DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Holmgren meets with Browns brass

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What makes Dungy so attractive?
As a HC or a human being sure,but as the man to run the entire org I don't see his qualifications.

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Because he's not on that long list of available people who have a solid history of taking total control and turning around really bad football teams? Remind me again who IS on that list.....

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What makes Dungy so attractive?
As a HC or a human being sure,but as the man to run the entire org I don't see his qualifications.

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Why no Holmgren in Seattle? On the surface, it’s a very interesting question, but deep down, the Seahawks worried about Holmgren’s ability as a general manager, which initially prompted their hiring of Bob Ferguson and then Tim Ruskell. Clearly, the Seahawks love Holmgren’s talents as a coach, but they don’t hold the same appreciation for his ability to run an organization. So they’ve hired Hughes to interview candidates and narrow the list. Right now, I hear they have 10 potential candidates and Holmgren is not among them.

Holmgren has a very close relationship with Seattle owner Paul Allen, but that doesn’t appear to be helping him land the job. Since the Seahawks have a CEO in Tod Leiweke, they need to hire a football man to work with and repair this broken team. They need someone who doesn’t have a predetermined view of the team, someone who can give them a fresh approach. That would not be Holmgren, so as a result, his interest in Cleveland is genuine. And since the Browns are the only team willing to make him their football guru, he just might need to take the deal — if he doesn’t want to coach again.

The next question: Why would Cleveland want Holmgren if Seattle, the team that knows him best, apparently doesn’t? Fair question, but in the case of the Browns, Holmgren would be the team president and would hire a general manager to do the bulk of the work. Holmgren would give the Browns credibility, something they need and something they lack right now. The key for Holmgren, as I mentioned this morning in the Diner, would be his ability to find the right people in Cleveland who share his beliefs in football.

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A very long time ago, I was summoned to the office of 49ers head coach Bill Walsh. Coach Walsh had specific orders for me: He wanted me to find the top five college passing games and paste their information and coaches’ bios on a white sheet of paper for his review. So naturally, I sprinted back downstairs to the media room, found the top five and began to cut.

BYU had the best passing game in college football, and their quarterbacks coach/coordinator was a man named Mike Holmgren. Holmgren was a San Francisco native and was being pushed hard for one of the jobs we had open on the offensive side of the ball by legendary San Francisco State head coach Vic Rowen. Holmgren had worked for Rowen before his stint at BYU and came with his highest recommendation.

After my cutting and pasting session was over, I placed the five pieces of paper on his desk and went back to my other duties. About a week later, there was another request to see Coach Walsh. So back up the stairs I went. He handed me the paper with the Mike Holmgren bio information and said, “Michael, pick this guy up at 11 a.m. today.” And off to the airport I went.

The year was 1986, and Holmgren was coming in to interview for the quarterbacks coach job that was vacant when Paul Hackett left for the Dallas Cowboys. Holmgren was (and still is) very likeable, and from the moment I met him, I was instantly impressed. He was a genuinely nice person. Holmgren became the quarterbacks coach and went on to do wonderful things in San Francisco, Green Bay and Seattle. Now, as the NFL turns, he’s in Cleveland looking to become the football guru of the Browns.

Holmgren not coaching seems strange, but Holmgren doing the shopping for another coach seems even stranger. The hardest element of being in the front office, with or without all the power, is understanding that the game must run through the head coach’s chair. No matter how much power Holmgren might gain from his meeting with Browns owner Randy Lerner, the head coach must have substantial authority over the roster or the players won’t respond. Players must think they work for the head coach, and as we’ve seen in Dallas, Washington and Oakland, when they think they work for solely for the owner, there’s a disconnect. Being in the front office can be a powerless feeling, no matter how much power you have written in your contract.

But what Holmgren can give the Browns -- something that Carmen Policy, Butch Davis or even Eric Mangini could not -- is an infrastructure for a harmonious organization that can function smoothly and, most important, correctly. Holmgren can be the master builder, creating the template for what it will take to win a Super Bowl. Now, that template will have more Green Bay Packers/Ron Wolf influence than 49ers influence. The 49ers were a tremendous organization under Coach Walsh, but their success, in large part, was tied to Walsh’s brilliance, not necessarily the infrastructure. As the head coach, Walsh had a unique eye for being able to evaluate, being able to build his team and being able to react to the changes in the league.

Holmgren will have to rely more on his experience with Wolf than with Walsh as he learns to adapt to not being in control of everything. He will need to make sure he hires a head coach who can evaluate talent and can lay down the offensive system that Holmgren know so well. Working with the Browns while they run an offensive system that’s foreign to him won’t work. He must understand how all the pieces fit before he can find the players that fit. The most critical aspect of the job for Holmgren will be to lay down the foundation of procurement, then making sure the systems for both offense and defense are in unison. Independent sections will cause the program to break.

Lerner wants Holmgren to be a Bill Parcells kind of guru, which will require Holmgren to build an organization from the scouting room to the weight room in his vision. Parcells allows head coach Tony Sparano to have the freedom to run the program, but it’s Parcells’ program that Sparano is running. Sparano believes in the program, and whether Parcells was in the building or not, he would run his team in the exact same manner. Holmgren must find his Sparano, or else this football guru stuff won’t work.

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They say Chuckie is locked in and happy on MNF, but I don't see him passing on an opportunity to work with Holmgren and take a team like the Browns and building them into a championship team. At least that's the impression I get when I heard him talk when the Browns were on MNF.

Seems to me, he'd build an environment that would take some of the pressure off Quinn,

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Yeah right, Chucky as HC would take some pressure off Quinn. How the heck would a man notorious for collecting QB's take the pressure off a struggling youngster??? Quinn would have triple the competition at the postion and increased pressure of not only starting but keeping even a back up roll simply due to numbers alone.

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Now what's the fine for violating the Rooney rule?

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I knew Millen got hit for 200K when he hired Mooch but I didn't remember who we had in to interview for the HC job last year to satisfy that rule?

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I think you're correct, though you might be a little bit generous with that 9 seconds.

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Shoot, we could be talking about my wedding night!

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This is the same mistake Randy made with Phil/Collins in 2005.

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I may have beena bit harsh earlier in blaming Lerner for botching it with Pioli and possibly with Holmgren.

I just am not going to get too excited right now because I am tired of being let down.

the fact he left without a contract and 9 days till Christmas is not good. Holmgren is the guy I have always wanted here in Cleveland, and I am not going to expect him to sign here...that way if he does i'll be suprised

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The problem with Holmgren is he isn't a fit and Mangini knows it and doesn't want him. If I was Mangini I wouldn't want him either.

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This is the same mistake Randy made with Phil/Collins in 2005.

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Well, this is the "land of confusion."

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So you're saying Collins was a puppet?