 @TonyGrossi The Witch Hunt's Sad Last Grasp. @ClevelandFrowns
Sometimes it's like this guy is in my head. For what it's worth, we don't have many calling for Mangini's head yet, which puts us ahead of the intellectual curve for Cleveland Browns fans of late. Quote: Monday, November 22, 2010
On the Browns' 24-20 Loss in Jacksonville and the Witch Hunt's Sad Last Grasp
Before we get to Tony Grossi's embarrassing display, here's something about yesterday's 24-20 Browns loss in Jacksonville that makes sense, per head coach Eric Mangini in his post-game press conference:"It's a function of growing as a team. I've said this over and over again, ... you work, that's the first thing [STEP 1], you compete [STEP 2] then you win [STEP 3], then you gotta be able to win consistently [STEP 4], you've gotta be able to win the close games, and take advantage of opportunities." Here, ten games into Mangini's second season since taking over an impossible mess of a roster and locker room in Cleveland, in a season where nobody anywhere expressed a reasonable expectation of this team making the Playoffs, Mangini has the Browns working and competing every week, as consistently as any Browns team in recent memory. With a rookie quarterback, a roster with critical holes at the offensive skill positions, two rookies in the secondary and a thin front seven, this team has established itself firmly between steps 3 and 4 referenced above, as a team that can beat anybody on any given week when things go well, but isn't yet ready to do that consistently.
Yesterday, again, the Browns were any number of single plays away from winning a football game on the road against a division leader, and one that had specifically tailored its roster to respond to the Cleveland Browns, despite the handicaps mentioned above, and much more: The captain of the defense, Scott Fujita, out; The captain of the secondary Eric Wright, lost in the first quarter to a knee injury (making career special teamer Ray "Bubba" Ventrone (who gave up the game-winning touchdown to Marcedes Lewis) a starting nickel-back); Josh Cribbs -- one of two Browns on the other side of the ball who might be called a "gamebreaker" with a straight face -- out, along with three offensive lineman (giving rise to rookie guard Shawn Lauvao's first NFL start); The rookie quarterback hobbled by an ankle injury.
This football team accomplishes as much with as little as any in the NFL, and certainly as much as any Cleveland Browns team since the franchise returned to the NFL in 1999, yet, one incredibly tough loss after an improbable run against the Saints, Patriots and Jets has the pitchfork crowd frothing at the mouth as violently as ever for Coach Mangini's head. At this point, it's clear enough that the witch hunt sees the current upward trajectory of this football club, and that late-season losses like yesterday's offer its last possible chance to run the Coach before the operation is conclusively established at the next level where it's so apparently headed.
Nothing else can explain Tony Grossi jumping out of his skin last night to declare that "Mangini's back on the hot seat." Grossi ends with unmistakable glee of a bully who thinks he smells fear, "he looked it, too."
This, under the circumstances, and taken with the rest of Grossi's body of work (or just the small sample discussed here here here and here), amounts to the most pathetic and insulting displays we can imagine from a credentialed NFL beat writer. Before we get to the rest in Grossi's column today, it's worth a few moments to think about how Terry Pluto ended his: Some of the trouble is the Browns lack impact players, both on offense and defense. Some of it is the culture of losing -- the team is not used to winning close games. Some of it could be anything from a lack of depth on the roster to mistakes in strategy. But you add it all up, and the Browns have lost too many games like this in 2010. "The Browns have lost too many games like this in 2010," says Pluto; a statement that from at least one theoretical standpoint is certainly true, in that the Browns have lost too many games like this in 2010 for anyone who hates administering to Grossi's festering boil as frequently as we've been required to. The problem here is that Pluto has no real way of knowing how many is too many from an objective standpoint (or if he does, he certainly doesn't make the case). Again, it's something like what folks sometimes say about the fielding percentage of a great infielder, that it tends to be lower than it would be because the infielder gets close to making plays that others wouldn't approach. It's extremely difficult if not impossible to conclude that it doesn't only just seem like the Browns have lost too many close games because the Browns are overplaying with their talent, and staying in close games where they'd otherwise have no business competing.
What is easy to see and say is that this football team isn't even two seasons into a massive rebuilding project, isn't playing with a full deck by any stretch, yet still manages to compete week in and week out, and even relatively consistently with the league's very best, in what marks an obvious improvement from year one to year two.
