December 2011
1 post
1 tag
The Browns Tell You It's OK To Suck Forever As...
The Browns posted the above article on their Facebook page today. I was going to comment on the post there, but I thought, “What the hell?” why not write a blurb for Mesa instead.
Here then are my thoughts —
LOL at the organization that has gotten knocked down about 42K times since reforming in 1999, only been to the playoffs once, and generally shown little to no improvement...
February 2011
7 posts
Pause
No Mesa post tonight. Tim and I have been discussing how to proceed, given the lack of relevant conversation starters on the Cleveland sports scene at the moment. We seem torn between a new post-when-it’s-called-for schedule or a complete overhaul that incorporates a fresh, high concept idea.
Tim or I will update with more information ASAP.
Thanks, as always, for caring.
Mike.
4 tags
On Speculation
Yesterday, ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick wrote a column in which he made out offseason report cards for every team in the AL Central. The Indians placed last in Crasnick’s list, with a ‘D’ grade. His reasoning was simple: Chris Antonetti made no moves other than signing Austin Kearns—not exactly an impact contract—whereas every other team in the division made at least...
1 tag
What Does It All Mean?
This past week we saw the Cavaliers lose their record 24th straight game…
We saw the Orlando Magic lose to the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat…
And we just saw the Pittsburgh Steelers lose Super Bowl XLV to the Green Bay Packers.
What does it all mean?
I honestly have very little idea.
(When was the last time you saw a sports columnist admit that?)
Truth be told, my...
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Anthony Parker Trade Scenarios
Rumors surfaced this week that Chicago’s front office has registered serious trade interest in Anthony Parker, contingent on the health of his back. The outlines of a deal aren’t in place, so there’s no indication of compensation on the Cavs’ side yet. But since all I think about with the Cavs nowadays are trades, I figured I would spend some time trying to figure out what would be realistic for...
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Did Holmgren Do What the Steelers and Packers Did? →
Short post for me tonight, regrettably. But here is a link to a very good article, as usual, by Michael Lombardi that discusses the Packers and the Steelers most recent head coaching hires - more specifically, neither organization’s desire to “win the press conference.”
It seems to me that Mike Holmgren followed a lot of these same principles when hiring Pat Shurmur to be the...
6 tags
Return of the Double Standard
I watched last Thursday’s “Inside the NBA” over the weekend. During the course of the broadcast, I was reminded of something that I’m sure we noted at the beginning of this season (though I’m not going to spend the time trying to dig back into our archives and prove it).
Essentially, TNT’s studio team was lauding Boston’s play and discussing what a...
6 tags
The 4-3 Defense and the Princeton Offense
Tim, myself, and @joshrosen had an illuminating, albeit brief, conversation on Twitter Sunday night regarding the Browns’ apparent switch to a 4-3 Defense.
Ever since the possibility of this transformation came up, I’ve been asking myself a simple but important question.
Why?
Why do the Browns want to become a 4-3 Defense?
Is the 4-3 Defense more effective than the 3-4 Defense...
January 2011
23 posts
6 tags
Colt Vs Kolb
Adam Schefter is reporting that the Philadelphia Eagles have decided to franchise Mike Vick and trade Kevin Kolb.
More importantly to us, sources are listing the Browns as one of the teams potentially interested in trading for him.
You’re not going to find a bigger proponent than me of the notion that until your NFL team has a quarterback, they’re just not important. You’re...
3 tags
Boobie Gibson and the Oklahoma Thunder
The last time the Oklahoma City Thunder were on national television, I remarked on Twitter that I would not be able to take them seriously as a contender until they could make for than 5 threes a game (good for 28th in the league).
I wrote this because I’m a big believer in the impact the 3P shot has on offensive efficiency. When your team can shoot well from behind the arc, not only does...
7 tags
Let's Make a Deal. (Please, I'm Begging.)
Like a lot of other Cleveland sports junkies, I grow a little more frustrated every day by the Cavs. However, I’m no longer talking about the record or the lack of defense. I’m not talking about the players. I’m not even talking about the infallible Byron Scott (for once).
I’m talking about the front office.
Clearly, the team isn’t going to turn things around. At...
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Competition and the Popularity of Pro Sports
In yesterday’s post, Tim wrote some things that I didn’t wholeheartedly agree with (it happens from time to time). I’m overgeneralizing a bit, but his argument was essentially that, of the three major professional sports, the NFL is the most friendly to small market teams, citing competitive balance as his measuring stick.
There are, of course, different ways to gauge...
9 tags
NFL: the Official League of Non-Major Markets(?)
