice was slower than momass.  are they not breaking their cuts?  are DBs laying back to take away deep routes?  are they dogging it?  just what exactly is the reason these guys suck and why exactly do you think julio jones would be significantly different in this offense?

    • Anonymous

      Well said, Kanicki. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned in mere months of Frowns frequenting, as opposed to years of reading the PD and watching the local news stations.

  • han

    colt mccoy is an amazing player not my fave though. your all so jealouse it aint even funny!! my fave is andy dalton of the cincinnati bengals! hes so cute!

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