RAC isnt getting fired

[PaulMcdonaldshoes]

I have been on the dump RAC bandwagon especially after watching the Ravens-Broncos debacles. If there is a decision by Lerner et all to keep RAC, my arm chair guess is the following record the Browns need to achieve:

8-8

9-7

10-6

If RAC is fired with a even or winining record much hue and cry will put forth from the local and national media. Lerner will look foolish. I do think Mel "Drive-In" Tucker likely stays on. They share a few donuts during early morning game film watching every Monday. Upgrades will be made in the obivious places on defense. That said, Browns could have a much softer schedule next year.

My ten cents worth of analysis

[d531]

RAC will be gone unless some miracle happens and the Browns make the playoffs.

[Vegasdogg]

Changing the coach does not mean rebuilding.

RAC is gone baby gone.

[Gips]

Im sorry i cant follow your assumption...ROMEO MUST GO!

And most the garbage coaches beneath him!

Even if we win the rest of this seasons games romeo still must go the fact is that this group for 4 years now has failed to properly evaluate talent or even prepare/train/teach/coach our players for regular season play its a pattern many of us would find unacceptable even at the jr. highschool level lerner and savage need to do something they have never considered or more likely they cant convince one to come to this nansy panzy organization ...a known and proven winner instead of trying to bring a DC/OC in because they are about as good at choosing a Head coach as romeo crennel is at evaluating and preparing to his players talents and strenths..

Are we a friggin football team or a bank?

[Tobalaz]

@samoth said:

RAC is gone. He's a defensive coach who's had one of the worst defenses in the league year in and year out. Something's gotta change.

Remember how Billick was an offensive genius that couldn't run an offense?

Yeah, it's kind of like that.

But RAC isn't winning a Super Bowl with an explosive offense.

[OconRecon]

Didn't we fire Marty for not going far enough in the playoffs. I may have been in favor of that at the time! I'll never understand his coaching career. Weird.

[lemosley01]

@oconrecon said:

Didn't we fire Marty for not going far enough in the playoffs. I may have been in favor of that at the time! I'll never understand his coaching career. Weird.

No, Modell fired Marty because of a disagreement.

WE (the fans) weren't calling for Marty's head (well most of us).

It was frustrating to loose in the playoffs, but I think most of us had the vision that our time would come.

[WPB Dawg Fan]

@jadbf said:

I believe he fired marty because marty wouldn't bring an OC in.

Yeah, Marty's brother.

[darubes]

Assuming Romeo stay, what needs to be done IMO:

1.In the first round I draft a pass rusher either a defensive lineman or a LB.

2. In the second round I draft a pass rusher.

3. In the third round I draft a pass rusher.

4. In the fourth,fifith, etc. see the above.

5. In free agency I go after pass rushers.

I am of the opinion that Wright and McDonald are not that bad especially Wright. The total lack of a pass

rush exposes them. When you have a MINIMUM of two men blocking Shaun Rogers and you can't mount a

pass rush you could have Willie Brown or any other HOF corner and he will get beat at times. Add to that the

slowness of our LBs and you have a major problem. Add to that the inability of our LBs to tackle and you have

more that major problems. When a man is in his 15th season (McGinest) and he is your best LB there is no

hope. The LBs are so slow they can not even get into their drop zones. It's one thing if they could stop the run,

then at least the DBs could play the pass but we can't so they have to support the run also.

The offense looks O.K. for now. Lewis appears to be slowing a little but can probably squeak out a couple of

more years if he gets a blow more often.(Hint here to Romeo-- PLAY HARRISON MORE). You can tweak the

offense but the defense needs a major overhaul.

[Mark O]

With all the hype leading up to this season, I don't see how Romeo keeps his job unless we win 6 in a row and make the playoffs.

[roach]

@wpb-dawg-fan said:

Yeah, Marty's brother.

Sort of. Kurt isn't an offense coach.

Art told Marty he needed more help on offense. He wanted Marty to hire an OC. Marty told Art he didn't need more help and that he wasn't going to hire one. Art told Marty that the last time he looked, he was still the owner of the team and that Marty was going to hire one. Pighead Marty said no, and that was that.

Any (supposed) leader that turns down help from his boss when his boss is trying to help him is not only goofy, but probably a psycho too. Art did the right thing. At the time, the fans were pretty split about the situation.

The story is that Art wanted Marty to get rid of Kurt too. Probably true. Art hated losing.

[Ghoolie]

The only decision that has been made about Crennell is that he will coach one more game.

The Browns FO doesn't have a clue. Had Andersen not come out of the box firing on all cyhlinders, Quinn would have been the QB his first year.