Yesterday, Mike made an excellent point about what dark clouds the new NBA free agent circus may hold for small-to-mid-market franchises. His conclusion syncs up nicely with something I’ve been thinking about since the end of the Browns season.
The question is this: Is it possible that in a few years, the NFL will be the only sustainable pro sport in non-major markets, i.e. the only one...
5 tags
Why Is It Okay to Talk About Carmelo?
I’d be surprised if there is a single person out there reading this who is not sick and tired of hearing about the Carmelo Anthony trade talks. Include me in that mix.
So why the hell am I writing about it?
Good question. Here is my explanation:
You may remember that during the lead up to LeBron James’s free agency, the NBA doled out multiple fines for team officials who dared to...
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The Problem with Pace
Another day of the NBA season, another update on the continuing downward spiral of the 2010-11 Cavs.
Wayne Winston of adjusted plus/minus fame released his latest weighted NBA efficiency ratings yesterday. The Cavs are now even more firmly cemented in last place than before. Overall, their Winston-calculated efficiency differential has plummeted to a knee-buckling -10.41 points per 100...
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A Simple Question About Offensive Coordinators
This is a simple question, really, from a very tired and overworked young man.
Should anyone on the planet be surprised the Browns haven’t been able to hire an Offensive Coordinator yet?
I don’t think so.
Why?
Because who wants to be an Offensive Coordinator on a team where they aren’t even going to get to call the plays?
Even better, the guy calling the plays instead is...
9 tags
Colt McCoy & the Arm Strength Conundrum
Although a lot of Browns fans are excited by the possibility that Colt McCoy could finally be The Guy,a lot of analysts have agreed that there’s a dark shadow hovering over him. People love his leadership. They love his work ethic. They love his intelligence and the way he performed under pressure. But from Tony Grossi onward, the word is that McCoy’s arm strength is “a...
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Holmgren vs. LeBron
In a tweet last week, LeCharles Bentley suggested that there were parallels between Mike Holmgren’s decision to hire Pat Shurmur as head coach of the Cleveland Browns and LeBron James’s decision to leave the Cavaliers for the Miami Heat.
The implication here, of course, is that Holmgren decided a long time ago that Eric Mangini would be fired and that Shurmur would replace him - just...
12 tags
Browns Draft Considerations →
The link jumps to an excerpt from a book called Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won, by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim. The book itself is billed as “Freakonomics for sports.” I just read another excerpt on a different topic in the new issue of Sports Illustrated last night have been really impressed with it so far.
The excerpt...
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Everything Goes In Cycles
Here are two box scores, from two separate Cavaliers games, about 20 years apart.
Cavaliers vs. Lakers
Cavaliers vs. Heat
The first, as all of you can guess, I’m sure, is the Cavs’ 55 point loss to the Lakers from Tuesday.
The second is the Cavs’ 68 point victory over the Miami Heat on December 17, 1991.
This is simply a reminder that, in sports, like in many things,...
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Byron Scott & the Case of the 55 Point Loss
A lot has been said in the past 24 hours about the Cavs’ 55-point humiliation at Staples Center on Tuesday night. There’s the quantifiable and historic angle: largest margin of defeat in franchise history, fewest points scored in franchise history, etc. There’s the dramatic angle, courtesy of LeBron’s Twitter-supplied middle finger to Dan Gilbert and who knows who else. This being Cleveland,...
Chucky Commits to MNF, Shurmur Smiles and Waits
Well, last night it happend — Jon Gruden verbally committed back to Monday Night Football, he will not enter the draft, he will not pass Go, he will continue to collect on the last year of his Tampa Bay contract.
Yes, he was a JMID favorite to be the next Browns coach — well, at least my favorite pick, but it was not meant to be. However, in true “We’re Not Here To...
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Pat Shurmur & The Cool
The Browns are set to interview current Giants’ defensive coordinator Perry Fewell today, but according to sources such as Peter King, Rams’ offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur is the current favorite for the job.
This is not news in and of itself. I won’t bother listing out all the boxes Shurmur has checked; undoubtedly you’ve read that somewhere else by now. Suffice it...
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The End of Varejao's Season
On Sunday, the Cavs announced that Anderson Varejao’s season is most likely over.
This has an obvious effect on the team, as Varejao was a part of the Cavs’ best performing line-up (Boobie Gibson-Mo Williams-Anthony Parker-Antawn Jamison-Varejao), a line-up that also got more floor time than any other unit.
It is also worth mentioning that Varejao’s 2-year Adjusted +/- ranks...
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Cavs Milestone Time
It’s official: with Sacramento’s win at home against Denver last night, they have now pushed the Cavs down to the sad position of holding the worst record in the NBA (8-27).
