DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2016 NFL Season 2016 NFL Draft How come most Browns draft picks never reach expectations?

It's no secret the Browns have been one of the worst
Drafting teams since their respective entering the league.
But is there a underlying common thread that ties all the Browns draft failures?
Is it coaching....culture....lack of drive and passion by the Browns players to be the best at their position?

Players have failed for several different reasons.

I think one big factor however has been the lack of continuity in the coaching staff and front office. Its hard to build something when you're changing philosophies every 2 years.

Granted, many of these coaches needed to go but too often we've hit the refresh button too early. Chud sticks out in my mind.

I think your right. We've changed so many people that it can't just be bad coaches or FO. I guess the players never have a chance to settle in and develop any sort of continuity.

Tab, I agree.

Players never get a chance buying into a system due to change. Leadership is greatly missing. Sashi, in his last interview, pointed out lack of continuity on this team. We hear it every regime change the type of football player needed. We also see the next "wonder schemes" that brings hope. In the end, it really boils down there is no holy grail. You must build a team starting from the top where all moving pieces are pointed in one direction.

I applaud this new structure. Why? It is a direction. I really think it is sad how people outside the organization are chastising. None of the other 31 teams are built the same. There is no one correct way building a team. Why the constant beat down? Is it really that different? Do they know it absolutely won't work? I guess it is competitive nature once you have someone down keeping pounding and don't let them up.

I believe Farmer attempted to salvage an old vehicle that never worked in the beginning. I am not sure Haslam would approve a complete tear down. In my opinion, Haslam received a lot of information from many people what it takes to win. He never truly understood and kept pushing every new idea. I think DePodesta has funneled attention to one focus.

With another new front office and purge of older players focus can be directed at getting people who fit a specific mold. Hopefully this time this regime will be around long enough seeing players actually grow within a system instead of relearning another every two years.

1. Constant turnover. Draft for one scheme and by the time that guy is in his 3rd year, he is in a different scheme.
2. Unreasonable expectations. Every high draft pick we take isn't expected to come in and contribute, they are expected to come in and be the savior.... like right away. There is no chance for a learning curve with them and they very quickly get labeled as busts if they aren't great right away.
3. Lack of supporting talent. Related to #2 but... Bring these guys in and put them between 2 guys who aren't very good, they aren't going to look good.
4. Losing mentality. I think it kicks in about week 7 or 8 of year 1.. they see any veterans on the team adopt this "Well, here we go again" attitude and it just sinks in and is very hard to shake.
5. Some of them just weren't very good football players.

I heard Brian Billick say something very similar on Mike and Mike. He was talking about how changing staffs and FOs is about a lot more than new football language and Xs and Os.. it ripples all the way down into the scouting department.

His example was, do you think there is a scout in the Patriots organization that does NOT know what Bill Belichick likes in a football player? They are all looking for the same thing, they are all playing by the same rules... and it takes YEARS to develop that continuity and it's no surprise at all that we don't really have it.

Great list.

I would add organizational leadership and coaching. Im a big believer that a clear vision and coaching ability to create 'buy in' are critical to player development.

Eh, most of them until recently have not done anything with other teams either, so I'd argue it's more poor evaluation than anything.

Lack of leadership. Plain and simple, a huge lack of leadership with the FO and Players alike.

I would agree 100% with that and it's directly related to continuity.

The turnover doesn't help, but I also believe there is so much turnover because the guys they are picking aren't good players. The Browns also don't do a good job in development.

It's not just one thing. It's a bunch of reasons that spiral into one giant nuke of awful football.

If you want to just look at the history with the first 3 rounds...

Throw out last year since it's not entirely fair to judge first year guys.

2014:

1-Gilbert - personal issues. he also just might not be very good either
1-Manziel - personal issues
2-Bitonio - solid starter
3-Kirksey - I'm ok with Kirksey, but I think he's much more closer to run of the mill than any kind of special difference maker
3-West - personal issues

This draft is the Farmer/Pettine regime in a nutshell. The 2015 draft may end up being a bit better but they really dropped the ball in 2014.

2013:

1-Mingo - I think they went too hard on measureables, and not enough on tape. I hope I'm wrong and he finds a true role, but just seems like he's too small to play in a true 3-4 front 7.
3-McFadden - flat out not a good player. I'm surprised he's still in the league

Welp, there's the Banner Regime!

2012:

1-Richardson - miss. not good. although we did get a mulligan, and screwed that up too.
1-Weeden - miss.
2-Schwartz - decent player. starter level
3-Hughes - another guy who's run of the mill starter/backup material

2011:

1-Taylor - a miss if you ask me. never lived up to being a first round pick.
2-Sheard - decent player, definitely a starter as we're seeing with him in New England
2-Little - miss.