At this point folks might want to point out that when you lose a game where the opponent turns the ball over six times, that it marks a clear failure of strategy. But you still have to ask how much of a failure it was; You have to ask if the Browns really had the horsepower to overcome the strategy, specifically the defensive strategy, imposed on them by the Jags who, again, were working with personnel recently aggressively acquired precisely to counteract the strengths of these Browns. And then you have to acknowlege that sometimes, you simply will be either outexecuted or outstrategized in a football game, especially in an obvious letdown spot, on the road, where your hobbled rookie quarterback routinely misses receivers, where you're missing team captains on each side of the ball, and where your defensive starters continue to drop like flies.
After the way this football team has competed this season, how can it be said with a straight face that formulating winning strategies is an obvious systemic shortcoming of this coaching staff? How do you even start talking about a hot seat until these guys have a chance to play with something approximating a full deck? It's hard to even imagine an analysis that would support Grossi's "hot seat" point here.
Which has to be why Grossi simply just says "they stubbornly stuck with a running game that wasn't working" and calls it "a performance that will echo through the walls in Berea." Of course, if the team doesn't throw very much and ends up losing the game, nobody can say that you're wrong when you say they should have thrown more, even if the receivers are Chansi Stuckey, Mohammed Massaquoi, and Evan Moore. Nevermind that Colt McCoy took a season high six sacks yesterday, playing on a bum ankle by the second half. Nevermind that there's very little reason not to think that Jacksonville's margin of victory could have been much greater had the Browns tried to throw the ball more than they did. Nevermind all the missed throws by McCoy, who, for the second time in five games, looked like a rookie. Nevermind that on one of the three-and-outs criticized by Grossi, the Browns actually tried to throw the ball twice. Nevermind if anyone loses a gunfight because he's holding a knife.
Nevermind about even suggesting that any of these factors are relevant, because the Plain Dealer's most highly compensated NFL writer has a vendetta to prosecute, and he wants "Mangini on a hot seat." The games against the Saints, Patriots and Jets might as well have never happened.
It's understood that there will always be folks who'll want to sacrifice any given coach at any given time, no matter the facts. Dudes at the check-cashing line, on talk radio, bloggers who nobody reads, Twitter gangstas, etc. are easy to tune out. When it happens with the guy who's supposed to be the Plain Dealer's top NFL beat writer, it's a serious problem.
We stayed after Dawg Pound Mike's profound dishonesty hard enough last season, and it wasn't long before he disappeared. We remain optimistic that a useful pattern will continue to develop on all fronts here.
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A few more specific game and postgame DERPfest notes:
DERP: "Eric Wright is out of the game! Woo! Good riddance!" Truth: Wright was badly missed. It's a different game if either Wright or Fujita would have been healthy for the second half. Repeat: Bubba Ventrone.
DERP: "Throw Evan Moore the ball, more! We'd win if we threw it to him 10 times a game!" Truth: Evan Moore is white and runs a 6.2 forty. It might be that he's only open 4 times a game. Yes, he generally looks great catching the ball when it's thrown to him in the right places, but it's probably hard to consistently run plays for a guy with Moore's speed without another playmaking receiver to take the pressure off.
DERP: Mike Lombardi, July 18, 2010: "Word is that Browns first-round pick Joe Haden has not been very impressive in camps and might not have enough speed to play corner." Truth: Everybody saw Joe Haden play yesterday.
DERP: "A good coach wouldn't have burned all those timeouts in the second half." Truth: Crap happens. One of the timeouts was used because McCoy was too slow to get back to the huddle thanks to his bad ankle, the other two were used on defense, apparently due to personnel mixups, the sort of thing that happens when you're playing your first game all season without your defensive captain, and when you lose the captain of your secondary in the first quarter.
DERP: "This one really hurts." Truth: Cry baby, cry. Or try remembering again that nobody anywhere expressed a reasonable expectation of this team making the playoffs when this season started, and ask, what really is pain, anyway?
FROWNIE CHALLENGE: Let's try this again. Find us a team that does more with a less talented set of offensive playmakers in the NFL today than these Browns have managed so far in 2010. Have at it in the comments, please. Persuasive arguments will be featured in a column here, and Brosef will no doubt have you covered for a pint or two at the Map Room.
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Huge huge huge game against the Panthers on Sunday. Good thing we have the holiday to help make the week go fast.
Back tomorrow with more on all of this.
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11-22-2010
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