The Borwns will fire Crennell when it suits them, and it has more to do with emotion than it does performance. 7 - 9 by itself is no indicator. For instance, if the Browns go 5 -11, but manage to get #5 in Hienz dump, Crennel wont get fired. Conversely if we win Sunday then finish 5 - 11, Romeo will be gone.

Sewage is a jagoff, he doesn' t know day-to-day what his "philosophy" is.

He uses his position to cover his ass, That's what he does.

[Flugel]

@ballpeen said:

I disagree Tom....I think the decision has already been made on Romeo....all of these changes aren't because of Romeo, they are directives from above.

Not to bust your chops Ballpeen but HOW are you certain what is done from above and what is done from the Head Coach?

I REALLY like to know who's decision it is to give Lewis 97% of the carries when he looks washed up this year. LAST year, Lewis wanted to prove Baltimore wrong and he showed up to camp 15 pounds lighter than usual. He had some giddyup to go with his quest. This year Lewis gets a FAT contract (meaning he already proved what he needed to prove) and we're suddenly seeing the SAME guy Baltimore grew unhappy with.

I get sort of curious why I keep seeing the refrain from Harrison as I keep remembering Savage committed to Lewis this offseason. My question is which of the 2 RBs looks MORE committed to the Browns right now? I know Lewis is calling teammates out while Harrison hasn't had to. Now it's easy for me to say it's ALL RAC keeping Harrison seated on game day but the REALITY is it wasn't RAC that just gave Lewis the nice contract. If your boss at work has an objective he/she wants to be commit to - can you just say you'd rather work other objectives because they make you look better? Marty Schottenheimer got fired just like Lane Kiffen did for not following the boss' objectives.

ALOT of people that don't like RAC insinuate 100% of the crappy decisions are his. I've caught myself doing that when I got frustrated. If the decision to continue running Lewis into a cement wall on quick sand is from above - maybe we're looking at the reason RAC can't be as successful for THIS Supervisor as he was for Bill Belichick as his Supervisor. I'm looking at a 3-4 that doesn't have many ILBers that LIKE to tackle people so again if those personnel decisions are from above - HOW can the Head Coach be successful? We got ILBers that couldn't start for Cincy.

Guys like Ray Lewis, Pat Willis, Zach Thomas, Brian Urlacher, Cornelius Bennett, Clay matthews, Lawrence Taylor, Pepper Johnson, Chris Speilman didn't NEED to be coached into who they became. They were blessed with instinct, intelligence and winning first steps. D'Qwell Jackson isn't disappointing because of WHO coaches him right now - he's disappointing because our personnel dept overrated him. Now he's gonna KEEP starting because there's an ego attached to 2nd round draft picks. Andra Davis got a big raise from Phil 2 years ago so even though Leon Williams looked like our most promising ILBer in 2007 - what 2 guys started vrs Buffalo inside? Chaun Thompson got walking papers and he runs 4.5s and is a chiseled 260 pounds. Maybe if we kept him and moved him inside - we wouldn't have to blitz our DBs from the outside all the time. I watched little Ray Rice put Jackson on his back on an X-stunt where the oline was cleared out. he wasn't the first scat back to do this to him either. Do you think Ray Lewis gets put on his back on the same play by Ray Rice? Hell no!

I'm not THRILLED with RAC at all BUT I think there's more handcuffing going on than people think. I totally understand impatience with RAC but when BB was his Supervisor - he didn't have ANY trouble getting good performance from the players he was told to make work. One of those years they lost their starting corners heading into the playoffs and they ended up winning the Superbowl. I ralso emembered Savage saying we didn't have a suitable replacement for Dennis Northcutt on our STs when we would later learn we actually had an All Pro upgrade in Cribbs. That said, BEFORE he was coached up - he couldn't even field a punt because he misjudged 2 in a game he filled in for an injured Northcutt. Somebody coached him up pretty good and fast on the special teams. Dawson continues to improve as he's won quite a few games in the last 2 years with field goals over 50 yards.

I'm all for changing Head Coaches if we can hire the RIGHT guy for once. Is that guy out there without a job right now? I remembered one of our message board legends Fatdaddy was THE most excited fan on our board the day we hired Butch Davis and he couldn't understand WHY I said I don't think the Head Coach is the disease - he's just 1 symptom. Well, Butch Davis turned 5-27 football into competitive football immediately. Our Defense led the AFC in INTs in 2001 and then we made the playoffs in 2002. Butch's downfall was thinking he could be GM and Head Coach so again it didn't work. And guess who became his biggest critic? Fatdaddy. There we were 1 more time thinking the only thing wrong is Head Coach. Was I the ONLY Browns' fan that thought Carmen Policy STUNK and deserved some degree of accountability? Our porcelain franchise pillars were Tim Couch and Courtney Brown while we chose Scott Milanovich OVER Kurt Warner in the expansion draft and Spergon Wynn over Tom Brady in round 6. Butch choosing Warren over Tomlinson was brutal too. Butch NEVER sought out the Browns - they came knocking and begging for him to leave the college football paradise he created from the depths of probation to resurrect the Browns.