2010:
1-Haden - good player
2-Ward - good player
2-Hardesty - miss, and a bad gamble at that.
3-McCoy- miss.
3-Lauvao - i'm indifferent on this pick. I think we were weak at guard while we had him. Not a total miss but not a very good player

2009:
1-Mack - good pick
2-Robiskie - miss
3-Massaquoi - miss
3-Veikune - miss

2008:

no picks through rounds 1-3.

You look at these players, and you look at the whole coaches in and out every 2 years, and it's easy to see. Add that in to the fact that you have no quarterback and it's an impossible situation. Gotta help the coaches out. These new guys need to help Hue out. He's not a miracle worker.

This is more about the selection of bad people, as well as bad players, than it is any kind of system fit or anything like that.

I don't think there was one player that left Cleveland and the majority of fans thought they were a bad player, who ended up going and becoming good. Most fans knew Ward and Sheard would be good, and outside of the brainwashed Colt McCoy support group, we all thought he'd be the same weak armed guy who runs at the first sign of trouble.

This is the Browns in a nutshell when starting up.

Year 1,

New head coach, new coordinators, new scheme and new gm. We spend the first year jettisoning players who do not fit what we want, or the scheme we play, or are just not valuable.

First draft, we bring in players who we hope can fit our scheme. But most fans are unrealistic. Even the best drafts ever landed only 4 good starters. Usually you can expect 1 solid or better, 2 starters, and depth. We teach them the schemes, and now they have trial by fire learning using the scheme while under pressure to win. Not everyone learns at such a quick pace. Not all are ready for the pressure. But our teams are devoid of talent, and we have to start these guys.

Year 2:

Hot seat time, usually we may either fire a coordinator, or two, or both are on the hotseat.

Try to continue building upon our scheme. Drafted players last year have a single year in the NFL, and we start to see who may or not make it. We jettison the final players from the team who use up cap space, or are head cases, or are players who get in the dog house.

Next comes the draft. Read above. Same thing applies.

Now we have 2 years of rookie/sophomore players who are either ready, not ready, or never will be ready trying to play because we have nothing else. We have jettisoned any players with leadership ability like whitner, and the MLB we cut (dont remember name).

Have a losing year.

Year 3:

Have almost certainly cut one or both coordinators by now. Head coach on hot seat. No free agents want to come here, and any decent player we have is now up for FA and leaves.

Our draft classes continue along these lines as listed above. However we see the normal in the nfl. The young players rarely make it to the highest level of skill in the NFL. They are mostly contributors, and a couple good picks.

We have no more jettisoning of players, they are all gone by now.

Now we draft. Same as above.

Show progress in the year, but not enough, and boom coach is fired.

And the whole process repeats. That is why we will never have a good team. The fans are not willing to wait, and we pressure Haslam into stupid firings, and blowing up our front office.

Great list. It all really boils down to the first one though. It's continuity.

When we change philosophies, coaches, coordinators, and veteran leaders every single freaking year, you're never going to get everyone on the same page, because the page is always changing!

In a good situation, you have one system and everyone all-in on that system. The scouts know what to look for to get guys for that system. The coaches know all the ins-and-outs of that system. The coordinators can adapt to situations on the fly because they've seen it all before. And the veterans know the system like the back of their hand. So when a new guy comes in, he's already scouted to fit that system, he knows what the system is, he has coaches that will be able to fit him into his new position, and he has veterans that know what they're doing so they can work with him to get his job right. Everyone knows the system so well from experience, that even if mistakes are made by the rookie, they can be masked at times because everyone else runs the system so well. The rookies have a chance to grow within the system.

For us, we wipe the slate clean every single year or at the very least, fire a coordinator. Half of our guys don't even work in whatever new system we implement (4-3/3-4), so we have to bring in new guys. We lack any sort of veteran mentors, because they're learning the new system at the same time as the rookies. The coaches are trying things out for the first time and can't adjust as quickly as other teams. Our fans freak out because we look like a team that's playing their first game together, and our new guys get quickly labeled as busts because they aren't a magic elixir. For many guys, the instant success crushes their confidence and they actually do become busts.

Lets us a musical analogy. (Clem might like it) Say we want to play a complicated piece of music as part of an orchestra. We bring in a bunch of veteran musicians from all over the place and then grab a couple of promising prodigies. The conductor isn't familiar with his orchestra members and is new to the piece so he struggles to know what tempo to work at. The veterans are too busy trying to learn their own part to really help the new guys, and they can barely set a good baseline themselves so that the conductor has something to work with. The prodigies are expected to excel to the level of the veterans, but really have no decent mentors around them to get to that level.

