DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Report: Browns HC Rob Chudzinski’s Future In Doubt

I guess that there was a consensus of sorts.... there is no way that this happens without a consensus among Lombardi, Banner, and Haslam. Although, I guess I could see a scenario where Haslam wasn't part of the decision making process and was just informed by Banner what he and Lombardi were doing. Afterall, he hired them to run the business for him.

Eh, these guys are just the latest part of the running joke that this franchise has become.

What I don't get is this ......

Accountability is about working your hardest and doing your best. From every report I have seen, Weeden worked hard to improve, he just wasn't good enough. Little busted his ass in training camp, working with other position groups to improve his skills. Lauvao worked hard to come back from injury.

If you want accountability, these aren't the guys you cut. You may make a decision the following season based upon their skill level, or if a better player becomes available to take their roster spot, but what message does cutting them in the middle of a season just to cut them send? "Sorry, your best just isn't good enough."?

If you have a guy who is under-performing, and not working hard, then that is the guy you dump. If you have a guy who is working hard, but failing because he just doesn't have the ability, that could be addressed in season, but not as a matter of "accountability", Further, you need someone behind the player in question.

To me, accountability would be a player not working hard in practice, or during the week, so the team punishes or releases him. (or maybe benches him) It's not saying, in season, "We don't think that this player is good enough, so cut him to send a message." What message? That if you aren't goo enough, you're gone? I think that most players know that.

I also wonder just how public these disagreements were, and if that could have played a role in the decline in the level of play we saw in the last couple of weeks. If players overheard Lombardi demanding that Chud cut certain players, or Banner saying that he has to make do with certain positions, because that's what they are giving him, that could kill a team's spirit.

That's my speculation. It sounds like it was a rather poisonous environment inside Berea.

There is no way that Haslem wasn't involved with this. Reports are he was furious with the team's play down the stretch and left early at the Pitt game. Furthermore, there is no way a FO fires a HC without the owner knowing beforehand.

I wish he had been oblivious to this because it would mean maybe he wasn't another goof owner, and maybe Banner/Lombardi would be next for pulling off an asinine move like that. However, neither are true and Haslem is an idiot.........as Diam says are only hope is Jimmy goes to prison and is forced to sell the team.

I agree, I was just saying that I could see one possible scenario where he was knowledgeable, but not a part of the actual decision process.

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Marla Ridenour: Browns use Rob Chudzinski as scapegoat for their delusional, dysfunctional mess



PITTSBURGH: A year ago, the Browns failed to land big-name coaches they pursued like Chip Kelly, Jon Gruden and Nick Saban.
Now they are under the delusion they can lure a franchise-changing leader after giving his predecessor less than 12 months to begin to turn things around.
When the Browns relieved coach Rob Chudzinski of his duties Sunday night, it illustrated the height of their arrogance, the cartoonish level of their dysfunction. They actually believe there’s a future NFL coaching star out there who wants to work with an owner under federal investigation and a CEO and general manager who have yet to prove they know anything about talent evaluation.

It showed owner Jimmy Haslam learned nothing from his days as minority owner of the Steelers, who pride themselves on continuity. The Browns can’t find a quarterback, so they use their coach as a scapegoat instead.

If Paul Brown were alive, he’d want his name removed from the team he founded.

The next coach will be the fifth to hold the Browns’ job in a seven-year span. Chudzinski became the first one-and-done coach in Browns history. There had been five of those previously in the NFL in the last 10 years, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

“If you’re intimately involved in the details of this thing, you see the progress we’re making. To start over again, it would be devastating, I think. You can’t always change head coaches, it doesn’t get it done,” Browns left tackle Joe Thomas said Sunday before he left Pittsburgh.
“You look around the league, everyone’s searching for the instant answer,” Browns quarterback Jason Campbell said. “This isn’t something that just happens. It’s something you have to work at, something you have to build.

“If the quarterback or a coach doesn’t have instant results, you get rid of guys. Back in the day, guys like Troy Aikman and Peyton Manning, their first year in the league they were 1-15 or [3-13] and they turn out to be hall of fame quarterbacks. You can never base things off one play or one season because the first year’s the hardest year.”

But that’s what the Browns foolishly did.

With a 20-7 loss to the Steelers on Sunday at Heinz Field, the Browns (4-12) set a franchise record with their seventh consecutive defeat to end the season and dropped 10 of their last 11. It was a step back from 2012, when the Browns finished 5-11 and fired coach Pat Shurmur.
If Haslam thinks he sent a message of accountability by firing Chudzinski, it’s coming with a side dish of hypocrisy. If that were so important, shouldn’t the Browns have dumped receivers Davone Bess and Greg Little during the season? Shouldn’t the front office be held responsible for a 2013 draft that failed to land any playmakers?

