If any other cities had gone through what the Browns have in the last 16 years or so, in the same conditions - economic, weather, etc. - then the franchise would’ve folded up. The idea that Browns fans are wimpy is absurd. There’s no team in the NFL that even comes close to the ratio of support, difficulty, and reward.
Sorry for the hijack, but come on.
I dunno, the Browns never had to deal with Matt Millen…
Only because your team sucks. I’d put the Packers and their fans up against the Browns in support and difficulty anyday. The difference is that the Packers don’t suck right now, they’re pretty good.
I’ll note that Cleveland has the 9th worst home attendance to capacity percentage in th NFL and 10th overall.
Well that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? How do you put your fans up against ours in difficulty if you’ve never experienced anything like the actual difficulty we’ve experienced? I mean, weather wise, small town market, sure, those are similarities. And I admit I think that Packers fans are the second best fans in the NFL, so I’m not trying to slam them.
But until you get your beloved team ripped from your city by the greed and incompetance of a man who did his best to destroy everything you’ve ever had, until you’ve fought tooth and nail to force the NFL to let you retain your name and colors and history, until you’ve gone 3 years without football, had to watch the illigimate entity that was your former team win the superbowl that you’d never made it to, suffered deliberate screwing of the expansion franchise by the NFL, endless horrible front office staff and coaches, and had the highlights of this 16 year period be two seasons where you barely backed into the playoffs to lose in ridiculous fashion, and another winning season where you didn’t even make the playoffs because the fucking piece of shit Colts deliberately let another team in, how can you possibly say that your fanbase could match that? Suffer endless 4 win seasons with no hope in sight, question whether the sacks of shit on the field and in the front office even consitute your “real team”, and don’t even have a single positive thing to hold on to.
Compare this to a team that’s been consistently successful, who had one of the iconic all time players at QB replaced by the best QB in the league, who recently won a superbowl and go deep into the playoffs e very year - you can’t even begin to have the slightest backing to saying your fans are better. They have simply not even come close to facing the same adversity.
Cleveland still has a years-long waiting list on season tickets, never blacks out games, still has IIRC a top-10 merchandise sales number in the NFL. Yeah, the attendance lags in December when the team is 2-10 and it’s fucking freezing out and you’ve had nothing but almost 2 decades of losing, but not even by that much. And that’s a recent development. Even through the mid-late 2000s, when the fans had still experienced a decade of suck, attendance was still very high even at the end of shitty games at the end of the season. It’s only in the last couple of years that it’s started to even trail off somewhat. See what those attendance numbers were in 2007, when the Browns actually won a few games.
All of that is an absurd burden that no other fanbase has had to suffer, and with no reward or even a hope on the horizon, and yet the city of Cleveland still lives for football. So many franchises have suffered far less and yet given less support.
Anyway, this is a total hijack of this thread and I’m going to stop after this post. If you’re interested in discussing this further we can create a new thread.
This doesn’t mean that the Bears will start punting on 3rd downs does it?
As a Packer fan, just one point here (I won’t otherwise dispute that Browns fans have suffered indignities that Packer fans certainly haven’t had to face):
The Packers had a long dry spell, starting with Lombardi’s retirement, pretty much until the Favre / Holmgren era. During that 25-year span, they made the playoffs a couple of times, but were generally a mediocre-to-poor team.
As a Packer fan who was only born in 1965, I lived through all those crappy years (and attended lousy late-season games), with no personal memory of the Lombardi era. When we suddenly became a good team in the '90s, and won the Super Bowl, it was pretty stunning, for a Packer fan who had learned to equate the Packers with “not playing in January”.
Chris Mortensen just tweeted that Chip Kelly is the new Eagles coach. This is too shocking to be true, but it’s a verified account. So, true or not, Twitter is about to get really fun for the new few hours.
Edit: Multiple sources confirming. Uhh wut?
The fuck.
I took a certain amount of comfort in the feeling of at least not being specifically rejected. He wasn’t ready for the NFL, he’s got a cushy gig in Oregon, whatever. Sucks, but what can you do.
But this shit. Fuck.
Gregggggggggggggg is gonna be pissed.
Well, now for the sour grapes coping mechanism. You gotta wonder wtf the problem is with a guy who jerked around Tampa Bay this year, then goes through the whole song and dance with NFL interviews, claims he’s going back to Oregon, and then fucks them over a week later (I mean, I’m guessing Oregon fans/team are not happy) by flip flopping back. Guy seems to have a high risk for being a spaz and maybe having a Saban style flameout.
I guess the only legitimate reason is if the sanctions were worse than expected.
That would certainly be my fear, as his NFL employer – that he’s going to do a Saban / Petrino, and bail on his team after a year or two, to go back to a college position.
Oregon sanctions in 3…2…
Lots of interesting stuff today.
Bears sign former CFL Head Coach Marc Trestman.
Eagles sign former NCAA Head Coach Chip Kelly.
Both guys have HC experience and both guys will bring new ideas and innovative offensive systems to the fold. Both guys seem like good fits for the current QBs in place.
Earlier this happened.
Browns sign former Offensive Coordinator and play-caller Rob Chudzinski.
Chargers sign former Offensive Coordinator and play-caller Mike McCoy.
Both guys get their first crack at being a HC and managing and entire organization and culture. Both guys have had success in different systems and with different personnel. McCoy coached in Carolina where Chudzinski just left, Chudzinski coached in San Diego where McCoy is going.
The Jags and Cardinals Head Coaching positions are still open, will either grab Lovie? What about the rest of the OC de jours?
The Chiefs took the established guy in Reid, maybe we find more symmetry if one of these open spots go to Lovie. The Bills took a college guy in Marrone who is probably closer to the Bevell, McCoy, Chudzinski, Dennison mold than the Chip Kelly mold due to his shot time in Syracuse.
