“The best opportunity in the league right now”

Tell us more about appeasing impatient fans, guy who wanted Mangini gone after four games.

Those many painful frustrating losses (four, actually) that were Brett Favre’s fault must have been really hard for you to endure. Anyway, glad the record is clear re: impatient fans.

Yeah, god, I forgot. It’s amazing that the Jets didn’t win the Super Bowl in 2007.*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_Pennington#2007

And of course I’ll never stop being shocked that Pennington/Coles/Cotchery/Washington got blown out by the 2006 Pats.

Jets and Browns fan is so perfect for you, and more good evidence as to why following sports can be so interesting and uplifting.

*As much as it’s mostly beside the point, look at this roster:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_New_York_Jets_season#Roster

It was the year of Curtis Martin’s “surprise retirement,” Harris and Revis were rookies, and Vilma missed more than half the season.

Normally, Biki, you make good points that are worth the time to read and ponder…BUT, perhaps you’re into the lettuce early or something, but saying that he “wasn’t able to recruit a big named coach” nearly made me choke! He was unable because he didn’t TRY! He and Bob LaMonte shared a couple umbrella drinks while Holgrum decided to give Ol’ Uncle Fritzy’s nephew a job; a guy that 100% of other NFL front offices (even the Raiders) would never have considered for said job. There’s having an edge in filling a high-profile position with the hot candidate that everybody would want because you have a relationship with the guy (like having, say, Nick Saban’s boyhood friend already in the organization), and then there’s bald-faced, rank nepotism. Shurmur’s hire is an example of #2 (pun intended).

I agree with most of the rest of what you said, but Big Mike’s “hiring practices” were shameful and if his strategy bears fruit, it will mainly be because Heckert infused the roster with a decent amount of NFL-caliber talent on the field.

I’d like to believe that, I really would, but I just don’t – sure, Gruden might not have wanted it, but all the successful, and even some of the not-as-successful, coaches believe that their way can get it done, and the piles of cash make it easier to take the chance. The kind of Type A(hole) Personality that knows they can whip this rag-tag bunch of chumps into winners!

The real problem, though, is that the hiring pool should never be limited to just one agent’s clients; that’s short-sighted and lazy, no matter how you cut it. The successful teams either land a Tier I candidate who they courted as their first choice, or they beat the bushes looking for the guy who looks like he has what it takes to become that kind of head coach. Shurmur was neither of these things.

Ok, let’s assume that they talked to, i.e., called on the phone, Cowher and Gruden, and they are either just not interested or waiting for the second dump truck full of cash to be sent their way. If I remember correctly, the remaining “candidates” consisted of Shurmur and the Rooney Rule interviewee – there may have been one other actual interview, I don’t recall for sure. I don’t need wiretaps or insider sources to know that that is NOT a path to a successful hiring. All I have to do is look around the league at the process other teams have gone through in searching for their next coach. [I mean the teams who have gone on to win with their new coach, not, say, the Lions and Crazy Jim Schwartz].

Let’s also dispense with the “attractiveness” argument – most teams looking for a coach are coming off a poor season, or string of poor seasons, or some other calamity. Petrino leaves the Falcons in the lurch? Why, we find Mike Smith! Wikipedia informs me that he, like Shurmur, was a first-time HC, but unlike Shurmur, he had been successful as a position coach, then a coordinator. Cowher retires? Let’s go get Mike Tomlin from the Vikings, again a successful coordinator – and those usually smelly, insane troglodytes in Pittstain (wait, that’s a description of the fans, not the organization) resisted the nepotistic urges to go with the in-house name guys. Brian Billick’s run comes to an end? Let’s cast a wider net after our first choice (Jason Garrett) turns us down, and go get John Harbaugh, someone with an excellent reputation around the league as a guy who really understands the game, and yet another first-time HC with plenty of successful position coaching to his credit. Seattle Seahawks lured their first choice, Pete Carroll back to the NFL, though the looming NCAA sanctions may have played no small part in that; he had been less than successful previously in the NFL, but he’s smart and driven enough to make the best with his opportunity in Seattle so far, this time around. Mike Singletary goes insane? Go get Jim Harbaugh who, again according to Wikipedia, took over a team “expected to struggle in what was anticipated to be a rebuilding season, with a new scheme and many new players as well as shortened summer practices due to the lockout”… sound familiar? Every one of those situations was different, some more dumpster fire-ish than others (I recall that the 49er’s were widely considered a poorly managed franchise at the time), but they did not settle for a guy no one else wanted. And every one of those guys but Carroll was a first-time NFL Head Coach. With Lerner as the owner, a systemic malaise set in lacking accountability and oversight from the guy signing the checks. I fully expect Haslam and Banner to go all out to find a coach that will “eat lightning and crap thunder”! Will the guy win? Will his style be effective? That’s all in the future. What won’t happen is Shurmur-style cronyism, and I, for one, am glad.