Tweets from Albert Breer from NFL.com and Ian Rapoport of NFL Network cited “effort and accountability issues” with Chudzinski’s players, criticism that surely came from the Browns’ front office. Thomas said he didn’t have a problem with Chudzinski in that regard.
“Down 17-0, you saw great effort this week right to the end,” Thomas said. “I think there was great accountability. That was one thing that we’re built on.”
A sore point with Haslam was the 24-13 loss to the New York Jets on Dec. 22, when he felt the Browns quit.
While Chudzinski is certainly responsible for the Browns’ dizzying decline, dumping him after 16 games seems ridiculous. After Brian Hoyer suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee Oct. 3, Chudzinski had no starting-caliber quarterback. After Trent Richardson was traded Sept. 18, Chudzinski had no starting-caliber running back. Receiver Josh Gordon and tight end Jordan Cameron were the only legitimate pass catchers. After an offseason spent stocking the defense, the acquisitions underperformed.

Yet somehow this mess was all Chudzinski’s fault.
Speculation about Chudzinski’s future first surfaced Friday in a column by Dan Pompei of Bleacher Report. On Sunday came a series of tweets from national NFL writers. Breer mentioned Penn State’s Bill O’Brien, a former New England Patriots offensive coordinator, and Patriots’ current offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels as top candidates.

That seemed to bear the fingerprints of Browns General Manager Mike Lombardi, convinced he can re-create the Patriot Way after working with Bill Belichick in Cleveland. But O’Brien may be bound for the Houston Texans, who hold the No. 1 pick and have a respected owner in Bob McNair.
As recently as Nov. 13, CEO Joe Banner praised Chudzinski, saying, “I’m hard pressed to think that in nine weeks a first-time head coach can do any better or any more than he’s doing. I just think he’s doing an outstanding job.”
When Haslam introduced Chudzinski on Jan. 11, Haslam said the Browns talked to nine or 10 of the best coaches in the country and “came back with the best person to lead the Cleveland Browns to the kind of winning format that we want to have.” He said those in the business regarded Chudzinski as “one of the brightest, if not the brightest young mind in the business.”

Yet Chudzinski received no support when it came to personnel moves and no patience from his bosses.
Haslam, Banner and Lombardi believe they can do better. The only hope of that would be to make the next coach a quasi-GM, power that Banner and Lombardi would never cede, or dip into the college ranks.
It will be a tough sell, even with two first-round draft choices next year and seven picks in the first four rounds. Few might considering dipping their toe in these waters of dysfunction, much less diving in.

I can't take credit for this line, but someone summed it up pretty good last night:

They gave Chud a type-writer and got po'd that he couldn't send an email with it.

JC..

So, wonder what this does as far as resigning guys goes. If it's me, I have serious doubts I want to remain on this train.

At this point, short of hiring Cowher as HC, or some other huge name, I don't think I'll be renewing by NFL Ticket and just catch highlights, or hang with friends at the bar and see bits of games while watching a real team play on another TV.

The press conference coming up around 12:30 should be interesting. I want the media to really grill these guys. And I want to see Lombardi at the podium as well.

Rob Chudzinski firing infuriates many Cleveland Browns players

In a drastic move that virtually no one saw coming -- but which, in retrospect, seemed like a page out of the Factory of Sadness playbook -- the Cleveland Browns fired first-year coach Rob Chudzinski on Sunday night, hours after the completion of a season that was supposed to usher in a new era of patience and stability.

Yes, this was a shocker, the Browns' 4-12 record notwithstanding. The move incurred the ire of fans, numerous NFL coaches and executives (one NFC general manager called it "a shame for the NFL") alike. Browns players, especially, were quick to vent their frustration, with more than a half-dozen of them expressing their dismay over Chudzinski's firing and what it told them about the state of the long-struggling franchise.

"This organization is a joke," one Cleveland veteran told NFL.com. "I'm completely in the dark about this. Please (rip them). I feel for Chud. He was good to us."

Added another veteran: "We are so dysfunctional. These billionaires need to pick somebody and stay with them. These aren't girlfriends. You can't dump them if they (fail to please you) one time. Too many dominoes fall and (screw stuff) up when that happens. This is highly upsetting."

While Chudzinski had lost 10 of his last 11 games after a 3-2 start, players were quick to point out some of the mitigating factors. For one thing, despite the promising early season play of journeyman and Cleveland-area native Brian Hoyer, the Browns' quarterback situation was a volatile mess, with a prior regime's first-round draft pick (Brandon Weeden) and an inconsistent veteran (Jason Campbell) manning the position after Hoyer suffered a season-ending torn ACL.

The Browns also sent strong signals that they were ignoring short-term gratification in the name of building for the future, most notably trading starting running back Trent Richardson -- the third overall pick in the 2012 draft -- to the Indianapolis Colts for a 2014 first-round choice.

