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By Karl Kimbrough (pictured), Cleveland Urban News.Com Sportswriter. Reach Kimbrough at kimbrough@clevelandurbannews.com. Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com, Ohio's No 1 and No 2 online Black newspapers (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and (www.clevelandurbannews.com).
CLEVELAND, Ohio-Last year at about this time during training camp Jimmy Haslam suddenly appeared on the scene of Browns Town as the team's new owner. He would immediately begin to patrol the side lines in Berea, Ohio where the team practices. By his mere presence on a consistent basis in contrast to previous owner Randy Lerner, fans, players and management know there is a new sheriff in town. By his optimistic expectation to establish a winner, Haslam has reinvigorated Browns fans.
So when the season 5-11 record drew to a merciful end last year and Haslam began to work his magic, fans did not have to wonder if changes would be made, they just had to access just who and how many would be changed.
Haslam moved into action swiftly with his new CEO Joe Banner in tow and they relieved head coach Pat Shurmur of his duties, and almost his entire staff too. But did the new sheriff jump the gun by firing Shurmur and most of his staff? Did Haslam bring in the right deputies to coach his team?
Looking back in retrospect at the beginning of the 2012 season and even in training camp, Shurmur and his team were destined to struggle early and often. In the NFL these days the sun rises and sets with each team riding the shoulders of their quarterback . It is a quarterback driven league, and many of the rules shade the game in favor of the offense.
Drafting quarterback Brandon Weeden in the first round in 2012 meant that Mike Holmgren, who was president of the Cleveland Browns from 2010-2012, was looking to lean on his strong arm to take them into the future. However, Weeden's best asset in college was throwing accurately deep down field from the shot gun formation. Not then and certainly not now was he known for taking a lot of short three step drops from under center and linking short passes to receivers crossing the field.
The type of scheme that an offense runs should be in harmony with the skill set of the quarterback. Shurmur and the Browns staff were resolute in transforming Weeden into a West Coast quarterback . But during the exhibition or pre-season games, Weeden only played an average of one and a half quarters the first three games and not at all in game four.
If you are going to get a rookie quarterback ready for the season then he needs to play at least into the second half of each game to get acclimated to play with new receivers and the speed of the game. Shurmur was more interested in giving his second and third teams playing time than trying to figure out who his last five or six roster spots would go to.
Weeden also rarely threw deep down field. Certainly Weeden needs to show more consistently and improve his ability to read defenses. But coaches need to put their players in the best position to win or be successful and Shurmur and his offensive staff clearly did not do that. Some will say it was only one season last year that Shurmur had to transform Weeden into a “West Coast” quarterback. But in Cleveland we don't have time for that. Going forward would be to hire another young first time head coach be the right move, or would it? In comes Rob Chudzinski for this season to lead the Browns team. After Haslam brought in Rob Chudzinski as his new head coach you could hear a loud “oh no” around Browns Town.
Chudzinski was a relative unknown head coaching prospect who had previously served as a Browns offensive coordinator in 2007 and in 2008 before going to San Diego. In 2011 he joined the Carolina Panthers and took the team from one of the worst offenses in 2010 to one of the top offenses in 2011. But no one saw this new hire coming to Cleveland.
The fact that Chudzinski had great success mentoring young quarter backs such as Cam Newton, a star quarterback for the Carolina Panthers, had to play a part in Banner and Haslam's decision. As mentioned earlier, this is a quarterback driven league. But the significance of the head coach and coordinators are high on the list of importance as well.
Chudzinski will only need to manage the team and keep them humbly motivated. The rest of the Browns regime will find its easier to put a round peg in a round hole.
