Between Lake Erie and a Hard Place

New management, new coaches, and unfortunately it seems like the same ol' Browns. How can that be?! I was convinced not to use that phrase BECAUSE all of these choices were coming from different GM's and coaches. Since 1999, there have been eight coaches for the Browns which averages about to be about two years for each. Here they are:

1. Chris Palmer
2. Butch Davis
3. Romeo Crennel
4. Eric Mangini
5. Pat Shurmer
6. Rob Chudzinski
7. Mike Pettine
8. Hue Jackson

I wonder how many years Jackson will get. If the over-under is 3 1/2, I'll take the under. I'm not as familiar with Palmer or Davis, so I'll start with Crennel. He was an okay coach, He's a Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick disciple, so he comes from a great place. But most of Belichick's assistants haven't worked out as head coaches and Crennel is no different. I was okay with his firing.

Mangini is the smartest coach on this list. He's also a Parcells/Belichick understudy. He didn't have a lot of success in Cleveland or in New York (Jets) but he knew the game fairly well. I was okay with his firing.

With all of the QB's being taken by the Browns, it made sense to go and get a QB whisperer. Shurmer had done that with Donovan McNabb, so the move to grab him when they did made sense. The Browns had drafted Colt McCoy in the 3rd round and thought he could do some great things. Shurmer never really had success as a head coach anywhere he went and is now not even a coordinator. I was okay with his firing.

Then came a new owner and another new coach in Rob Chudzinski. I didn't love the move when it happened, it felt like the Browns missed out on all the big names that off-season and had to pick from the scraps left over. Chud was out after a year and while he didn't do much with the team, you could easily argue he didn't have the time to do it. Looking back on him, the Panthers offense got better with Cam at the helm when he left than when he was there. I was okay with his firing.

After Chud, the Browns took Mike Pettine. I thought this was going to be their long-term guy. Pettine was a defensive-minded coach under the tutelage of Rex Ryan. I think Rex is a horrible head coach and fantastic defensive coordinator. Pettine seemed to be better than Rex and had a lot of success. He went 7-4 one year while the Bengals and Ravens did the same. After his initial season when his defense had a top five ranking, the defense started to slip a lot. As a defensive-minded coach, you should be good on that side of the ball at the very least. I thought they should keep Pettine anyway because he did have some success and had to deal with the whole Manziel debacle. If Manziel hadn't been there, I think Hoyer would have performed better than he did. But Hoyer's concern was a potential franchise QB waiting to step in as soon as Hoyer didn't do well. He was right.

Ultimately I don't think Pettine would have been the best choice for the franchise, so I was okay with his firing with the condition that the next guy they picked would be a long-term guy. At this point, if we fired the next coach, no good coaches will want to come to Cleveland.

I do think Jackson could be the best hire we've made. I think he has the team's respect which is important. He's brought along Josh Gordon so far. The issue with Jackson is going to be the Moneyball management. They are going to be in charge of personnel decisions which to this point they've gotten a big huge F. I'm pretty sure they would've taken Manziel if they could have as well, and I don't want anyone in charge of the Browns who would've done that. Same goes for Haslam: stay out of personnel decisions! Even Jerry Jones has learned this, which explains why the Cowboys didn't even want him. The Browns have to keep Jackson, and it might be a good long-term decision as well.