Throw in the strongly stated rhetoric voiced by the new regime, primarily owner Jimmy Haslam and CEO Joe Banner, about patience, stability and continuity, and Chudzinski's firing appeared unfair at best and hypocritical at worst.

"Tremendous mistake, just epic," one Cleveland player said. "It makes no sense. Everything we did this year was setting up the future -- trading draft picks, trading players for next year's picks, playing young guys toward the end of the year to see what they look like, sitting older guys at the end to get them healthy (Joe Haden, Phil Taylor, John Hughes) when they could have played.

"This is such a rash decision. They just (expletive) hired him last year! The whole year we were making all decisions for the future and now you're pissed the coach didn't win this year? What the (heck)? It was like a big experiment with players and scheme. I think it came from upstairs, and then they are surprised we didn't win more games? Yes, it's all about patience and then fire your coach Year 1. This blows."

Said another Browns player: "We had a disappointing season, but it wasn't like we invested heavy into this year anyways. Trading away our starting running back was not the way to win games today."

According to NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport, the team's brain trust -- Haslam, Banner and general manager Mike Lombardi -- felt that the Browns were not improving or responding to Chudzinski and his assistants (all of whom, curiously, were reportedly retained, at least in the short term). Further, according to Rapoport, when the front office recently shared its concerns with Chudzinski, he did not seem to believe that the team's problems were severe.

The front office also collectively felt that losing to a talent-deficient team like the Jaguars (32-28 on Dec. 1), and the lopsided nature of many of the defeats during the team's 0-7 stretch to end the season, were black marks against Chudzinski.

When these sentiments were relayed to one Browns veteran, he replied, "It's kinda weird that's what they think. I would tend to disagree. We lost the last couple of games by a wide margin because injuries to our best players built up. Before then, we had Chicago, New England and Jacksonville down in the fourth quarter."

Later, in response to a statement issued by the Browns in the official announcement of Chudzinski's firing, the veteran said, "Does this mean every year we are not 'consistently competitive' they will fire the coach? This is awful."

It's especially unnerving given the earlier preachings of Haslam, a former Pittsburgh Steelers minority owner who purchased the Browns from Randy Lerner in October of 2012, and Banner, the longtime Philadelphia Eagles president Haslam installed as his CEO. Even before blowing out the prior administration -- president Mike Holmgren, general manager Tom Heckert and coach Pat Shurmur -- Haslam spoke of stability and continuity as his guiding principles, saying he hoped to model the Browns after the Steelers.

Those tenets were often echoed by Banner, who became the public face of the franchise after Haslam's trucking company was embroiled in a federal investigation amid allegations of deliberately withheld rebates from customers.

Now, the "carousel" that Haslam and Banner were hoping to eradicate is back in play once again.

"Yeah, it's hard to say (Chudzinski) got a fair shake when usually it takes a few years to get things established and see dividends, especially with all the quarterback changes we had," another Browns player said. "There's a reason coaches typically get a few years before changes are made, right? The whole thing just seems odd."

Said yet another Cleveland player: "It's a crazy league, man. I didn't see it coming. There's just too much turnover in this organization ... always looking over your shoulder."

In fairness, while firing a coach after his first year is far from the norm, it is not unprecedented. Mike Mularkey was let go by the Jacksonville Jaguars after a single, 2-14 season in 2012, and the Oakland Raiders dumped Hue Jackson despite an 8-8 campaign in 2011, his first year as a head coach. The Seahawks deep-sixed Jimmy Mora following a 5-11 campaign in '09, and even Pete Carroll -- the man who replaced Mora in Seattle -- was a prior victim of the one-and-done stigma, losing his job after a 6-10 season with the New York Jets in 1994.

Banner's regime, however, was supposed to be different, especially considering his past: After Andy Reid went 5-11 in 1999, his first year as the Eagles' coach, Banner and Philly owner Jeffrey Lurie never flinched. Reid proceeded to win 11 games or more in each of his next five seasons -- and take Philadelphia to five NFC championship games and a Super Bowl over the next 13 campaigns.

All of this had Browns players and others in NFL circles theorizing that something "bizarre," as one AFC offensive coordinator put it, must have taken place to compel Chudzinski's dismissal. Said one Browns player: "I've gotta get to the bottom of this. Something big must have happened behind the scenes."

If nothing else, it made for an exceptionally surreal postgame scene following the Browns' 20-7 loss to the Steelers at Heinz Field on Sunday. Told of the reports that Chudzinski's firing was imminent about an hour after the game, one Browns player texted NFL.com, "I'm on the wrong bus (to the airport) and I'm very happy I don't have to sit on Bus 1 (with Chudzinski) in awkwardness."

Now, in the wake of this stunning move, he and his teammates are left to wonder if the wheels are coming off.

