What Did You Expect From Browns?

It was shocking to read and listen to both fans and media alike being irritated by the Browns’ performance Friday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

What did these people expect? Did they believe Hue Jackson’s team was suddenly going to dominate another NFL team?

After Jackson was hired and Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta took over control of the franchise, the management has made no bones about the direction of the team. They were going to get younger and build through the draft, really the only tried and true method of building a winning football team.

If you have read this blog since the beginning of 2016, we have advocated and predicted that Brown and DePodesta were going to rid the roster of most of the over 30 years of age crew.

After all, the only thing worse than being a bad team is being a bad, old team.

The purge started with Donte Whitner and Karlos Dansby, Dwayne Bowe followed, and now Paul Kruger and even punter Andy Lee were moved off the squad.

And we believe that Tramon Williams, Andrew Hawkins won’t be here for week one, and we have a feeling that Josh McCown won’t be either.

The Browns are accumulating young players and draft picks, and when you play a lot of inexperienced players, losing usually follows. At least at the beginning.

The expectation is the team will build around the players taken last season that weren’t really given a chance to play, the 14 draft picks taken last April, and all of the picks the front office has accumulated in the 2017 and 2018 NFL Drafts.

That doesn’t mean the players and coaching staff will not try to win every week, of course they will, that’s imbedded in the DNA of competitive people.

However, they are usually going to be outmanned in each game, mostly because of a lack of experience.

What the front office is trying to decide is who can be a contributing player in 2018 or 2019, when this team is ready to make a legitimate playoff run. If it happens sooner, then great, all that means is the Browns will be winners and still have a boatload of draft picks.

Gone is the philosophy of bringing veterans to patch some holes and keep the team somewhat competitive, perhaps winning five or six games so the coaching staff can say the Browns are improving.

Instead, the organization is throwing a lot of stuff against the wall and hoping some of it sticks.

The rookies and second year players are going to get to play and prove themselves. If they get better as the season progresses, the coaches and front office will determine them to be keepers. If they can’t get it done, they will be replaced by younger players acquired in the next two drafts.

It’s not a mystery. Every signal given by the folks in Berea indicate just that.

So, don’t be surprised if this team loses in the early part of the season, and sometimes, the games will be flat out ugly.

And if the team doesn’t show some improvement as the season goes on, then you can be concerned, because that’s the plan.

In the meantime, get ready for more veterans to depart and more young players, particularly players cut after the final cut this weekend, to be brought in.

Frankly, we are puzzled as to why people were expecting anything different.

Trading Down Just Means Passing On Talent

Based on our entry on Sunday, you can well imagine we were not happy with the Cleveland Browns’ decision to trade out of the second overall pick in next week’s NFL Draft.

To move down six spots, we feel you needed to get a second round pick this year, not two years from now.

The Browns are spinning this as having six picks in the top 100 players, however, two of those picks are #99 and #100. Really, they have four picks in the top 77 players, which is just one more pick than they would have if they had done nothing.

For this year, you received a third round pick and another in the fourth in order to move down six spots.

We feel the Browns need great players. Can they get one of the players we identified the other day with the 8th choice? Of course, there is a chance, but now they could lose a possibility of getting the guy they judged to have been the second best player.

Getting a first rounder next year is a given, and if the Eagles chose correctly, which means the Browns passed up a good quarterback, that pick will be in the lower half of the first round.

If the guy they pick doesn’t play well, then the Browns get another high first round pick, which is what they already had.

It just seems like the old philosophy is still in vogue at Berea…We’ll be good next year.

Look, we know the Browns are not going to be contending for a playoff spot for a few years, but it’s still not too early to start accumulating the foundation. So, unless another trade occurs, and it might, Cleveland still has just one first round pick, and one second pick this year.

That’s where you get starters. And the Browns aren’t any better than they were before the trade.

If they would have received a 2nd rounder this year and then had four of the top 65 players, to us, that’s better value.

And if you are in the camp where you believed both Jared Goff and Carson Wentz can be franchise quarterbacks, you have to be livid today.

The Browns were in a position to get one of them, and now they will get neither. Time will tell if Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta are smarter than everyone or they acted like a teenager who just got paid and its Friday night.

If you trade down again on draft night, it’s just a repeat of what has been done time and again in Berea, accumulating picks. What you are really doing is delaying making a decision.

You are saying you don’t trust your draft board.

The gutsy move would have been to take whoever is the best player according to your rankings after the Rams made the first selection. It worries me that these guys aren’t trusting the scouting staff.