After a few weeks of poor performances, the music itself is changed to a completely new piece. Everyone is forced to re-learn everything on the fly again. Some of the older veteran positions are no longer needed so they are scrapped for new guys, who also have to learn the new system again. The conductor eventually gets fired because the orchestra still sounds terrible after another few weeks. The new conductor has his own tempo and style of doing things and changes the piece yet again. The veteran players start to wonder if it's even worth the trouble to try learning something new again. The prodigies lose their confidence and soon find themselves on the sidewalks of Las Vegas with a hat in front of them.

I wonder... how much legit talent we've ruined and burned away here due to the constant staff changes, scheme and just general environment changes period?

I'd hate to say it, but I'd not ever want to play for the Browns if I was blessed enough to be able to play football at the highest level. Cold hard truth.

I made this post a year ago and wanted to bring it back, because it applies (although it was specific to the QB position), and it seems like I keep saying the same thing year after year anyway:

J/C

Some teams take sub par players and average players and make them great. Some teams take good players and help them thrive.

Cleveland pretty much does the opposite of that.

Because the owner get's way too involved and has knee jerk reactions making poor hiring and firing decisions. Then the new regime's repeat the same mistakes over and over by trading up and down in the draft reaching for a QB or questionable talent instead of sticking with the BPA.

The fans have nothing to do with it. The team doesn't care what fans think.

And if they do, then they shouldn't be on the team anyway, and that's where the mistake is made.

Everyone keeps blaming it on turnover, but what exactly are the fans supposed to be willing to wait for?

At what point does it become stupid to have stability for the sake of it?

I don't think Mike Pettine was a very good coach, I think we all figured that out. He'll never be a head coach again. He had two years and developed ZERO players under his control. His defensive schemes were laughable, and the offense was one of the worst we had ever seen. It didn't help that he had an empty stable of playmakers, as well as a stud on defense.

Do people honestly think if we stuck with Pat Shurmur, we'd be some juggernaut? or Mangini? We gave Romeo 4 seasons.

I'm all for gaining stability for our coaching staff, but to just want it for the sake of it doesn't work, and can set you back just as much as firing a guy after two years. Teams get turned around quite often in that amount of time. Seems like almost every year someone comes out of the bottom 10 to have a good year.

I blame poor player-personnel decisions more than turnover or anything else, but I still don't think we've somehow missed out on anything because we have switched coaches. Whether you keep a coach, or get rid of him, Justin Gilbert, Johnny Manziel, Leon McFadden, Terrence West, Trent Richardson, etc. are still awful players. Stability within the coaching staff ain't saving any of those players.

Maybe, maybe not. But I think our biggest problem isn't necessarily the coach, but the fact that we completely change our systems and offenses year to year. On Defense, we go from 3-4 to 4-3 and back. That means we have to bring in completely different skill-sets, or at the very least, get guys to play in a position they might not be comfortable with. Our offense can never decide what to do either. We're always swapping out coordinators.

What really needs to happen is that Front Office needs to decide once and for all: <THIS> is our identity and stick with it. Get the coach that is the best match to that system and get him the players to stay with it. Give him at LEAST 3 years, if not more to see what he can do. We have no idea if Shurmur or Pettine might of done better had they been given enough time to actually work with the same guys for several years. The "dumb" mistakes they made might actually go away after a couple years when everyone is more familiar within their own system.

Then after a couple year, if it's not working ... fire the coach and bring in a guy that can work within the exact SAME system. You already have the players that know that system, not need to scrap everything just to placate a new coach and set everything back three years again. Stick with what you got until everyone on board is a master of that system.

At that point it becomes a self-sustaining system. The Vets can actually mentor the new guys. The new guys can get plugged in and slowly grow between the vets. The coaches can actually coach to the system, instead of trying to find ways around the team's weaknesses. And everyone is actually on the same page for once.

Wouldn't have to change schemes if we actually drafted guys who fit well and were good in said schemes.

I have no problem sticking with a coach, even if the results aren't quite there, but after 2 years of Pettine, and the awful tackling, and the whole being dead last against the run 2 years in a row... I don't care about changing coaches. Find someone who can actually coach and develop, and find people who can find players. Whether you stick with a coach or change them every two years, you're not winning until you get actual players (as well as a QB) in the building.

I'd be a lot more mad about changing schemes if we had actual players.

That's what you're not getting though ... schemes can make the players. Ever wonder how the Patriots can plug just about anybody into the team, and they're suddenly all-pros? A lot of it has to do with scheme. Everyone on the team knows it. The new guy comes in and can trust the guys to his left and right are going to do what they need to do and he can focus on his job. Better yet, the guys on his left and right can actually help him learn what he needs to do because they know everything about the scheme. That's what builds confidence in new players. They get good mentors. They build confidence. Their mistakes aren't magnified because the guys around them help to mask it. They get a chance to learn and grow within the system. A few years down the road, they're at the same level as the guys next to them, and now they're ready to help the new guy next to them.

