One week into his reign as the Browns’ head coach, Romeo Crennel is batting
.500. Hopefully, his football team will fair as well on the field this coming
season.
As you undoubtedly know, Crennel pursued, without success, Patriots defensive
backfield coach Eric Mangini to be his defensive coordinator. Instead, Mangini
decided to replace Crennel as the Pats’ defensive coordinator.
Give Mangini, who was offered more money by both the Browns and the Dolphins,
who also were after his services, a pat on the back for his loyalty to New
England coach Bill Belichick and the Patriots. It’s not easy to pass up an extra
hundred thousand dollars from the Browns, or in the Dolphins’ case, an extra
couple hundred thousand.
But at age 34, Mangini undoubtedly realizes he has a very, very bright
future. A few more winning seasons in New England will look a lot more
impressive on his resume than a losing season or two (or three) in Cleveland or
Miami, where, if the Dolphins does turn things around defensively in the near
future, new head coach Nick Saban will likely get the credit.
In addition to the money, Mangini had other reasons for possibly coming to
Cleveland. He is Indians general manager Mark Shapiro’s brother-in-law. And he
and Crennel had developed a very close personal relationship.
But those reasons were not enough to make him leave the team that has truly
developed a dynasty. If the Patriots continue to be successful, teams won’t be
looking at Mangini as a coordinator. Instead, they’ll be eyeing him as a head
coach in the next few years, something which isn’t likely if he is with a losing
team.
Losing out on Mangini was definitely a setback, but do give Crennel some
credit. He landed his man in offensive coordinator Maurice Carthon. But unlike
Mangini, there wasn’t a stampede to get Carthon, whose genius as the Cowboys’
offensive coordinator didn’t exactly result in the team having to tear up the
Cowboys’ record book.
Of course, you can’t really blame Carthon for the Cowboys’ offensive woes.
Fact is, Carthon didn’t even call the plays for Dallas.
But a quick look at the stats sheet shows the Cowboys did make excellent
progress in the two years Carthon was the coordinator. In 2002, the year before
he arrived, Dallas ranked 30th on offense. In each of the past two years, they
were in the middle of the pack.
Carthon also had a year of experience as Detroit’s offensive coordinator in
2002, when the Lions ranked 28th overall on offense. But again, much like the
situation at Dallas, he did not call the plays while he was with the Lions.
Why?
I suppose we’ll find out when he becomes available to the media, which
hopefully will happen very soon.
Crennel wanted Carthon because, as the first-year head coach says, “I share
the same philosophy on how our offense will run.”
Obviously, that “philosophy” didn’t include quarterback Jeff Garcia, who was
given his walking papers a week after Crennel was named head coach and one day
after Crennel was officially given his job.
The best thing Garcia did for Cleveland was pave the way for Butch Davis’s
departure as head coach. Garcia’s ineffectiveness on the field was outweighed
only by his complete lack of class off the field. His berating of teammates and
constant questioning of the offensive game plans were a distraction that
contributed to the team’s woeful performance.
The Browns will continue to suffer in the coming years for Davis’s decision
to bring Garcia to town. He still had three years remaining on his contract and
that will mean a severe hit for the salary cap, thus reducing the amount that
can be spent on free agents.
It’ll be very interesting to see if the Browns decide to try and bring in a
veteran quarterback, or if they give the job back to Kelly Holcomb for the 2005
season. In that scenario, they would undoubtedly have to go after a quarterback
very high in the draft.
One interesting candidate could be Akron University quarterback Charlie Frye,
who bolstered his draft stock by playing very well in the Senior Bowl.
It’s very doubtful Frye is worthy of being the third overall pick in the
draft, but if the Browns could move down and acquire a couple of first-round
picks in the low teens, Frye should be there and would be a very interesting
possibility.
The one thing the Browns don’t want to do again is pass up a “local” product
like they did last year when they overlooked Miami of Ohio standout Ben Roethlisberger.
Frye would seem to be the ideal quarterback to fit into Crennel’s philosophy.
If he is picked, it would have the makings of a long and heated rivalry with
Roethlisberger. Can you imagine these two former MAC standouts going at it twice
a year for the next 10 years? The already-heated Browns-Steelers rivalry really
doesn’t need any more gas dumped on the fire, but these two guys could develop
quite a sideshow in this long-time rivalry.
Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself. First the Browns have to build a
strong offensive line. Until they do that, it won’t matter who is playing
quarterback. It sure wouldn’t be fair to put a young quarterback like Frye into
a situation where he’d be in the “Frying Pan” every time he dropped back to
pass.
Roethlisberger, who proved to be human in the playoffs, had a great rookie
season. But the reality of the matter is that if he had been drafted by
Cleveland and been forced to play behind this team’s line in 2004, his
performance wouldn’t have been nearly as good.
He might not have been as bad as Luke McCown, who pretty much proved he is
not the team’s long-term answer, but Roethlisberger wouldn’t have been heralded
as the second coming of Terry Bradshaw, either.
The release of Garcia is undoubtedly just the first of many departures as
Crennel begins the task of rebuilding an organization that made far too many
wrong personnel decisions over the past four years.
It should keep things very interesting in Brownstown over the next few
months.