My BIGGEST hope is Savage can find the right Head Coach and it becomes a GM-Head Coach tagteam like Buffalo had, Indy has, Denver has had, NE has, Miami seems to have, Pittsburgh has. It's just not right when we were being sentenced to DA knowing Quinn is better. Now we're being sentenced to Lewis when Harrison seems far better. This kind of stuff means the Head Coach and GM are disconnected. I mean what took so FREAKIN took so long to yank Dumb Ass from the starting lineup? My second biggest hope is we can FIND some LBers for this team.

- Tom F.

[Flugel]

@jadbf said:

I believe he fired marty because marty wouldn't bring an OC in.

Exactly JADBF!

We lost a MNF game by less than a FG to Houston; because Marty trying to work as an OC was disorganized and the time expired on us without kicking a chip shot FG before half in a game we lost by 1 or 2 points. Modell told him, HIRE an OC. Marty replied that he wanted to KEEP Lindy Infante's system that the players all bought into and had experience with. This part is hearsay so correct it if necessary but Marty said I'll elevate my brother Kurt from STs coach to OC. Modell thought this was nothing more than Marty KEEPING the OC position so the frustration grew to this: "Hire an OC or take a hike. "

BOTH sides had a legit arguement. I think Marty was a little stubborn because how difficult would it have been to hire an OC to run Lindy's system if he KEPT the freakin playbook? That same stubbornness and unwillingness to workj with his boss in SD did him in again. In order for Marty to GET the absolute control he wanted - he needed to win it ALL before he could enjoy such a luxury. That said, there's been some REALLY GOOD Head Coaches that were unable to excell in a dual role of Head Coach and GM. Mike Holmgren and how about Tom Coughlin in Jax?

- Tom F. (I MISS Lindy infante's innovation then again you gotta have a Kosar, Mack and Byner to pull off such a thing)

[ballpeen]

Not to bust your chops Ballpeen but HOW are you certain what is done from above and what is done from the Head Coach?

Because I know all....you don't know that?? LOL

So, you think Savage and or Lerner are telling Romeo to not play Harrison??

I don't know what to say...

I will stick to my assessment that Romeo was told to start Quinn and start playing some of the others.

A cold started to nail me to the wall yesterday, and has me pinned this morning, so the mind isn't ready to wrap around anything too in depth, so I will have to get back with you in a day or two when I can put together more than a few lines in reply.

[nickers]

I say If we finish 9-7 and less..You fire the guy because...Youre going backwards...not forward...Its simple logic...Me personally...I didnt like the hiring of RAC from the start,.,,I think all we did was waste time with this dufus...god bring someone in here with a damn clue!

[ballpeen]

@nickers said:

I say If we finish 9-7 and less..You fire the guy because...Youre going backwards...not forward...Its simple logic...Me personally...I didnt like the hiring of RAC from the start,.,,I think all we did was waste time with this dufus...god bring someone in here with a damn clue!

So I take that as a vote to get rid of the guy.

[nickers]

of course...would you keep someone whose not been very adept at on field management and whose defense never seems to improve?

[MrFreeze]

I think Savage's recent email problem with the fan means that he isn't going to be around here next year. How can any owner put up with a GM that allows a fan to hook him?

Barring a win at Pittsburgh at the end of the year, RAC is gone too.

[Flugel]

@ballpeen said:

Because I know all....you don't know that?? LOL

So, you think Savage and or Lerner are telling Romeo to not play Harrison??

"OH THURSTON!"

I hope I spelled out I did NOT know this but you REALLY made me wonder when you said Savage was making all the decisions. Now you seem to be clarifying that RAC only makes the BAD decisions and all the good ones come from above him.

My thought process: If a GM gets an owner to open his wallet for a guy for THIS season (ie; Lewis) and RAC plays another RB instead - Does that make Lerner question Savage as to "WHY did you make me pay Lewis when the kid I SHOULD have paid was Harrison?" Could you see this question and potential trust issue arising and would Savage LIKE it? He's still new to this GM thing so there's an ego factor and seeing it through thing going on with empowering RAC to make Lewis work. The problem is Lewis didn't come to the 2008 camp with the same "I'll show Baltimore" venegeance because he got a nice raise. Now he looks exactly like the player Baltimore found to be easily repaceable.

