Written by Brian McPeek

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The Prog?  Doesn't quite flow as easily as "The Jake".  And as a Progressive employee, Brian McPeek leads off The Weekend Wrap with his thoughts on the name change at Carnegie and Ontario.  Brian also hits on the Buckeyes and Tressel, and the flak they are getting from the fan base after the loss to LSU ... as well as the Todd Grantham firing and the weekend slate of NFL playoff games.

A Rose By Any Other Name

I don’t like the ring of ‘Progressive Field’.

And I’m an employee of the new name holder.

It’s not that I’m a sentimentalist or that I long for the place to be known forever as ‘The Jake’ (though it wouldn’t upset me). I also have no axe to grind with my employer. On the contrary, I’ve enjoyed working there for 14 years and by and large they do things the right way. I just don’t think the name sounds very good. Maybe 20 years from now it will be part of the fabric of this town, but right now it sounds forced and cheap. And the new logo that accompanies the naming rights reinforces those feelings.

Progressive does a lot of things very well. They are an industry leader in innovation. They employ 28,000 people across the country and thousands of those are right here in the Cleveland area. They provide affordable insurance in the personal and commercial auto markets and they generally take care of their employees and communities fairly well.

What they do not do well at all is market themselves or successfully advertise the company.

Driving home from dinner the other night we passed a Nationwide Insurance sign. My 7-year-old daughter began singing “Nationwide is on your side”. I asked her to sing the Progressive song. She looked at me like I had 4 heads and told me, “Dad, Progressive doesn’t have a song and they don’t have a lizard either.”

It’s that bad.

But the announcement that they had bought the naming rights to Jacob Fields for about $60 million didn’t exactly thrill the masses or bring Progressive tons of good will either. The Logo and the generic name attached to the ballpark bring the words “ham-handed” and “hurried” to mind. Actually, it brings back tucked away memories of the Progressive E.T Super Bowl commercials from a few years back.

Remember that? No? Well, if you don’t you’re not alone. Only the folks that document history’s worst ideas really recall that epic advertising campaign.

But time has a way of working these things out. In 16 years it’s likely that people will complain about whatever new company name graces the ballpark after Progressive. No one takes kindly to change and the last 13 years at the Jake are all that a generation of fans has grown up with. And it was a pretty solid run that coincided with Jacobs name hanging over the park for that time.

However, if there are 10 playoff appearances over the next 16 years, some of which begin with “Live from Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio, it’s Game 6 of the World Series”, I’m thinking all parties involved, the fans, team and Progressive, will walk away feeling pretty good about the deal.

Personally, if people are at least ambivalent about the name by then, I think Progressive will have exceeded its past marketing efforts.

Put it to Bed

The Ohio State football program is fine.

Jim Tressel is a terrific football coach.

Beating Michigan and winning the Big 10 is the first order of business every year.

The problem is that in previous years beating Michigan and winning the Big 10 was a pretty good indication that you were a dynamic, powerful football team capable of beating anybody in the country come bowl game time. That’s simply not the case anymore. The Big 10 is down relatively speaking. The game is such that the playing field has been leveled for smaller Division 1 schools and the gap annually has narrowed in regard to talent. In short, parity has arrived in college football.

Making it even more difficult on the Buckeyes is that they have proven to be almost too talented for the health of their program. Each year they lose their talented seniors and also any number of talented juniors to the NFL. And while this phenomena is not restricted to just the Buckeyes, they do seem to lose to a large number of quality football players every year.

When you criticize the Ohio State program you have to be careful how you frame your argument. Is your beef with the talent that Tressel recruits? Is it the players are coached-up to the point where their ability allows them to be marketable and desired by NFL personnel departments? Would you prefer an offensive and defensive system where they may give up their advantage over Michigan and the rest of the Big 10 in order to make some advancement that would be evident against other styles of play?

Granted, the past two BCS championships have been studies in disappointment and frustration. And certainly the coaching staff’s inability to put the Buckeyes in the best position to win those games can’t be overlooked and has got to be addressed.

But playing in 3 championship games in 7 years says more about Tressel and his program than anything the national media can try and tell you. Bitch about the program when they aren’t annually in the biggest game of the season.

Silk Purses and Cows Ears

No tears out of this corner for the departure of Todd Grantham as the Browns defensive coordinator. Hell, I hardly remember him or his defense from this past fall. Apparently Grantham’s behind the scenes maneuverings and office politicking earned him a well-deserved pink slip. These things happen annually in the NFL.

I’m hoping those missteps were the real reason Grantham is gone and Cleveland native and former DB coach Mel Tucker was promoted to run the defense. Because if the front office did it for any other reason I fear they have overlooked a few simple facts about their football team. The basic facts are that neither God nor Buddy Ryan, despite their omnipotence, could be expected to improve that defense with its current personnel.

Honestly, you and I would be fine as defensive coordinator if the front office would go out and grab a couple of stud defensive linemen and another high-impact linebacker. Blaming Grantham for the defensive breakdowns and toothlessness isn’t fair. Not when Simon Fraser, Bobby Hamilton, Ted Washington, Willie McGinest, Chaun Thompson and Andra Davis were seeing meaningful defensive minutes during the season.

Getting rid of Grantham may have been good business and a symbolic gesture that the team is hell bent on improving the defense. But symbolic gestures are empty unless player personnel changes accompany them. Mel Tucker’s success or failure will not hinge as much on his coaching ability as it will on the front office providing him with some improved talent up front.

Etcetera

• I’ve picked up on something I think could be a key to the Cav success over the 2^nd half of the season. This came to me while watching them struggle to eek out a double-overtime win over the miserable Charlotte Bobcats this past Friday at the ‘Q’. I’m thinking if they can just get 31 points, 19 rebounds and 8 assists from LeBron James and 16 points and 18 rebounds from Anderson Varejao every night, they just might be okay.

• Just awful to see the Indianapolis Colts eliminated from the playoffs Sunday. Actually I had forgotten just how much I enjoyed watching Peyton Manning sulk off a field with his head dipped in that 12-year-old child display of shame and embarrassment while he mumbles under his breath about one teammate or another having failed him.

I guess lying down against Tennessee a couple weeks ago means that this Colts team hits the golf course extremely well rested given they took the last three weeks off.

• On a related note, I look forward to seeing the same hangdog look on Peyton’s brother’s face this time next week. I’m not one to root for Brett Favre (any idea if he’s coming back next year or is the official countdown date for that crap to commence still a week or two away?) but the Manning family grates on me with their sense of entitlement and their pouting nature.