Written by Brian McPeek

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Perhaps having a day to think about the Browns and Ravens game wasn't the best thing that could happen. As this site's "Guy that goes off half-cocked" it may have been better to just spill thoughts and reflections of yesterday's game the minute I had finished watching it and while I was depressed and tired. But that's not how it all came spilling it out when I sat down to put thoughts into words. 

No. That's not at all how it came out. This is:

There was no Weekend Wrap last night as the Madison Invitational youth soccer tourney was Saturday and Sunday and I was watching my 11 year old physically and literally get the crap kicked outta her and then called a “%$#@ing   bit$% by one of the 11-year old future teen mothers from Mayfield. Classy group you have there!!

That was in the bracket game on Saturday. Then my 11-year old got physically beaten by them again for the first half when Madison made it back to the title game against Mayfield on Sunday. So at halftime, when I saw her letting the style of play (that she’s been taught and that she believes in and abides by) affect her approach we had a talk about how  to make a move with a girl draped on her back. One where an outside shoulder and elbow provide the impetus and energy for a perfectly legal move, but that can sometimes catch a defending player in the upper lip and nose and split those parts of the face wide open. Sometimes those overly aggressive defenders bleed for 10-15 minutes into a towel and come back into a game lacking that same spirited sense of aggression and lust for physical play. Sometimes, sadly, they need to find the nearest emergency dentist. Either way, no defenders were bloodied after our discussion but a goalkeeper (a really good one, too) was nearly maimed when my 11-year old had had enough and went in very hard on a ball that was very much a 50/50 ball, but one that she would have likely ceded on any other given day against any other given team.

Mayfield beat them 2-0 (and understand Mayfield was the superior team and they earned the tournament title) but there are some really good lessons in losses at that age, and on Sunday one was learned. I’d like to thank the Mayfield coach and the little witch with the sailor's vocabulary from that club for the opportunity to teach it and to see it take hold. It’s gratifying when such a really important lesson can be made so very clear and implemented so very quickly.

Sometimes things aren’t fair and sometimes the game isn’t about skill and breakaways and clean shots either going in or being stopped. Sometimes you have to protect yourself and set a tone despite it being a departure from who you are and what you are all about. Sometimes you have to protect yourself and your teammates by doing something out of character. Sometimes as a parent, for the future benefit of your children, you need to make sure that the requisite amount of ugly and nasty is present in your kids so that they’re not always a human target. Regardless of how much time you spent saying one thing, there comes a time when you have to show them or teach them how to get a little ugly and a little dirty for their long term benefit.

Which brings me to Jimmy Haslam having to fire Pat Shurmur immediately. Preferably yesterday. At the 3:45 mark of the fourth quarter if possible.

The Cleveland Browns under Shurmur are spiraling out of control and guys are going in a dozen different directions. Players are leaving interviews pissed off, not going to them at all, getting bitchy and personal about their lack of respect for their coach on the radio, looking like they don’t know a football from a flower pot on the field at times, and generally making a mockery out of the colors and name on their uniforms.

And that doesn’t even begin to describe what a complete joke and fool Shurmur looks like every damn Sunday.

I know Jimmy Haslam said he’d wait until the end of the year to make any further changes. But I also know Jimmy Haslam essentially shit-canned Mike Holmgren a few weeks after saying no personnel moves would be made until after the season. Sometimes the corporate approach, one based in common sense and typically the way to go about things, needs to go out the window.

It seems to me Haslam has a pretty good understanding that Shurmur is a bumbling, incompetent rube who can’t manage his offense any better than he can manage his timeouts. I find it hard to believe that if some similarly incompetent hack was running the Flying J out at RT90 and RT45 that Haslam would wait until the end of the fiscal year to send that poor hump packing. It serves no purpose other than to weaken already bad morale and ensure further mistakes.

Look, if you can’t run the register or make out a schedule then you probably shouldn’t be managing that Flying J. And if you can’t avoid having to call a timeout after two consecutive penalties on your offense to avoid a delay penalty, and if you can’t figure out when to go for it on 4th and 1 on the opponent's side of the field and when to punt on 4th and 2 from your own 28-yard line, after taking all other factors into consideration,  then you probably aren’t going to figure that out with another few weeks on the job.

And then to completely botch the media interviews afterward and say you never felt the game was over after giving the Ravens the ball already in field goal position and going down ten points? What? You really think after scoring only 15 points on five Phil Dawson field goals and never throwing into the end zone once that there was enough time left for four more Dawson field goals to win it?