A similar situation is Andra Davis got a raise from Savage 2 years ago so does Leon Williams play MORE or less than Davis at ILBer? I think we saw what 2 ILBers are starting at Buffalo. The 2nd round LBer (Jackson) and the contract extended/raised Davis over say the 4th/5th round Leon Williams and the 4th round Beau Bell. The 2 higher paid guys are starting right? I have to believe Savage has a say in WHOM we look to on game day and our future but sometimes this gets incovenient if it interferes with placing 100% of the blame on RAC.

And when it was assumed we did NOT have a suitable return game replacement for Northcutt - Savage gave Northcutt enough love salary-wise to stay and then he also gave him a 2 million $ roster bonus inspite of disappointing in the passing game. I continued to hear we didn't have a suitable replacement for Northcutt while Cribbs was on our team being coached how to judge depths of punts. Did the coaches do a poor job of that? I noticed we ONLY wanted to give Savage credit for Cribbs' emergence even though he was the one that ASSUMED we needed to overpay Northcutt for less. I know Savage gave raises to Bodden, Roye, Davis, and Northcutt but he hasn't coughed up anything for Cribbs. Seems odd to me. Now there's talk he MIGHT play RB and Cribbs' agent has to be thinking - pay us or lose us.

And when DA got a payhike - we had to PRETEND that there's no such thing as a Matt Ryan or a Joe Flacco because the Browns beat alot of teams averaging 4-5 wins in 2007. Do we KNOW what person in our organization is REALLY responsible for Quinn being here? I mean Savage wanted credit for finding DA at the price of an open bag of stale potato chips. That said, I read some articles where Lerner wanted his staff to dot their i's and cross their t's for some pre-draft assessments of Quinn. It appeared a KEY player in the research of Quinn was RAC's dear friend Charlie Weis so I can't help but question if there's a whole lot more we don't know. Again, we have all sorts of fans claiming they KNOW who is responsible for things like WHO is the face of our franchise. I'm not sold RAC wasn't just a pawn in this thing and because he got a raise so the least he could do is handle the media relations and toss out some dumb quotes justifying why Dumb Ass just played Kris Kringle to another defense.

Is it common for Head Coaches to leapfrog GMs about decisions on the franchise player (QB)? That's what everyone keeps telling me about the decision of DA over Quinn for such a bizaare extended length of 2008. All Savage has to say to RAC is I just gave you a raise to handle the media concerns and that comes with the territory of being Head Coach instead of DC now.

BTW, who made the decision to give Todd Granthom a raise? And when was the first time we heard about his lack of professionalism as a DC? That leads me to believe NOBODY knows what's really gong on.

I HOPE we get a better Head Coach but as we've learned: the mere act of firing one scapegoat only to land the next scapegoat doesn't work UNLESS it's going to be a GOOD chemistry between GM and Head Coach. With Butch took us as far as his 3rd season before we said "UH-OH" that followed our only playoff appearance since returning. Bearing that in mind, what season # is this with RAC? And doesn't it get clouded by a 10-6 record the season before? Finding the RIGHT Head Coach is going to be the most important decision Savage makes. When Policy's "we're gonna compete right away" was punctuated with "Chris Palmer wasn't our 1st or 2nd choice" - it was later assumed Butch Davis was the reason this franchise fermented on 2 porcelin pillars from 99 and 2000 when in actuality he reversed 5-27 with playoffs just 2 years later BEFORE he completely botched up GM duties he didn't deserve.

Did we HONESTLY like Bill Belichick any more than we're liking RAC? He was here 5 years and we had 1 winning season. We hated every OC he had while guys like Jackson, Rison and Derrick Alexander were dropping balls like Antonio Bryant, Braylon Edwards and Dennis Northcutt have done in this regime. We also had guys like Keenan McCardell sitting the bench while watch higher paid players underperforming the same way Harrison watches Lewis and Quinn watched Derrick Anderson in 2008. DA does a very good impersonation of Todd Philcox btw. Truth is NE wasn't all that thrilled with Bill BEFORE Brady reversed winless football by Bledsoe right? Rumor has it the GM and owner over there make the life of a Head Coach pretty good. They're all on the same page and the same holds true in Indy. There's Coordinators like Sagnola that excite me BUT we don't have the pass rushers, character and team speed on defense they have to allow him the same level of success here. That team is deep at WR, RB, Oline, DE, Secondary and TE - we never seem to handle depth issues well like replacing Robaire Smith and Shaun Smith seems troublesome. NY replaces Osi Youmeanbasterd with Mathias Kiwanuka. A guy like Ryan Powell was 4th on their depth chart behind Jacobs, Ward and Bradshaw just to illustrate how freakin easy that team might be to coach.

- Tom F.