That, and the high picks they received will not help this team until the 2017 and 2018 seasons. It seems the whole process is being delayed, and Browns’ fans should be fed up with that thinking.

Not to mention you are also letting a team in your division, the Ravens, pick in front of you.

However, the people who love having picks will like this move.

We’d rather get the second best player in the draft. On the other hand, based on decisions like this, they may get another opportunity in April 2017.

Browns Should Keep #2, Trade Down Later

Many people think the Los Angeles Rams threw a wrench in the NFL draft plans of many teams when they moved up 14 spots to the first overall selection.

Now, there are many Browns’ fans and media alike advocating trading down to gain more picks, just like the Tennessee Titans did.

We are not in that category.

This is not to say the Browns have an awful lot of holes on the roster, and need plenty of help. However, we would not trade down from the second selection in the process.

Cleveland earned getting the second pick by virtue of their terrible 2015 season, and they should not forfeit the choice.

While we aren’t draft experts or scouts, there does seem to be some talented players, Pro Bowl type players in the top five guys coming into the league.

If the front office and coaching staff still want a quarterback after signing Robert Griffin III as a free agent, then they can still select whomever is left between Jared Goff and Carson Wentz.

If they want to add to the other areas of the team, most of which need help for sure, they can choose between DT DeForest Buckner of Oregon, CB/S Jalen Ramsey of Florida State, DE Joey Bosa of Ohio State, and LB Myles Jack of UCLA.

Notice all four of those guys are defensive players, and if you can recall last season (or still want to for that matter), the Browns defense resembled a sieve.

Whether it is on offense or defense, the Browns need a star, someone to build the unit around. That’s why we would keep the pick.

Don’t forget that the brown and orange have the first pick in the second round too. Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta will likely be inundated with teams wanting that pick from the end of the first round on Thursday to the time the second round starts on Friday.

If Cleveland wants to deal that choice to get more picks, then so be it. It is sound strategy. We aren’t disputing the Browns need a large influx of talent.

But they need great players to start the building process, and more often than not you get great players early in the first round.

Granted, Tennessee got a haul for moving down to #15, they should have. There is a big difference between picking first and in the middle of the round. The Browns would probably have to go down that many spots to get that type of bounty.

Dropping out of the top five or even the top ten choices, won’t get you as much as the Titans received. And is it really worth an extra pick or two this year to remove yourself from having the chance to pick one of the top five players in this year’s draft?

Besides, we feel the Browns will wind up with more picks this year anyway. It would not be surprising if Cleveland dealt players like Paul Kruger, Trammon Williams, Desmond Bryant, and yes, even Joe Thomas for more picks during the draft.

Remember, all of those guys are over 30 years old, and we believe the front office doesn’t want aging players on this roster.

The gutsy move is to make a decision at #2, and not defer it until later in the draft. Take the best player on your draft board, whether it’s a QB or not.

The Browns needs players, yes. However, they also need great players.

Optimism On Browns Doesn’t Mean Winning

When you are doing something different, you leave your self open for criticism. That’s what the Cleveland Browns are experiencing this off-season.

Look, we have no idea if the “analytic” approach will work, or whether Sashi Brown, Paul DePodesta, Andrew Berry, and Hue Jackson will get the Browns back to the playoffs.

What we do know is that they can’t be worse than what came before them.

Cleveland has lost ten games or more in seven of the last eight seasons. They aren’t exactly a model of success.

So, we don’t listen to the national experts about how an NFL franchise is supposed to operate. We understand that the new front office staff is trying something different, and that is absolutely fine.

Veteran NFL executive Bill Polian made the comment, presumably because of DePodesta’s presence that the Browns were conducting the equivalent of a baseball fire sales.

Polian might have been trying to be snarky, but he is correct. That is exactly what the Browns are doing. They are basically gutting the roster and starting over. And we say why not?

All of the losing has poisoned the locker room. These guys simply don’t know how to win, and they have been exposed to coach after coach without an idea of how to win, or the enthusiasm to do so.

So, if Jackson comes off as cocky and self-confident, he is a virtual extrovert compared to Eric Mangini, Pat Shurmur, and Mike Pettine.

Think about it, when did any of those guys show one ounce of bounce and pep on the sideline.

Think about how the players, even the good ones, talked as the season went on and the losses piled up over the years. How many of them were genuinely angry or ticked off?

Exactly. That’s why one by one, the front office is purging those guys.

It is also funny to hear players offer statements questioning the weight program over the past few seasons. Apparently, Jackson and his staff looked at Cam Erving, for example, and told him he needed to get a lot stronger.

