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Bleak outlook
The Browns must turn things around after eight seasons of stagnation
By Eric Edholm June 14, 2007
These are very dangerous times for the Browns, but aren’t they always?
There is the disturbing news that Kellen Winslow might not be ready for the start of camp. Braylon Edwards is still running second team in practice, meaning at least one person is not happy with him right now. Brady Quinn has gotten off to a touch of a rocky start in practice.
And not all of the pressure is coming from inside the Browns’ organization. The Indians have been in or near first place most of the season. The Cavaliers, for another day or two anyway, are in the NBA finals. Ohio State, a Cleveland hotbed, made the final game in both hoops and football.
The clock, meanwhile, has been ticking on the pro football team for years. Seven of the past eight seasons have ended with seven wins or fewer — in fact, usually fewer. Welcome to the nine-year plan, ladies and gentlemen.
The offseason was brimming with hope, even amid the team’s relative stagnation up to that point. Jamal Lewis has bellcow back potential. Eric Steinbach is an up-and-coming guard who could have signed a lot of different places. But he chose Cleveland, the team that boldly passed on a potential franchise quarterback with the third pick in the draft and then even more boldly traded back into the back end of the round to take the sliding Quinn.
These are the things we expect from the Cowboys, the Browns’ trading partner on the Quinn deal. We do not expect the Browns to make such dauntless strokes to improve their roster. Like the running game the past few years, the personnel moves have been of the two-yards-and-get-the-punt-team-ready variety.
Even following the disturbing news that LeCharles Bentley, one of the first big free agents to sign there in 2005, might need to sit out a second straight season, there was optimism that things were on the upswing. The signings of Bentley and Steinbach and the drafting of Joe Thomas, the new left tackle, with the third pick in the draft appeared to signal that the team was acting astutely.
They were building from the front lines on out, and that’s seldom a bad idea. But other free-agent pickups the past few years such as Willie McGinest and Joe Andruzzi have borne far less fruit, and draft picks Edwards and Charlie Frye have been a mixed bag at best to date. For now, we have to assume that Joe Thomas is Robert Gallery and that Steinbach will make as much tangible difference as Steve Hutchinson did last season in Minnesota, which is to say, not as much as expected.
That treatment is cruel and unfair, but these are the Browns we’re talking about. That’s par for the course.
Most believe Edwards will take his place in the starting lineup this season come Sept. 9, and he and his people have been working hard to repair his image both nationally and in Cleveland. He plays a big role in the development of an offense that has been vanilla for years and in a future quarterback in Quinn, who is at his best when he has a go-to receiver.
Crennel can’t afford any more shenanigans from Edwards or Winslow this season; he has his own job to worry about. The pressure is squarely on the man who arrived in Cleveland with the reputation of being a defensive sage, and yet the team’s yards allowed ranking actually has gone down — from 15th the year before he arrived to 16th in 2005 and 27th last season — since he got the job. That, naturally, must end this season for Crennel to keep said job.
One of these seasons, something grand will happen to these Browns, much like the Indians’ rise from the ashes or the Cavs’ ascension in the playoffs. But it’s going to take some special players to do so. Surely, baseball and basketball are far more individual sports where certain players can carry a team on their backs for weeks at a time. In football, that rarely happens without a good nucleus, but it couldn’t hurt for the Browns to get a LeBron James or a Grady Sizemore to build around.
That guy might be Quinn. Heck, it might be Edwards of Winslow, or even Thomas. It could be Kamerion Wimbley, coming off an 11-sack rookie season. All were first-round picks, and each has the ability to dominate at their respective positions.
But it’s going to take more than that. It starts with that great intangible expectation — not hope — to be a winning team. The Browns don’t have that yet. I think they’ll play with more desperation this season, which is good. They need that alley-cat scowl.
I just keep having the feeling, though, that all these little bad signs this offseason are going to add up. If you’re Crennel or Phil Savage, or heck, Randy Lerner, don’t you have to be incredibly frustrated right now? It has been a potent mix of bad decisions, poor luck and awful timing. The blame is widespread.
If they can make it past that first practice in training camp — remember, that’s when Bentley got hurt last year — maybe they’ll be OK. If they recognize the vast improvements they must make based on last year’s tape and whatever problems they see coming from this year’s practices, perhaps they can straighten themselves out.
If not, is going to be another long, cold winter by the lake. We’re not quite ready to see football’s answer to “Major League,” but we’re not far off, either.
http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW/NFL/AFC/AFC+North/Cleveland/Features/2007/edholm071407.htm
The Browns must turn things around after eight seasons of stagnation
By Eric Edholm June 14, 2007
These are very dangerous times for the Browns, but aren’t they always?