Yes, the roster blew. But that’s the challenge to the young, hungry (and let’s not forget, successful) coordinator type. The “search”, after the obligatory calls to Cowher and Gruden, consisted of a below-average coordinator (who had only one year as OC, right?), and a sham Rooney Rule invite, and that’s my issue. The guys that will take on the challenge of that roster were out there back then, and the Browns Front Office made absolutely zero effort to find them. A guy like Gruden From 1997 (i.e., young, hungry Coordinator Dude) had to at least be interviewed, and he wasn’t.

Your counterpoint actually works right into my arguments: 1) the NFL coaching world does not revolve around the clients of Bob LaMonte, Super-Agent, but the Browns “search” did, and, 2) show me where any other NFL team had interest in Shurmur as HC (or even OC?), and I’ll reconsider, but until then that is a fairly ringing indictment of the process.

As an aside, let’s see who has interest in Shurmur now.

I’m not missing that at all, I’m merely saying that the most aggressive coaches believe they can overcome the odds – the next guy who gets the job done in Cleveland will be hailed as a hero. Why do top CEO’s in the corporate world take jobs to lead struggling companies? Because they believe they will turn them around. Like I said before, a team needing a coach has been getting sub-standard results on the field, whatever the condition of the roster. Now, I will concede that the Browns now have more to start with than they did last time. But if they had done it right last time, instead of the nepotistic way, they wouldn’t be looking now.

In the interest of being politely argumentative, I am not in any way “missing your point”, I simply contest its validity. There were 8 new coaches (25% of the league) starting the 2011 season, including Shurmur. The other openings were:

Carolina
Denver
San Francisco
Minnesota
Oakland
Dallas
Tennessee

First off, discount TN because they fired Jeff Fischer late, after all the other jobs had been filled. Then, remember that Garrett was Jerrah’s hand-picked successor, I think they interviewed someone to satisfy the Rooney Rule, but that job was never going anywhere else. So that leaves 6 true openings, counting the Browns, post-2010.

The Panthers were coming a horrible 2-14 season, looking at the #1 pick in the draft. They had no QB worth a turd and very few playmakers on offense (remember the Browns beat the Jimmy Claussen-led team that year). Denver gave up on the Josh McDaniels experiment and were still a year off from the QB Savior in Peyton Manning, some playmakers on both offense and defense, but looking for a respected leader. Fox (another LaMonte client, and the only NFL “retread” to be hired for one of these openings), chose to go to Denver, and yes, they had more than the Browns in terms of talent, but still needed another draft or two to fill it out. Minnesota had offensive talent but an aging, erratic defense and a question mark at QB. San Francisco was the most talented of this group, and needed a strong, innovative coach to lead them (and let’s not forget that the fanbase, and leadership, were this close to running Alex Smith out of town). Then Oakland – dumpster fire that burns to this day. Really, they are the only one on this list where your “attractiveness” argument makes sense – in 2011 Corpse Al Davis was still in charge and NOBODY wanted that job, they once again filled it from within their own ranks (even though they were actually 8-8 that previous season, they were still a mess).

So, remove Dallas, Tennessee, and Oakland (true dumpster fire), the remaining 5 teams all had questions at QB, and the talent on the field went from All-Pro (SF) to pretty terrible (Carolina, based on record [remember, this is pre-Cam Newton]). Of the eventual coaches selected to lead those 5 teams (and even including Dallas), only one had never been interviewed/seriously considered previously as a head coach and/or had head coaching experience at either the major college or NFL level and/or a long-term track record of success at the coordinator level. Guess which one?