Why didn’t anyone tell him before now?

We have said it will be apparent this season how poorly this team was coached over the last two seasons. We will not be surprised at all if players like Danny Shelton, Erving, Nate Orchard, Christian Kirksey, and Ibrahim Campbell can be solid to good NFL players with the correct leadership.

We don’t know how these guys will draft and what their eye for talent is, but they shouldn’t be condemned by the mistakes of the people who came before them.

More veterans will be let go or traded before the beginning of training camp and we are okay with that. We believe these guys are following our adage, that being the only worse than a bad team is a bad, old team.

So, optimistic may be the wrong word regarding our thoughts on the Browns, perhaps a healthy curiosity is a better choice. At this point, you have to think that what they are doing makes sense.

And that doesn’t mean we think the Browns are going to win in 2016 either. If they win three or four games, that’s probably an accurate prediction.

But we can feel good about it as fans if they are doing it with young players and those guys are showing process on a week to week basis.

That would show a promising future, and if they do a good job with this year’s draft, we can all be anxious to see what they can do with another high pick and a bunch of choices later in the draft.

In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with trying something different. It just may pay off in the long run.

Browns Have More House Cleaning To Do

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the Cleveland Browns’ need to get younger because it’s bad enough to stink, but to have many old players and stink is worse.

Since then, the Browns have cut ties with Karlos Dansby, and Alex Mack departed via free agency. Both were over 30 years old.

However, Sashi Brown and coach Hue Jackson still have a bunch of grizzled veterans who wouldn’t seem to have a place on a building football operation.

Notice he didn’t use the term “rebuilding” because something needs to be in place at one time, and having two winning seasons in 16 years doesn’t really qualify.

Cleveland still has 10 players over 30 years old on the roster, nine if you disqualify punter Andy Lee, because he should be able to kick a football effectively for a few more years.

That leaves this group with their ages listed:

Josh McCown (36)
Tramonn Williams (33)
John Greco (31)
Joe Thomas (31)
Gary Barnidge (30)
Desmond Bryant (30)
Andrew Hawkins (30)
Paul Kruger (30)
Donte Whitner (30)

We would get rid of all of them, and we feel most will no longer be with the team after the NFL Draft occurs in late April.

Rumors already have the brown and orange shopping McCown now that Robert Griffin III signed here as a free agent.

Brown, Paul DePodesta, and Jackson are probably holding on to most of these guys trying to move each of them for additional draft picks during the draft, and if trades can’t be made, many of them could be released shortly after the selection meeting.

The most controversial name here is Thomas, a nine time Pro Bowl player.

We wouldn’t move the future Hall of Famer unless Cleveland can secure a first round draft choice for him. This is likely the last time Thomas would be able to garner such a haul, and our guess is the “analytical” approach of the front office tells them the same thing.

If Thomas is dealt, the Browns may keep Greco to keep at least one veteran on the offensive line. Barnidge will likely stay as well, since the team signed him to a friendly three year deal last season.

For the rest of the players, well, let’s say we wouldn’t get involved in long term lease arrangements.

In our opinion, the new regime wants to get rid of the losing attitude that has hovered over the locker room over the past ten years. It’s no disrespect to these players, who play hard for the most part, but when you lose 10 or more games year in and year out, it is human nature to insulate yourself against all the losing and you begin to accept it.

You lose your will to be angry about it.

The Browns need to build around this draft class and the young players from the past couple of drafts who can play.

We also have a feeling that we will see what a terrible coaching staff this team had the past two years, and perhaps Danny Shelton, Cam Irving, Nate Orchard, and some others aren’t as bad as originally thought.

Basically, the Browns need to do a thorough cleaning of their locker room, getting rid of the losing stench.

So, we anticipate more roster adjustments will be made. In one month, this roster will look completely different from the one who ended the season.

Browns Start Dumping Vets, Who Should Be Next?

The reshaping of the Cleveland Browns roster started last week with the release of DL Randy Starks, now 32 years old, and TE Jim Dray, who is 29.

We would anticipate the roster being pared of many more players in the same situation over the coming weeks.

As we have said for a long time, the only thing worse than being a bad team, which the Browns were in 2015, it’s being a bad, old team.

It appears that Sashi Brown, Paul DePodesta, and Hue Jackson think the same thing.

If you aren’t going to be good, you should at least do it with young players, guys who will get better over the next few years.