It's a valid question. Here are a dozen others in our perceived pecking order of the teams who've survived to compete for the Lombardi Trophy (yes, an abbreviated, playoff version of the 32 questions you typically find in this space):

1) Seattle Seahawks: Given that their prized offseason acquisition was restricted to a single game's worth of action in 2013 (and might be shelved for the playoffs), how extraordinary was the 'Hawks' 13-3 regular season?

2) Denver Broncos: Von who?

3) Carolina Panthers: Is it fair to say that Greg Hardy and his fellow pass rushers really wanted a week off?

4) San Francisco 49ers: Given that the Niners had already clinched a playoff berth, how impressive was Sunday's victory at Arizona -- and could this season become another memorable chapter in the franchise's special history book?

5) New England Patriots: Yo, Bill Belichick -- should we cue the violins, and how awesome is it to know everything about everything?

6) New Orleans Saints: When Drew Brees throws for 321 yards and four touchdowns by halftime in the regular-season finale, is it fair to say the Saints have a bit of momentum heading into the playoffs?

7) Cincinnati Bengals: Is Andy Dalton secretly a Ravens fan, and how many interceptions would it have taken for the defending Super Bowl champs to come up victorious in Sunday's must-win game?

8) Green Bay Packers: After saying "we can't count on (Aaron Rodgers) as the savior" before Sunday's game in Chicago, would linebacker A.J. Hawk like to reconsider his position?

9) Indianapolis Colts: What's more striking -- that Robert Mathis won the NFL sacks title at 32, or that he was the lone Pro Bowl selection for an 11-5 team?

10) Kansas City Chiefs: Who's more reviled in Western Pennsylvania right now -- Andy Reid, Ryan Succop or Bill Leavy?

11) Philadelphia Eagles: Even though Chip Kelly didn't fall for the banana-in-the-tailpipe trick, how fortunate was Philly to be facing the Cowboys' second-team quarterback in the final two minutes of Sunday night's NFC East decider?

12) San Diego Chargers: Did Keenan Allen really consider quitting after one NFL game? And if so, how grateful are the Chargers that he didn't follow through?

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I've seen nothing that illustrates the players' discontent with Chud and a mutiny was around the corner. Not saying that stuff isn't out there but everything I've seen/heard is the opposite.

Bucs just fired Head Coach Greg Sciano)sp?_

Quote:

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I haven't heard many players really complaining about this firing. It's the same quotes over and over.

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It's' not about the number of players complaining, it's who is complaining. Joe Thomas and DQ generally aren't complainers. So when they say something, it carries weight.

Probably not with the FO, but with the Fans it does.

Just... wow.

I won't panic or make any bold declarations. For all we know its a wise move.

All I will say is his replacement had better prove to be a blockbuster, knicked-out-of-the-park hire.

And it just doesn't feel right.

I heard they've spoken with Adam Gase.

GMAFB ... really? We should just hire Peyton Manning instead.

Gase could take Sundays off and the Broncos wouldn't even notice.

A hire like that would be catastrophic, IMO.

Banner needs to stop trying to be smarter than everyone else by finding the next great thing that nobody thinks will be the next great thing and get someone in here with some credibility.

At this point, I would welcome Saban with open arms.

Just clicking

I know there is a presser at 12:30, does anyone know where we can watch it? perhaps on the browns site?

I know I will be in the minority on this ... never stopped me before ... but I hope Horton gets a legit shot and will be the next HC.

Slam away.

WKYC.com

Lions just fired Schwartz and Redskins fired Shanahan.

here is a link to the presser

http://www.wkyc.com/videos/news/local/2013/11/05/3311833/

J/C

The FO better have a really great plan here, ala the TR trade. Or we will continue being the perpetual laughing stock....flip coin now., heads they win, tails we loose.

God Banner just makes my skin crawl.

jc


Who listened to the presser? I am debating if I even want to listen to the crap that is/was being said. Is there anything, of logic and etc, worthwhile for me to waste my time listening to it? I'm not joking either, and there is no sarcasm in the above.

I am...

http://www.wkyc.com/videos/news/local/2013/11/05/3311833/

Jimmy said about a dozen times that they "want to get it right" but not once did he say that they got it wrong.

nothing jaws Jimmy more than him reading the paper Monday reading same old Browns


Banner Pisses me off... he flat out just BS's

saying we have a similar situation as other teams that are winning with first year HC's and terrible RB's and Qb situation

Improvement should happen during the season no matter what talent level you're at.

-Banner

Jimmy said... it'll basically take 3 years to get a talent level needed to win



but he blams the HC?

and he said the 2013 draft talent sucked compared to 2014


-

question who is in the sames shoes as a first year coach that is in the Playoffs besides CK? Philly has 2x the talent we have

It's funny that Jimmy is saying one thing and Banner says the exact opposite.

I don't see Lombo

chann 19 just blasted them LMAO

Love it. Out of left field question from facebook.