In light of this checkpoint, I thought it would be good to take a quick look at how they’re progressing under the great Byron Scott.
Since it’s something I highlighted as a red flag back in...
On the Limits of Revenue Sharing in the NBA →
True Hoop links to a story from Business Insider that argues revenue sharing would not help small market teams compete. I agree with this P.O.V.
7 tags
Cavaliers Offer Job to Ex-Con With Radio Ready...
Since the Cavaliers can’t even keep a game against the 24th best team in the NBA to within single digits, I am instead going to write about the second biggest joke of the day: the Cavaliers PR department’s decision to stage a publicity stunt.
As if this woeful season full of deeply terrible defense and a new allegedly fast breaking offense that can’t run past the first half...
7 tags
The Newfound Vulnerability of Mike Holmgren
As the level of chatter around the Browns’ now-vacant head coaching position rises, there’s another way that Eric Mangini’s recent dismissal is significant for the organization.
Whatever its contents may be, from here on out Mike Holmgren is officially the man holding the bag.
Holmgren has been in his presidential role with the Browns for a little more than a year. But the...
5 tags
The Ghost of Mangini
Just about everything that can be said has been said about Eric Mangini.
I disagreed with his approach to the game of football, which seemed to revolve around a desire to keep the score close and hope for luck.
Therefore, I agree with Mike Holmgren’s decision to make a head coaching change.
When it comes to the process Holmgren and General Manager Tom Heckert have now begun - the search...
6 tags
Browns: Where Do We Go Now?
With the Browns taking a humiliating 41-9 dive against the Steelers today, the second consecutive 5-11 Browns season comes to a close. It seems all but certain that we’ve seen the end of the Eric Mangini era, as well.
The question is: what now?
I’m not going to spend time speculating who the next coach will be. Peter King reported on Football Night in America tonight that he...
6 tags
Cavaliers: Adjusted +/- →
The above is a link to this year’s Adjusted +/- stats on the Cavaliers, from Basketball Value. I thought it would be worth checking out, given Andy, Boobie, and Mo’s inactive status for tonight’s game against Chicago.
As you can see, in the one year numbers - which are noisy - Andy, Boobie, and Sessions are the only good things going.
December 2010
18 posts
Cleveland Is Changing - Our Sports Teams Don't... →
Great post on the dated portrayal of Cleveland sports fans by the Browns, which is then carried over by the national media … all of which feeds in to the perception of Cleveland as one kind of town - a hardworking base of manufacturers - that is no longer the truth anymore. Themes here that we’ve been circling for a while.
Cavs Make a Run at Sacramento →
From Adjusted +/- guru Wayne Winston … NBA Rankings … the Cavs are now at #29, only -.39 points away from Sacramento. Ouch.
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Mangini's Fatal Flaw
There are plenty of reasons to wonder whether or not Eric Mangini deserves to keep his job as head coach of the Cleveland Browns - an offense that isn’t productive and isn’t fun to watch chief amongst them - but I would argue that there is one overarching reason why Mangini, unfortunately, must be removed from his position:
Mangini has a fatal flaw. He wants to play close games.
...
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Cavs-Hawks Bazooka Point
Last night, while watching the Cavaliers lose in rather pedestrian ways to the Hawks, I was thinking about which team I would rather be a fan of right now. I was very prepared to say I would rather be a fan of the Cavs than of the Hawks … until I read this insider piece from Jodie Valade about Byron Scott’s desire for a “dominant” back to the basket post player.
In the...
8 tags
The Fantastic(?) Mr. Fox
After the Browns dropped consecutive disappointing road games to 2-win teams, the sports punditry seems to have decided once again that Eric Mangini is running out the clock on death row.
I’m still not entirely sure that I agree with this opinion or, if it is true, the actual decision. As Mike pointed out earlier, good teams require continuity, and firing a coach every two to three...
3 tags
The NBA's Fatal Flaw
On Sunday, Adrian Wojnarowski posted this piece on Dwight Howard’s championship ambitions, and the inevitable pressure his demands place on the Orlando Magic’s front office, given his eventual status as a free agent in 2012.
This is a story all of us in Cleveland are beyond familiar with. We heard LeBron James repeatedly say that his entire free agency decision would be based on...
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Browns-Bengals Bazooka Point
After another debacle, I could go in two different directions with a post that goes toward explaining why the Browns split the season series with Cincinnati.
The first option would be to blame the defense. To label their performance as “porous” would be an understatement. Coming into today’s game, the Bengals were averaging less than 90 yards rushing per game. They ended the...
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Mangini: Losing His Edge?
