Written by Thomas Moore

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Cleveland Browns coach Pat Shurmur and offensive coordinator Brad Childress sat down with the media on Wednesday before leaving town for the NFL Combine and the duo dropped a couple of interesting tidbits on Brown fans.

In a decision that is really not that surprising, Shurmur said he will continue to call the actual plays on offense, with considerable input from Childress, who will be in the coaches box on game days.

“Unless things change, Brad will be upstairs,” Shurmur told The Beacon Journal. “During the week, you decide what the plays are going to be. That’s what you write on the card, and then you call them. There’s constant interaction between the play-caller and the other people on offense. Every place I’ve been, that’s always been the case. So, yeah, I’ll be on the field right now and calling (plays), but it’s constant communication. People talk about halftime adjustments. Well, there’s adjustments going on all the time, and that’s why we wear the headsets so that we can communicate.”

“I would just say that it really is all collaborative,” Childress said on ClevelandBrowns.com. “It’s not like somebody’s going to pull something out from 1965 and everybody goes, ‘What the hell is that?’ It’s all about the game-planning … everybody has a hand in it … and I’m good with it.”

We like the idea of Childress being in the box during the game. While there is no right or wrong way to do this, having Childress be able to see the whole field and get a big picture view of what is going on should only help the team avoid some of the in-game mistakes that plagued the Browns in 2011.

Ultimately, though, it doesn't really matter who is reading the play into the quarterback's ear if the team doesn't improve the on-field talent. It's funny how, in the NFL, talented players can make coaches look better - those five-yard passes on third-and-eight quickly become good calls when a receiver can break a tackle and run another 10 yards.

Speaking of playmakers on offense, Shurmur and Childress also talked about the team's ongoing issue at quarterback, with Shurmur saying all the right things about incumbent Colt McCoy.

“We’re looking forward him to improving through the off-season,'” Shurmur told The Plain Dealer. “I think it will make a big difference in year two (of) me being here.  I told him to prepare himself to get as much out of this off-season as possible. I’m expecting him to attack this off-season and get as good as he can get within our system. He really works at things and that's going to help him.”

OK, Shurmur has to say that; after all, the Browns haven't drafted a new quarterback (just yet).

But the draft "experts" have pretty much decided the Browns "must" do what it takes to draft Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III. While it is clear that Griffin is wickedly talented, he played in a spread offense at Baylor and the Browns have to decide how much of his skill set fits into their version of the West Coast offense - 60 percent? 70 percent? Something less?

Whatever the number, the question then becomes, are the Browns coaches willing and able to adjust their offense to fit the specific skills of the players on the roster? After all, fitting your system to your talent is one of the most important skills that a successful coach should have.

That's why we liked what Childress had to say on the subject.

“It is a balance,” Childress said in published reports. “Somewhere you have a system that you play to, and I know that (Denver Broncos offensive coordinator) Mike McCoy did a tremendous job with a different skill set with Tim Tebow in developing things around the quarterback. Does your scheme have to change? You usually try to play to whatever somebody’s strengths are.

“I don’t think there’s a hesitation if you feel like the guy’s the quarterback that you’re looking for. Quarterbacks are like buying cars. If you don’t like it, you need to move on. If you don’t like the way it feels, or handles or looks, you need to move on. If there’s something that bothers you, you move on. With that said, you typically don’t ever want to pass a franchise quarterback if there’s one there. But somebody’s going to have to deem that in the first year, not say after year six, how that guy’s going to be.”

Now we don't want the Browns to go full-on Tebow with the offense - it seems unlikely that Denver will be able to sustain the offense they ran in 2011 - but the Browns need to figure out what Griffin, McCoy or whomever is at quarterback does best and tailor the offense to those skills.

That's what Denver did with Tebow, as Minnesota defensive end Jared Allen pointed out in Michael Silver's GQ article on Tebow.

"You know, coaches always think they have the winning theory: 'Our way is the right way! Blah blah blah!', Allen said. "Well, here's a dude that they basically had to scrap the whole offense for and go back to running a college (system). And they have been successful with it. Sometimes people think the game is more difficult than it is. If you find something that works, go with it. And I don't really think it has to be a nine-syllable frickin' play."

Do Shurmur and Childress have it in them to be that flexible with the Browns offense? That’s just another in a long line of questions facing the team as it heads toward free agency and the NFL Draft.

And Browns fans everywhere hope the answer is yes, because if it’s not, then it really doesn’t matter who is under center when the season opens in September because the team will still be on the road to nowhere.

(Photo by Getty Images)