Here is a list of the players 30 years old and over currently on the Cleveland roster–

Josh McCown           36
Karlos Dansby         34
Andy Lee                   33
Tramon Williams    32
Dwayne Bowe           31
Joe Thomas               31
Gary Barnidge          30
Desmond Bryant     30
John Greco                30
Paul Kruger               30
Alex Mack                 30
Donte Whitner         30

Out of those dozen players, we can see perhaps 8-10 being elsewhere in 2016. And we could make a good argument it would be a good idea to replace all of them.

We were surprised at the age on the offensive line, where three of the five starters are on the wrong side of 30 years old.

Especially, since the unit didn’t play well last season. Mack can opt out of his contract and become a free agent, and the age involved with the entire unit makes it imperative that Brown and company sign RT Mitchell Schwartz, who is a free agent.

Of the players listed above, the only players who could be considered to have a better than average season would be Dansby, Lee (the punter!), Thomas, and Barnidge, with the latter two going to the Pro Bowl.

Mack went as well, but that seems to be a reputation selection.

When the league year starts on March 9th, it would not be a shock if Williams, Bowe, and Whitner were released. Bowe rarely saw the field in ’15, while Williams got burned more and more as the season went on, and Whitner’s play declined from his first year with the Browns.

We understand that new/old defensive coordinator Ray Horton talked up Kruger in a press conference last week, but the reality is Kruger has a high salary and low production. Does anyone really think he’s an elite edge rusher?

And although Joe Thomas is the best player on the Browns, a future Hall of Fame player, if the front office could get a first round draft choice in this year’s draft, we would think very, very hard about making a deal for him.

Again, the collective age of the offensive line plays into this decision, especially if the Browns are drafting a quarterback in the first round.

That QB should take a couple of years to be fully ready, and by then, Thomas will be 33 or 34. Will he still be the same player?

And would getting an additional first round pick this year speed up the rebuilding process?

If Brown, DePodesta, and Jackson see progress in Cam Erving in the off-season, do they make he and Joel Bitonio the anchors of the line going forward, and make a move with Thomas.

The Browns may decide to keep the All Pro, and even if they do, the rest of the veterans listed above could have shaky futures here.

There is no reason to keep these players if you are going to rebuild from the ground up.

And really, that’s what the Browns should be doing this spring.

Don’t Go Overboard on Browns Analytics

Since the Cleveland Browns made their moves last Sunday night, they have been the fodder for many jokes about their new “analytical” way of looking at football.

It didn’t help when they hired Paul DePodesta, a former baseball general manager with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

We aren’t saying that DePodesta is a bad hire, because by all accounts he is a very smart man, and certainly can be viewed upon as a man who knows something about being in good organizations.

No, the problem is that he was portrayed in the movie “Moneyball”, by Jonah Hill. That lead to a great number of jokes.

And while we would love to see a guy with success in the football business as the guy in charge of the organization, we don’t think the Browns will be run by people looking at minute statistical details.

Most of the numbers they will look at will just make sense, just as Bill James’ number crunching did when he came out with Baseball Abstract.

The analytics in drafting players may be used to show there is a better chance that a player coming out of a major conference is more apt to succeed in the NFL than a player out of a small college.

They could show what we have looked at earlier in this season, that team who can run the ball and can stop the run have better success in today’s professional football, even though it is dominated by the pass, than team who can do neither well.

It may also tell them you can’t try one running play in a half, like the Browns did in the first game against Cincinnati this year.

It will probably involve other more subtle things as well, but the numbers will be used to create a competitive advantage for the Browns’ coaching staff.

We can all agree they could use that.

The problem could be finding a coach and GM who is open to getting those numbers and understanding what they mean. That could cause the Browns to lose out on some coaches we would like to see here.

We have said before that we want someone with head coaching experience, and that person needs to be a tough-minded individual that will change the country club atmosphere that has permeated Berea.

Cleveland has hired several “player’s coaches” in a row. Mike Pettine, Rob Chudzinski, and Pat Shurmur would all be described that way, and that is too many to hold the job consecutively.

It’s time to bring in someone who will demand accountability, and who coaches like this is their last chance to handle the reins of an NFL team.

The other thing we think the analytics will show is the Browns need more draft choices, and as many high ones, as they can get to rebuild the roster quickly.

Our guess is that several of the veterans who have been here the last two seasons, will not be back.

If you are over 30 years old, we wouldn’t be too comfortable this off-season.

And we are fine with that. As we always say, the only thing worse than being bad is being bad and old.

You don’t need to be someone who studies numbers to know that is a bad combination.