Even casual Browns fans had to have been shocked by Eric Mangini yesterday. He did something so utterly out of character, so foreign to my understanding of his coaching philosophy, so staggeringly unexpected that I’m still trying to come to terms with it.
That’s right: he named Colt McCoy the starter not only for this Sunday vs the Bengals…but for the remainder of the 2010...
2 tags
Some Notable Cavs Statistics (Part II)
After the 9th game of the Cavaliers’ season - an embarrassing loss to the Indiana Pacers that I watched in person - I posted a few notable statistics that you wouldn’t read in your morning paper. Because the Indians didn’t sign Cliff Lee and the Browns are in treadmill mode, I figured I would revisit those same stats, to see just how far the Cavs have fallen now that 24 games...
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The Folly of Benching Peyton Hillis
I just got done listening to this week’s Plain Dealer podcast with Tony Grossi. As usual, I came away from it appreciative of the fact that Grossi is able to maintain perspective and bat down ridiculous questions from both the chat room and the actual host. Also as usual, one such question set me off a little bit and compelled me to write a post.
What was the question, uh, in...
4 tags
Browns-Bills Bazooka Point
Today, after a pretty uninspiring loss to the Buffalo Bills, the Browns find themselves at 5-8 and firmly in 3rd place in the AFC North.
In other words, if you weren’t thinking about the future before today then you really should be thinking about the future now.
This brings me to something I’ve been wondering about for much of the season but haven’t yet stated publicly:...
3 tags
The Argument for Rock Bottom
Over the course of the past 10 days, Mike and I have made various allusions to what may be a semi-controversial opinion regarding the Cavs.
My take on the team is this: I have no interest whatsoever in mediocrity, the 8th playoff spot, or band-aid trades. The concepts of saving face and ‘proving the doubters wrong’ are irrelevant to me. I don’t give a shit about Dan...
1 tag
Cavs-Bulls Bazooka Point
So, tonight Byron Scott tried a new starting lineup:
Mo @ 1 Boobie @ 2 Parker @ 3 Jamison @ 4 Andy @ 5
What was the end result? Cavs -5.
Before tonight, the team was ranked 29th in offense, 25th in defense, 13th in pace (surprising), and 30th in point differential.
In that sense, -5 doesn’t look so bad.
The simple take on the new starting five goes something like this: “Wow,...
3 tags
The LeBron James Survival Guide
With the Cavs treading the line of unwatchability thanks to yet another double-digit loss last night, I thought that I’d turn my attention to other basketball matters.
Ever since LeBron made the choice to sign with Miami, it dawned on me that Heat fans (all 1,000 of them) were about to be introduced to an entire array of tics, habits, and pre-meditated actions that those of us who had...
6 tags
Browns-Dolphins Bazooka Point(s)
Two substantial points to make about the Browns’ 3-point victory over the Miami Dolphins earlier today: Mangini and Daboll are Not Lennon and McCartney. The play calling today - up until the team’s single successful drive for a touchdown in the 3rd Quarter - was as predictable as I have ever seen an NFL offense. It got so bad, in fact, that DAD and I felt comfortable taking part in a...
7 tags
Cavs-Heat Bazooka Point: Taking Aim at B-Scott
For months, I’ve been hearing the same chorus about LeBron from Clevelanders: “It’s not that he left, it’s how he did it.” Last night, I think we could all say it’s not that the Cavs lost, it’s how they did it.
The size of the egg they laid makes a few things crystal clear to me.
Byron Scott is, at this point of the season, a fraud. I wrote about this...
6 tags
Cleveland, C'mon Now, We Can't Let Sports Define...
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to write this column. I considered posting a video of myself offering suggestions for what the people of Northeast Ohio should be doing instead of spending a whole lot of time worrying about a basketball player named LeBron James. But here I am, staring at the screen, typing away. I suppose I can’t stop myself from writing, no matter how badly I sometimes wish...
4 tags
Cavs-Celtics Bazooka Point
This isn’t going to be an in-depth post because there’s a very simple truth at the core of tonight’s game.
In short, the Celtics are a much better team than the Cavs in basically every aspect. The final score, 106-87, is about what it should be.
Yes, the Cavs beat the Celtics at the Q to start the season. But I don’t think anyone believed that success was likely to be...
November 2010
20 posts
3 tags
McCoy or ... Mangini?
It started as soon as Jake Delhomme threw his first interception of the game: Browns fans all around Northeast Ohio started pining for the return of good old boy Colt McCoy.
Then yesterday, during his Monday press conference, head coach Eric Mangini - in a move that should shock absolutely no one - was noncommittal when asked which quarterback would start on Sunday against the Bills. In fact,...