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Will Browns President Mike Holmgren Put on a Headset Now?

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

ClevelandBrowns.com
By Daniel Wolf
Senior Writer

The Cleveland Browns are a young team with lots of issues across it's roster, and in the coaching ranks.

A list of some of the roster issues look like this:
  • No true playmaker at receiver has shown up yet.
  • Those players who are considered playmakers are not getting nearly enough touches per game.
  • Peyton Hillis doesn't seem to be a part of the offensive scheme as much as Montario Hardesty is, as of late.
  • The defensive line is young and still needs added depth to keep them fresh and aggressive.
  • Starting strong side linebacker Scott Fujita is on the downside of his career and shouldn't be starting anymore due to a lack of speed.
  • There is no true free safety and the Usama Young-Mike Adams rotation is not working.
  • The offensive line (except Joe Thomas and Alex Mack) is the worst it's been in recent memory.
  • Quarterback Colt McCoy is having issues completing a pass longer than 10 yards, consistently.
  • And many more...
These issues can all be discussed in their own separate articles, but this article is focusing on head coach/offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur.

Shurmur is in over his head, period. There is no other way to put it better than that.

When team president Mike Holmgren chose Shurmur as his head coach, at the start of the 2011 year, Browns fans were putting their faith into Holmgren making the right decision to lead the team from its decade-long length of ineptness.

Then Holmgren let Shurmur decide to not bring in an offensive coordinator and he would take on that responsibility himself. It's as if being a rookie head coach wasn't going to be challenging enough for Shurmur or something.

Well, it was the wrong choice for Shurmur to think he could do it all, and for Holmgren to not override Shurmur's decision of not bringing in an offensive coordinator.

The Browns sit at 2-3, and in last place in the AFC North. Even the Cincinnati Bengals—who have both a rookie quarterback and rookie wide receiver on offense—are making plays and winning games.

So what's next for Cleveland?

Maybe it's time to say Holmgren should step in and take over as the head coach of the team for the remainder of the season. This would enable him to move Shurmur back to an offensive coordinator role and Holmgren would be able to groom Shurmur for the rest of this season to be the head coach next year.

This may be effective, but this is speculation by this journalist.

Then after this season, Holmgren would give the head coaching reins back to Shurmur and he could hire an offensive coordinator in 2012 too.

Again, all speculation but something to think about since the Browns need to do everything in their power to win more games and be more competitive this season.

If they don't then look for a downward spiral, typical of the Browns, in the last six weeks of the regular season. This is when the Browns have to play both the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens twice each.

Something needs to change, otherwise this may once again be a long season for both the Browns and its fans.


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  1. Joel
    October 18, 2011 11:12 PM

    I have to agree with you that Shurmur is in way over his head, Dan. We may have disagreed about Mangini, but his problem was halftime adjustments more than anything - Shurmur isn't even prepared for the first set of downs. It's going to be a long, tough road. I wouldn't mind seeing Holmgren help out and show Shurmur the ropes. It can't get any worse than what we've seen out of that offense.

   

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