And again, I return to one of my main points: not at least looking at other candidates with better credentials was a major sin that in part cost Holmie his job. Would Harbaugh have come to Cleveland and did John Fox not want to deal with the heavier rebuild in Cleveland vs. Denver? Maybe, maybe not. But don’t tell me that there’s not a young, up-and-coming coordinator out there who’s Bellichick part II, a guy who will work 23 hours a day, and curse that one hour he has to nap on the couch in his office, to make the team I grew up rooting for a winner! That type of guy would go just about anywhere (except Oakland), and the money is secondary to their psychopathic obsession with winning football games. The majority of teams on this list had major holes to fill on their rosters, and major questions to answer, and were at least one draft/Free Agency from addressing those needs. I charge Holgrum with Contempt of the Fans, Your Honor, for doing the minimum necessary to find a new coach, relying too heavily on Bob LaMonte, and not broadening the search to find The Guy. Did he maliciously say, “Let’s screw the fans and just give the job to Pat”? No. But given the way he went about the process, he might as well have. He didn’t set out to do a bad job, but the results say he did, indeed, stink at it.

Sorry, I veered off course during my rant. I meant to also mention that attractiveness of the roster is at least somewhat offset by the fact that, at any one time, of the 32 HC jobs, only 20-25% come open, and they are highly coveted and sought after. Wooh, didn’t mean to go so long…I’m done.

actually, Oakland didn’t have an opening.
so that leaves the Browns as the clear WORST option by at least 10 miles. at least Carolina had Cam Newton waiting in the wings, and it’s not like they got this “up and coming young coordinator” either. I’m actually surprised Ron Rivera made it past Black Monday.

so who is this young up and coming coordinator you keep referring to? i just don’t see that there was one out there 2 offseasons ago, and if there was, they had no interest whatsoever in coming into a dumpster fire of a roster.

Oakland hired a new coach this past offseason, and he may even be worse than Pat Shurmur.

as far as CAR, they had the #1 pick, which was absolutely going to be Cam Newton. and what hire did they make?? you think they are happy with Ron Rivera down there?? is he this young up and coming coordinator you’re looking for???

and who said about having the answers? but surely you can name some examples??

bottom line, I’m not sure there was a worse HC position opening in recent NFL history, including maybe the 99 expansion team that was worse than the 2011 Browns position, other than of course any Oakland Raider position in the past 10 years, but other than that I doubt you could name one.

Let’s look at a list of teams that have had at least 3 coaches from the 2006 season to now:

Dallas – Parcells, Phillips, Garrett
Miami – Saban, Cameron, Sparano, Philbin
Falcons – Mora, Petrino, Smith
Raiders – Shell, Kiffin…others
Redskins – Gibbs, Zorn, Shanahan
Broncos – Shanahan, McDaniels, Fox
49ers – Nolan, Singletary, Harbaugh
Bucs – Gruden, Morris, Schiano
Lions – Jauron, Marinelli 0-16, Schwartz
Seahawks – Holmgren, Mora, Carroll
Chiefs – Edwards, Haley, Crennel
Colts – Dungy, Caldwell, Pagano/Arians
Rams – Linehan, Haslett, Spagnuolo, Fisher
Browns – Crennel, Mangini, Shurmur

Occasionally, there was a planned transition (Dungy – Caldwell), but for the most part these were firings. That’s 14 of 32 teams that have transitioned at least 3 times in the last 7 seasons, and I 100% GUARANTEE that some of those transitions included horrible rosters that gave coaches nightmares, whether from aging players, injuries, or terrible drafting. Somebody actually took the Lions job after 0-16, for Frowns’ sake!

Now, the depressing part is that most of those teams have had at least some success under one or more coaches since, while the Browns have been inept. But they, almost to a team, had to rebuild in some way, whether through drafts or FA; at the very least, it took a coach with a new vision to get the most of the guys that were there.

Biki, I generally respect your comments, and I’m not trying to rip you, but we all suffer from failing to take a wider look at the league in general and realize that other teams sometimes have it as bad (or worse) than we do…although maybe not as consistently! ) So, friends now? )
Note: I was surprised at just how many crappy coaches have floated through the NFL in just 7 seasons. That’s an ugly list of Suck.

Good points. Still, the Lions were 2-14, 6-10, 10-6, 4-12 since ’09. Rams – 1-15, 7-9, 2-14, 7-8-1. Plus, Jim Schwartz is actually clinically insane. So, just like with the Browns of the mid-2000′s, homegrown players can still blow, they just do so collectively instead of on different teams. Oh, and Bradford so far has been either terrible, or fragile, depending on the week. Although I must admit to not knowing how he did in 2012.

Finally circling back around to this one…you sure you want pictures of that? Once those pants come unhitched, you can’t unsee what comes next! There’s no “unremember” button for that image, bro!

LOL! Well done, well done.

Exactly,

Jim Brown.

I also liked almost noticing John Lowenstein’s Apathy Club. 7 Billion members and counting!