There may be nothing to be gained by firing Shurmur at this point in a lost season, but what’s the point of keeping him on? He’s lost some of the guys on this team and that’s far more dangerous than getting rid of him at this juncture.

Each ridiculous decision, each ridiculous lapse and each ridiculous explanation from Shurmur just adds to the embarrassment that this franchise produces already. Hand Brad Childress or Dick Jauron the reins for the last seven games and at least set the tone in the locker room and down through the entire organization that continually embarrassing the colors isn’t going to be tolerated and accepted. Jauron and Childress have both been head coaches in the league and they’ve both lost those gigs which certainly calls into question just how much of an upgrade either would be.

But Jauron has won 60 games an NFL head coach and Childress has won 39 (with a winning percentage above .500). They’re infinitely better, smarter and more capable of running an organization. So why wait at all when you have two coaches under your own roof who are better than Captain Chaos? You know how many games Shurmur has won in nearly two years? Six. We’d kill for the relative success of Jauron or Childress from Shurmur but it’s not happening. He’s not equipped to deal with the stress or responsibility. You saw the same stunned expressions on Romeo Crennel’s shell-shocked face when Romeo was blowing through timeouts like they were brisket and  sweet potato fries.

Childress is an offensive guy and Jauron is much respected by his defense. Either one is fine. Neither one has to be permanent. But how many times are you going to allow that Flying J manager to take money out of your register and screw up your books before you bounce him out the door and onto his ass?

Things change. What you say one day, whether it be ‘always play fair dear 11-year old daughter’ or ‘no coaching changes until after the season’ may not be the appropriate way to approach things today based on what happened yesterday.

Pat Shurmur is in way over his head. He has been for a year and a half. Guys like that don’t suddenly recover and swim. They drown and sometimes they take others below the surface with them. And right now he may or may not be holding Brandon Weeden’s head under the water. I honestly can’t tell if Weeden simply blows or if it’s a combination of him struggling in an offense that’s doing nothing for him. And Haslam needs to know pretty damn soon about Mr. Weeden.

The Browns have already reduced his responsibilities on each play to include only half the field. They did that after the abomination in Game 1 and you can see it if you watch the coaches’ tapes available on line. They give Weeden half the field so he doesn’t have to think too much or go through too many progressions. That results in him making quicker decisions but it’s not doing anything to actually promote his growth and increase his understanding.

Great…he’s not getting killed as often. But the offense has basically turned him into that guy who was quarterbacking last year when he’s afraid to throw the football down field and when he ignores Mohamed Massaquoi running wide open drag routes all afternoon so that he can throw late fastballs to his TE or RB on check downs. You know, in order for there to be a check down option you theoretically need to have looked at other options first. Weeden isn’t doing that. He looked Sunday like he was afraid (and that the Browns were afraid) to let him throw the bill in the middle of the field.

THAT’s the guy we drafted at 22? That’s where we’re pinning our hopes and dreams? On a guy who can only be given half of the field vertically and who’s afraid of the deep half of the field horizontally? He’s 29 years old. It’s usually the third year when a QB, after learning the league and the deal in year one and refining all of that in his offensive system in year two, is ready to break out. That makes Weeden 31 when that happens. IF that happens. That’s IF you don’t change the offensive system when you do fire Shurmur and delay that progression another year.

THAT”S why it was a brain-dead move to take the guy when they took him. You have to consider the player, the system, the coaching,  the roster and the organizational stability when you make a move like that and all Holmgren and Heckert considered were their owns asses and jobs.

Weeden had none of that stability that rookies need to be successful. And just being “better than Colt” isn’t nearly good enough.

We (in the royal ‘we’ sense) need to know NOW (or ASAP) if that’s because Shurmur’s system and QB tutelage is as bad as Shurmur’s clock management or if it’s Weeden that’s also a lost cause. Because the Browns can adjust if it’s one or the other and even if both Shurmur and Weeden suck rocks then you can throw them both to the curb by the time next season rolls around.

Keeping Shurmur around muddies the Weeden waters. It will likely lead to more complaining and players voicing their lack of respect for the head coach in the media. It will likely lead to more embarrassing game management and play calling debacles.

Pat Shurmur seems like a truly decent and nice human being. He seems like a great guy. But he is a dead man walking in terms of his future as head coach of the Cleveland Browns. So let that dead man walk somewhere else. Anywhere else other than on the Browns sideline is perfectly fine.

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