CLEVELAND, Ohio (TheOBR.com) Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans!
THE DAILY BLOVIATION
What a weekend of NFL football! I wasn’t able to watch all the games because of other personal and OBR responsibilities, but what I saw was amazing. With the Browns’ draft spot on the line and some latent fondness for the Bills, I watched a thrilling Bills-Jaguars game, played at such a high level that it was barely recognizable as the same sport to Browns fans. The Browns got the result they needed, which, combined with the Patriots’ win, sets them up with Pick #24 in the first round.
There were a couple of plays where I was just blown away at the level of football that was being played and the inherent quality of the sport itself. On one play, I saw a distracting jet sweep motion, which led to a beautiful sideline catch by a receiver. I just marvelled at how pro football combines both team-level complexity and movement with individual athleticism.
It’s a beautiful sport, and the more you learn about it, the more you appreciate it.
MONKEN MASHES MEDIA: Cleveland Browns head coaching candidate Todd Monken, who interviewed with the team last week, went off on the Baltimore media a bit during an appearance on the Ryan Ripken show. Monken expressed cynicism about the media’s role and how results (not process) define the narrative.
I, frankly, saw a lot of this myself from fans, media, and such during Kevin Stefanski’s tenure as Browns coach. Saddled with a talent deficit on offense, his losing record on offense had some folks inventing reasons to fire him, built around the same processes and approach that were recognized as COTY material when the team won.
If you win, everything is fine. You lose? Well, you’re a screw-up. I’m not in this to defend Stefanski anymore – that ship has sailed – but to explain why some commentators seem “out of step” because they focus on the coaching process and technique, not whether the team won or lost in a particular week.
I’m tracking Monken because he’s of interest to the Browns, but learned something that might inform my own blathering along the way. Good coaches can have good processes and still lose due to other things (talent, luck, communication skills, etc). They’re rarely evaluated fairly by the media in today’s hot-take “what have you done for me in the last 24 hours” online culture.
THE BROWNS ARE GETTING LUCKY?: Sometimes, luck trumps everything. Bad decisions are rendered positive by unforeseen events, and vice versa. The Browns might be having a bit of good fortune as the list of available coaches is looking better and better due to unexpected dismissals of head coaches with a track record of some success. The firings of John Harbaugh, Mike McDaniel and Kevin Stefanski, and possible dismissals of Matt LeFleur and Mike Tomlin, are making the list of available replacements stronger by the day.
Not that the Browns will replace Stefanski with Stefanski, mind you, but if someone else does, it eliminates a team from taking a candidate that the Browns might like.
The Browns started with a list of possible candidates, mostly hot coordinators, and now find themselves with candidates with actual job experience. They’re apparently chasing Harbaugh and have an interview today with ex-Dolphins coach (from the Kyle Shanahan coaching tree) Mike McDaniel. It gives Haslam and Berry an opportunity to move forward with known quantities who have been on the frontlines before.
Sometimes, timing – even unexpected fortuitous timing – is everything.
WHO’S THE NEW GUY?: Sean McVay, like Kyle Shanahan, is developing a coaching tree of interest, and the newest hot name is Nate Scheelhaase, the “pass game coordinator” for the potent LA Rams. I’m always skeptical about hot coordinator names from hot teams – watching Patriots coordinators’ record of failure ensured that – but Scheelhause is intriguing. He has interview requests from the Raiders, Browns and Ravens. Whether some of these are offensive coordinator interviews in disguise, I can’t say.
You may notice that there aren’t too many “hot” coordinator names coming from teams with bad quarterbacks. And that gives me pause on Scheelhaase, who has the pleasure of working with the very experienced and successful Matt Stafford. Watching the Rams play over the weekend, Stafford is operating at a very high level and has reached a juncture of accumulated experience and remaining athletic talent that makes him a potent quarterback. He will, naturally, make his coordinator look good, and working for Sean McVay makes the coordinator look even better. Hopefully, the Browns will be able to suss out how much of the Rams’ success is due to Sheelhaase’s skill and how much is being in the right place at the right time.
CRITICALLY LOOKING AT JOHN HARBAUGH: While the ostensible purpose of OBR Daily Newswire is to provide a running summary of Browns news, in reality, it’s a place for me to air half-baked opinions and vent grievances at the cities of Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Ann Arbor. So, I guess my takes become obvious pretty quickly.
Clearly, I’m very interested in John Harbaugh coming to the Browns. His mix of experience and success is very intriguing. At the same time, I have to admit that he comes from Baltimore, a franchise that compensates for its lack of a moral compass with annoyingly on-target front office savvy.
There are two items worth reading which partially answer my enthusiasm for Harbaugh this morning: Mike Sando’s critique of the coach’s resiliency in The Athletic, and a new thread on Insider Discussion from new forum member HST_1911. Both are worth your perusal if you subscribe to The Athletic or The OBR, respectively.
Have a good one! GO BROWNS!
Ian Rapoport – (bsky.app)
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WRAPPING UP
When not gearing up to walk his dog in the snow, Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.
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