There is the disturbing news that Kellen Winslow might not be ready for the start of camp. Braylon Edwards is still running second team in practice, meaning at least one person is not happy with him right now. Brady Quinn has gotten off to a touch of a rocky start in practice.
And not all of the pressure is coming from inside the Browns’ organization. The Indians have been in or near first place most of the season. The Cavaliers, for another day or two anyway, are in the NBA finals. Ohio State, a Cleveland hotbed, made the final game in both hoops and football.
The clock, meanwhile, has been ticking on the pro football team for years. Seven of the past eight seasons have ended with seven wins or fewer — in fact, usually fewer. Welcome to the nine-year plan, ladies and gentlemen.
The offseason was brimming with hope, even amid the team’s relative stagnation up to that point. Jamal Lewis has bellcow back potential. Eric Steinbach is an up-and-coming guard who could have signed a lot of different places. But he chose Cleveland, the team that boldly passed on a potential franchise quarterback with the third pick in the draft and then even more boldly traded back into the back end of the round to take the sliding Quinn.
These are the things we expect from the Cowboys, the Browns’ trading partner on the Quinn deal. We do not expect the Browns to make such dauntless strokes to improve their roster. Like the running game the past few years, the personnel moves have been of the two-yards-and-get-the-punt-team-ready variety.
Even following the disturbing news that LeCharles Bentley, one of the first big free agents to sign there in 2005, might need to sit out a second straight season, there was optimism that things were on the upswing. The signings of Bentley and Steinbach and the drafting of Joe Thomas, the new left tackle, with the third pick in the draft appeared to signal that the team was acting astutely.
They were building from the front lines on out, and that’s seldom a bad idea. But other free-agent pickups the past few years such as Willie McGinest and Joe Andruzzi have borne far less fruit, and draft picks Edwards and Charlie Frye have been a mixed bag at best to date. For now, we have to assume that Joe Thomas is Robert Gallery and that Steinbach will make as much tangible difference as Steve Hutchinson did last season in Minnesota, which is to say, not as much as expected.
That treatment is cruel and unfair, but these are the Browns we’re talking about. That’s par for the course.
Most believe Edwards will take his place in the starting lineup this season come Sept. 9, and he and his people have been working hard to repair his image both nationally and in Cleveland. He plays a big role in the development of an offense that has been vanilla for years and in a future quarterback in Quinn, who is at his best when he has a go-to receiver.
Crennel can’t afford any more shenanigans from Edwards or Winslow this season; he has his own job to worry about. The pressure is squarely on the man who arrived in Cleveland with the reputation of being a defensive sage, and yet the team’s yards allowed ranking actually has gone down — from 15th the year before he arrived to 16th in 2005 and 27th last season — since he got the job. That, naturally, must end this season for Crennel to keep said job.
One of these seasons, something grand will happen to these Browns, much like the Indians’ rise from the ashes or the Cavs’ ascension in the playoffs. But it’s going to take some special players to do so. Surely, baseball and basketball are far more individual sports where certain players can carry a team on their backs for weeks at a time. In football, that rarely happens without a good nucleus, but it couldn’t hurt for the Browns to get a LeBron James or a Grady Sizemore to build around.
That guy might be Quinn. Heck, it might be Edwards of Winslow, or even Thomas. It could be Kamerion Wimbley, coming off an 11-sack rookie season. All were first-round picks, and each has the ability to dominate at their respective positions.
But it’s going to take more than that. It starts with that great intangible expectation — not hope — to be a winning team. The Browns don’t have that yet. I think they’ll play with more desperation this season, which is good. They need that alley-cat scowl.
I just keep having the feeling, though, that all these little bad signs this offseason are going to add up. If you’re Crennel or Phil Savage, or heck, Randy Lerner, don’t you have to be incredibly frustrated right now? It has been a potent mix of bad decisions, poor luck and awful timing. The blame is widespread.
If they can make it past that first practice in training camp — remember, that’s when Bentley got hurt last year — maybe they’ll be OK. If they recognize the vast improvements they must make based on last year’s tape and whatever problems they see coming from this year’s practices, perhaps they can straighten themselves out.
If not, is going to be another long, cold winter by the lake. We’re not quite ready to see football’s answer to “Major League,” but we’re not far off, either.
http://www.profootballweekly.com/PFW/NFL/AFC/AFC+North/Cleveland/Features/2007/edholm071407.htm