That’s why I was surprised to hear Kelly was going back, but I guess he isn’t. These guys usually get out while the getting is good.
I forgot to add the the Bears also signed former Saints Offensive Line Coach (and interim HC) Aaron Kromer to be their Offensive Coordinator. This strongly suggests that Trestman will be calling plays and that Mike Tice is probably looking for work elsewhere.
The Bears also added former Cowboys Special Teams Coach Joe DeCamillis to the same role in Chicago with the additional title of Assistant Head Coach. He will replace the best in the biz Dave Toub.
These are all big moves. Lots of quality guys here. I like that Kromer was tasked with being an interim HC which suggests he commands the respect of his players and DeCamillis was interviewed as a possible HC candidate. It’s likely that the Bears interviewed 3 ST coaches because they knew Toub was gone and they were never really HC candidates, but in any case the Bears got a guy they liked.
Clearly this all comes down to Trestman, but I’m glad that Emery was proactive in getting a staff assembled with strong NFL experience. Trestman will be responsible for making Cutler great and Kromer and DeCamillis will probably be responsible for picking up the rest of the day-to-day managerial duties.
The last big question mark is if Rod Marinelli will be back to coach the defense or not. I think most people would view this as a priority, continuity and winning the hearts and minds of the locker room will be benefited by that move. Will Marinelli want it or will he want to follow Lovie (assuming Lovie gets a job)?
Do you think there’s any chance Lovie would settle for a DC job? Like I said, I generally like head coaches that go back to being coordinators.
From your lips to Rex Ryan’s… umm… well you get my point.
If Toub is the best in the biz, which it seems to be, why are the Bears letting him go? I understand that a new Head Coach wants his own guys in there, but Toub is too good to just push aside, isn’t he?
Why was Trestman out of the NFL for so long? I only remember him from a long time ago as one of those big deals, but then he disappeared for what? a decade or so? And he’s coming back from Canada? If he is indeed a Yoda for QB’s, why was he wasting his time in Canada?
That said, I don’t think anyone can bring out the great in Jay Cutler, except Jay Cutler. And the Jay Cutler we’ve seen this year is the same Jay Cutler we saw the year before, and the year before, and the year before, and that we saw in Denver, and likely in Vanderbilt. He’s a guy who simply either won’t put in the work to, doesn’t want to, or won’t be able to, take the next step. Maybe Trestman has the magic key to unlocking Jay Cutler, but I’m guessing not much will change with him.
Saying Lovie would be “going back” to being a Coordinator is a bit of an overstatement. Lovie was a career position coach (LBs and DBs) and only had a short stint as a DC in St. Louis and while in STL he was solid but it was the Turfshow that defined that team. While with the Bears he tried and failed to be both the HC and DC, the Bears D was best under Rivera and Marinelli with the low points being when Lovie was doing both. Lovie has been much more of a “head coach” than a Coordinator, Lovie’s assets are his ability to command a locker room, set a culture and align everyone around a common goal. Xs and Os were always his biggest weakness.
I highly doubt that Lovie would want to go back to being a DC and I don’t think he’d be very good at it. The rumors now have him choosing to sit out for 2013 if there’s no HC job offered, not a bad idea with $5M due to him, and reassessing next year in hopes the fervor for offensive coaches settles down.
I think both Jacksonville and Arizona would benefit from having him so long as the GM is strong and they own the responsibility of hiring the OC. We’ll see.
It was Toub’s call, not the Bears. Long story short, Reid has been trying to hire away Toub forever and Toub wanted the security of a knowing a HC was 100% behind him and a fresh start. The Bears absolutely would have kept him and given him the Assistant HC title if Toub would have wanted it, but he doesn’t have a relationship with Trestman and when he made the choice the Bears hadn’t decided on him yet anyways.
The Bears brought in Decamillis and Armstrong because they knew full well that Toub was almost certainly going to go with Reid and the Bears decided to reward the guy for loyal service by letting him.
Not sure why he left, sounds like he wanted to be a HC and couldn’t get a crack in the NFL back in the day. Then he had a perfect situation in Montreal with a franchise QB so why leave.
Edit: I remember now hearing that Trestman took some time off to focus on family, not sure if there were issues or if it was a work-life balance thing. If it was the latter I wouldn’t be shocked considering his time with Gruden. In any case, the time off probably killed his NFL HC momentum and the CFL was probably better to ease back into the grind.
As the media machine starts cranking up I’m starting to drink the Koolaid. This guy made Jake Plummer into a Pro Bowler for christ sake. The guy’s track record as a QB whisperer is pretty unimpeachable and Cutler is acting like a kid on Xmas morning right now, so the signs are good. Also reports are that he’s not a screamer or a asshole ala Martz, so hopefully he’ll handle the touchy-feely stuff well. I’ve got to say, I like the idea of grabbing a QB guru and excellent play-caller who also has lots of managerial experience running an organization. The CFL stuff is a little concerning, but I totally understand the advantages of Trestman’s resume over a guy like McCoy/Bevell.
One comment that I didn’t know before today, CFL teams are limited to 4 hours of practice a day by rule. That means Trestman is adept at organizing and being efficient with time and preparation, I think the players will appreciate that.
We’ll see. He has all the tools and this is the last chance. We won’t be able to make any excuses about the system or the coaching. If Trestman can’t get through to him, no one can I guess. He’s not nearly as childish and self-destructive and you and the media paint him. He’s done a ton with little help and in bad situations up until now, we’ll see if Trestman can unlock the other stuff that will get him to actually manage and dominate a game.
Still gotta fix that O line though.