Browns Staff and Quarterbacks: Scramble! SCRAMBLE!

I've been putting off writing this particular entry for awhile.  I was with my parents as my mother's birthday was yesterday.  I had on my Joe Jurevicius jersey, casually flipping a mini Browns football back and forth with my dad, and breaking down with both of them what was going on in the game.  Usually it was me trying to explain the Browns' play calls with logic, which became more and more challenging as the game went on.

 Where do I begin?  I could understand that the old NFL adage is that when you are putting in a new quarterback, you lean on the running game, but not when the running game is trying to lean into the Titans' run defense.  I understood trying to get the short pass working to avoid getting a ton of pressure on Ken Dorsey, but not only did the pressure get to him anyway, the short passing game doesn't work if you never take a shot downfield.  If I had a mutated third hand growing out of my shoulder, I still wouldn't have enough fingers to count how many times Dorsey threw it to the safety valve, especially on third down, at which point the receiver was almost immediately tackled.  Everyone talked about how no one knew the Browns offense better than Ken Dorsey, but that doesn't help when the play-calling comes down to "hand it off and pray."  Besides, Ken is not mobile.  At all.  Peyton Manning's running game is like Jim Brown to Dorsey's Cedric Benson.  Thinking he could stand back there and wait for routes to develop was a horrible idea.

The one decent idea though was having Cribbs throw it.  I remember that he was told when he was drafted to not expect to play quarterback for whoever drafted him, but if he has the experience and the talent to play the position, why not give him more of a shot?  He proved in that one throw to Edwards that he has a much bigger arm than Dorsey, and that he is either accurate with the deep ball, or very lucky to not get it picked off.  I'll take either of those for next week!

It didn't hit me how bad the game turned out until I glanced over ESPN's scroller at the bottom of the screen while watching some college basketball game.  You know it turned out bad when Joshua Cribbs, a receiver/kick returner, was listed as the running back (because he had the most rushing yards) and Jason Wright, a running back, was listed as a receiver (check downs ahoy!).

Thankfully their recap of the game completely cut out the ending, where Romeo tried to burn two timeouts in a row on defense, then dragged out the final two minutes of the game for a sold twelve minutes on what at best would have been a game-ending fieldgoal drive, which as we all know is invaluable when you're down by nineteen points.  I've defended Romeo several times over the course of the season, going back to Week 1's fieldgoal while down by two touchdowns near the end of the game.  I don't remember how I defended that, but I'm pretty sure it was a weak defense.  After seeing the gameplan in action and the clock management and the player management for this week however, I have officially given up on defending him.  I don't know who will take his place, but I hope they take it as soon as the season is over.

Which brings me to this: Marty?  I thought he didn't want to coach again, but if he did I would not be opposed to seeing him on the Browns at all.  I've heard people say that he wasn't a winner and could never get it done in the playoffs, but the last time I checked he coached a San Diego Chargers team to 14-2 (which then went 9-7 and now sits at 5-8) and, were it not for one really stupid cornerback fumbling an interception at the end of the game, would have dispelled that whole 'can't do it in the playoffs' thing.  I don't know about everyone else, but I'd be happy just seeing the Browns make it to the playoffs with a decent record, e.g. 11-5.  Anything beyond that would be gravy, icing, and money in the bank in that order.

Whoever does end up coaching the Browns, I'll say this to them: please be a head coach wherever you were before.  I've had my fill of hiring defensive coordinators to do a head coach's job.