The Brown BLog

Friday, October 22, 2010

Miami of Ohio: The Cradle of Coaches

From an interview this week with New Orleans Coach Sean Payton talking about Miami University in Ohio. It should be a well known fact that Miami of Ohio not only produced the infamous Super Bowl QB Ben Roethlisberger, but also many excellent coaches including Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler.

Question: With Mike Shanahan coming back, Eastern Illinois now has three head coaches. Eric Mangini’s alma mater has only two. Has Eastern Illinois supplanted Wesleyan as the intellectual center of the football universe?

Payton: “We have a lot of Miami of Ohio coaches here who claim that’s still the cradle of coaching. I think more than anything else there’s some coincidence to it. If Mike Heimerdinger were to get going here he’d be the fourth head coach from Eastern. We pull for him at Tennessee. That was good learning grounds for all of us that went there and had a chance to play there and certainly advance our careers. I’m not too familiar with Wesleyan.”

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Tackling: Old era vs new era

OLD NFL HIGHLIGHTS: The tackles in this film are all clean

MODERN ERA NFL HIGHLIGHTS: The tackles in this video are almost all of the "blow-up" variety, many are direct hits to the head. Beyond safety, head hits actually make a defenders job easier because when you take a head out, you effectively cut the legs out of a powerful opponent. A head hit often causes an offensive player to completely lose his bearing. That is not football, it's cheating.

Head hits are not just part of the game: Darryl Stingley

Tackling someone at head level is illegal for one reason that goes well beyond safety. It's not football. Football is about the confrontation of athletes, at the top of their abilities, and may the best men win. When you get hit in the head, all of your determination and concentration on advancing that ball and winning that play, are instantly sapped out of your body. In a flash, every ounze of your energy transforms from trying to win a football game to preserving the safety of your head and neck. I played two years of organized football when I was a teenager. I was small, not a great player, but I knew how to play the game. I can attest, it's a hell of a scary moment when somebody takes your head out. You can be the better of the two men on the field confronting each other but if your opponent tackles or hits your head, you are going down, period, end of conversation.

For a closer look at a famous head shot, watch this video of the most infamous and saddest head hit in NFL history. One hit to the head of Daryl Stingley deprived him for life of the use of his limbs and contributed to his premature death at age 55.

Vince Lombardi Teaches Football

Monday, October 18, 2010

Coach Mangini

This blog is one of many that has had a hard time accepting Coach Mangini. We've taken more than our share of shots at him. Paradoxically, yesterday left me feeling that perhaps Mangini will prove us wrong.

What is there to like from yesterday:

- His team never gave up.

- His staff had the courage to put the safety of key players like Cribbs and Massaquoi, above one game.

- Colt McCoy was prepared for a very tough game.

- The Browns have competed every game this season.

Don't get us wrong, we are likely going to slam Mangini again, but notwithstanding the loss yesterday, it appears that Mangini and his team are maturing.

comments from the NFL on helmet hits

Here is an article from Yahoo on yesterday's disgraceful helmet hits

an excerpt:

“I hadn’t heard that, but obviously suspensions would be a much bigger deal than fining guys,” said Colts center Jeff Saturday(notes), the team’s player representative. “I guess I don’t know what Goodell is going to say constitutes a suspension or not, but if guys are head-hunting out there to knock a guy out of the game, that’s the only way to take care of it.”

The Eagles’ DeSean Jackson(notes) and the Falcons’ Dunta Robinson(notes) were knocked out of their game Sunday after a frightening collision in which Robinson launched himself headfirst, while Steelers linebacker James Harrison(notes) sidelined two Browns players with head injuries after jarring hits.

Anderson wouldn’t speculate on how any players would be punished for hits from Sunday’s games.

“The fundamentally old way of wrapping up and tackling seems to have faded away,” he said. “A lot of the increase is from hits to blow guys up. That has become a more popular way of doing it. Yes, we are concerned they are getting away from the fundamentals of tackling, and maybe it has been coached that way. We’re going to have to look into talking to our coaches.”

Is the NFL going to protect players from head injuries or not?

Conrad Dobler, a guard for the St. Louis Cardinals during the 1970's was openly and proudly a dirty player. It's taken years for somebody to surpass him but yesterday the mantle was passed. Pittsburgh Steeler's linebacker James Harrison is the dirtiest player the NFL has seen in decades.

Harrison used his helmet as a battering ram against the Browns Sunday. His blows to the head of Josh Cribbs and Mohamed Massaquoi resulted in head injuries to both players. Without any doubt Massaquoi was in a vulnerable position and a flag should have been thrown. While by definition, Cribbs as a runner was not a vulnerable player, the blow to Cribbs head was a much dirtier play. The Massaquoi hit took place at full speed and a reasonable person could believe the helmet to helmet blow was accidental. Cribbs on the other hand was practically stopped, and it appears Harrison simply teed him up and hit him with intent to maim. Why wasn't unnecessary roughness flagged??

In the end, Harrison was Pittsburgh's most valuable player yesterday and the NFL refs were his partners in crime. Harrison helped the Steelers immensely by knocking Cribbs out of the game.

Unbelievable. The Brown Log has been consistent on this issue, being critical of TJ Ward on a much lesser violation in which he used his shoulder in a hit on a vulnerable receiver. In Harrison's case, there are no excuses. The zebras didn't bother to throw the flag even once.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

On the down side....

The Browns have absolutely no outside receivers capable of playing in the National Football League. It's now apparent that Browns opponents can concentrate their efforts on stopping the Browns running game and short passes and that places limits on what the Browns offense can achieve.

What is particularly discouraging about this is that the Browns, in spite of having made real improvements to the team this year, are very likely to finish with a worse record in 2010 than the disaster of a season they had in 2009. We will have to hope that the 2011 draft will yield a top flight playmaker at wide receiver and that he can hit the ground running otherwise it might be 2012 or 2013 before we have a competitive team.

.......all this of course, if the 2011 season is not destroyed by a work stoppage.

Another defeat but all is not lost

...but there were a few positives today:

- Colt McCoy looked good, throwing for 281 yards. One of his two intercepts could have been caught.

- The Browns defense almost managed to keep the Steelers and a rusty Ben Roethelisberger under control. But Big Ben got his bearings in the second half and managed to exploit openings in the Browns pass D.

- Inspite of the fact that gamer Josh Cribbs fought to continue playing, the Browns were smart enough to sit him after he suffered a nasty concussion. The team should be applauded for this.

- The Brown Log almost exactly nailed the final score, missing by 3 total points. Our prediction was Steelers 26, Browns 9 and the final was Steelers 28, Browns 10.

the Browns are now 1-5 on the season and our next loss will be on the road next Sunday against defending Super Bowl champions New Orleans.