We never get that in Cleveland. Nobody knows the scheme and everyone is trying to learn some new system. Vets can't mentor because they aren't confident in their own responsibilities and aren't 100% sure what to do all the time. The new guys never get the on the job training they could be getting. They quickly lose confidence quickly because their mistakes are magnified. The vets eventually mail it in when they get tired of failure and the new guys get frustrated and quit trying to get better.

The best example I can think of is Couch. He had three coordinators in his first 3 years. He said in an interview that it was really hard to get down a system because it's always changing on him. By his fourth year, he had lost a ton of confidence and was developing bad habits. Those are two things that kill any growth potential.

Now granted we've blown quite a few picks with some real meatheads.

Because of A bad owner who hires incompetent people to run his team.

Bringing up the Patriots is useless. They have BELICHICK. They also have TOM BRADY. Having a HC and QB like that covers a lot of other flaws. They can have a mediocre at best D and still make the AFC Championship game. They can have no running game and still win. They can do a lot of things 31 other teams CAN'T because of their coach and QB. We don't HAVE Belichick. We DAMNED sure don't have a QB like Brady. So any comparison isn't apples to oranges, it's more like apples to BLACK HOLES.

The Patriots had good players. They still do have some pretty good players.

You could also look on the flip side and look at how quickly Seattle was built. I was there in 2011 at CBS during quite possibly the worst game in the history of the league. They were just as awful as we were.

I just get the feeling that people think this is still a league built on 5 year plans. You don't and shouldn't need 5 years. At the very least some kind of progress should be shown. Mike Pettine and every other coach showed zero progress in anything. His defenses were last against the run in both years. His defenses were just as horrible on his last day than they were on the day he walked into the building.

Seriously, everyone acts like it's some monumental task to coach this team. If you show any type of progress and growth within your first two years, you're going to get more time..

Don't forget to remember the fact that the Browns finally got their guy this year. Not their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th choice. It's no guarantee but they swung and missed on their last 2 coaching searches. I won't even consider Shurmur any kind of swing and miss during a coaching search because that was clearly a Bob Lamonte/Mike Holmgren power play. They got their guy, but they did absolutely no homework on that tour.

Good post Brownsfan, that's what I'm trying to get at. It's really hard to say "This coach sucks" when you keep flipping the system and player-personnel every stinking year. You made a good point with your list of coaches as well. Another coach that comes to mind is the original Tampa Bay coach. They stuck with him for several years, despite winning a total of 7 games in their first three years. The 4th year they won 10 games and made the playoffs.

Those coaches that do hop into a situation and win right away, are usually coaches that can adapt and manage the system/players that are already there. They don't change up the system too much. They just find new ways to motivate the players and the players keep doing what they are used to. When the Browns make changes, we tend to scrap everything, and that just pushes us back further.

I think people these days view football players like stats in a video game. This guy is an "88", and this guy is an "83" but has "92" Speed. And if you just plug these guys into whatever system you have, it should work. You just need to find guys that are rated high enough. It just doesn't work like that. You have to get everyone on the same page, working together. And something like that takes years to create.

Thx ExclDawg. You could even look at current coaches like Marvin Lewis. He has been tenured for quite some time. In his first 9 years he had 2 winning records, and 3 .500 records. Yet he is still there. Is he as good as Bill B? No, but he has also made the playoffs that last 5 years straight. It took time for him to get the players, who fit what he is trying to do. It takes time for them players to develop, and get comfortable in the system ala Andy Dalton. We cannot tell if we have a good coach or not, they also have a learning curve. We just don't give them enough time.

I wish there was one thing you could point to and say, "YEAH, That's the reason our drafts have sucked"!

There isn't any "one" thing that I can point to like that.

Inconsistent thinking from the top down, constantly changing GM's and Head Coaches will not ever get you to a winner.

Picking poorly won't get you anywhere either. Not doing proper due diligence on players will get you fired. (ask Farmer about Gilbert)

Unless or until the top guy (haslam at this point) picks people that actually have a chance of success, then gets the heck out of their way for 4 or 5 years, we won't succeed.

He's got an opportunity right now. He's put some pretty bright guys in charge. He's gotten a respected HC. The staff seems strong as well (sidenote, I'm lovin the training methods they are employing).

If Haslam leaves them alone long enough, it stands a chance.

Funny you bring up Belichick and Brady, because that's two great examples of the need to be patient. We DID have Belichick, and most people wanted to run him out of town by the third year of his tenure because he never had a winning season, had traded fan-favorite Kosar and kept running Metcalf up the middle. It wasn't until year 4 that you started seeing results. Then even further down the road you saw all the good football minds that came out of that program.

Tom Brady sat for an entire year and learned under Drew Bledsoe. Something else went seem to refuse to do with our QBs. We throw them in as soon as we can and then wonder why they look so lost and confused.

Tom Brady sat because he was a sixth round pick, not because the Patriots thought he was going to become what he became.