With Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and CEO Joe Banner reportedly in Arizona waiting for their turn to bend a knee and kiss the visor of Oregon coach Chip Kelly, it seems like a good time to look at what Browns fans are in store for if the team makes Kelly the franchise’s sixth head coach since 1999.

So what do we know about Kelly?

He’s 45-7 in four seasons at Oregon, where the Ducks play a highly entertaining brand of offensive football at a high pace, averaging more than 50 points a game. By spreading the field, Oregon forces opposing defenses to defend the entire field – not just the area between the tackles.

“The offense is always taking advantage of space,” Stanford coach David Shaw told ESPN. “That’s the thing. You’ve got to match up personnel-wise. But at the same time, it’s still space. You have to game-plan for it. You've got to be ready for it.”

Read more...

Useless nuggets of information from Sunday’s Browns game that you can certainly live without…

FAMILIAR ENDING: This was the 11th time in the last 17 seasons that the Browns have closed out their campaign with a game against the Steelers. The last 10 have all been defeats. In the six Pittsburgh finales since 1999, the Browns have been outscored 173-68.

GOOD DEFENSE: The Steelers’ 212 total yards were the fewest the Browns had allowed in a game all season, their best showing since limiting Seattle to 137 in October of 2011.

SECOND-WORST: Pat Shurmur completed his career in Cleveland with the second-least number of victories of any full-time Browns’ head coach (nine), besting Chris Palmer by four wins.

FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH, PART 1: Thaddeus Lewis’ passer rating of 83.3 on Sunday was higher than what Brandon Weeden posted in nine of his 15 games this year. In the Browns’ first meeting with Pittsburgh last month, Weeden posted a 78.7.

PHIL FANTASTIC ONCE AGAIN: Phil Dawson’s 51-yard field goal in the second quarter was his seventh successful kick of 50 or more yards this season and the 24th of his career. He finished his fantastic season having successfully converted 58 of 60 field goals and extra points.

THE SERIES: The Steelers now lead the all-time series, 65-56. They’ve won the last nine meetings in Pittsburgh and have an overall record of 12-1 against the Browns at Heinz Field. Since 1970, the Browns are 6-37 in Pittsburgh.

Read more...

Yesterday, to the surprise of no one, including the principals, the Cleveland Browns fired head coach Pat Shurmur and general manager Tom Heckert and launched their by now all too common biennial makeover. Shurmur was on board for two years and Heckert three but together they combined for less wins than there are games in one regular season.

These firings hardly qualify as news. They are more in the nature of confirmations of the inevitable. What I wonder though is who gets stuck with the bill to pay them off on the remainder of their contracts? I suspect it's new owner Jimmy Haslam III which puts him squarely in the same company as Randy Lerner whose ownership was defined mostly by the millions he spent paying ex coaches and front office types. It gets difficult spending money on things that matter when so much is tied up in paying off people who don't.

Read more...

The Cleveland Browns made it official on Monday, firing coach Pat Shurmur after two seasons and general manager Tom Heckert after just three years.

Cue up the calliope music, the carousel is spinning once again in Berea.

As we learned with Mike Brown, Eric Mangini and Manny Acta, firing the coach is the easy part. Finding a replacement that is actually an improvement has proven to be far more difficult.

The Browns have been on a downward spiral with their head coaches, going from Romeo Crennel (.375 winning percentage) to Mangini (.313) to Shurmur (.281).

For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the mental health of a fan base that is exhausted by constant change, that trend needs to be reversed, and owner Jimmy Haslam and CEO Joe Banner have to get it right when they hire the next coach and general manager (or what will pass as a general manager in the new front office structure).

Read more...