On towards the lockout

It was not a glorious year of predictions for The Brown Log, which ended the season 8-9. I must admit that the Packers win was one game I was thrilled to be wrong about.

On our plate, post Super Bowl is the pending player lockout. An important meeting between owners and players was recently cancelled and this is just one more not so subtle clue of what's coming. The NFL owners intend to play hardball.

I believe the NFL's anti-trust exemption is wrong but it will likely never be overturned by Congress. That's a shame. The free market works.

I find it amusing that owners refuse to open their books to the players. Considering the fact that the basis of the lockout is the owners crying poverty, one would think transparency a good thing. If owners have something to hide it logically would be a factor that hurts their own negotiation. The only fact that could hurt owners would be if secondary sources of revenue are huge profit centers.

Onto the lockout!

BL Predicts: Super Bowl XLV

As much as I hate the Steelers, Its hard to ignore the fact that the Steelers are a far better team than Green Bay. Even more surprising is that many pundits have gotten caught up in the fact that the Packers are hot but those same pundits neglect the fact that the NFC simply cannot compare to the AFC.

Bottom line: The Packers are a wild card team on a bit of a roll while the Steelers are a talent laden team and the class of the AFC.

BL Predicts:


Steelers 24
Packers 14

Interview with Colt

Interesting interview with Colt McCoy in which he reveals that he played hurt during the entire 2010 season. That's certainly a surprise

also interesting is the following McCoy quote:

"I'm just excited about getting up there and learning our system," he said. "I need to get up there before the lockout 'cause once the lockout comes we can't talk."

what i find most interesting is "once the lockout comes". it shows that players believe the lockout is a certainty. Will we have a 2011 season?

Vintage Browns: 1978 tying drive vs Jets

An unprobable Sipe led comeback drive in 35 seconds vs the Jets in regulation ties the game and the Browns go on to win in OT.

A solution to the NFL labor woes: Capitalism

There is a benchmark solution out there that the NFL should look to in order to solve it's labor woes: Professional soccer in Europe. Ironically, in professional soccer, our normally socialist friends in Europe actually utilize a nearly pure capitalist system.

Among the most important highlights of the European pro sports system are:

- Soccer leagues in Europe do not have a player draft, players are free to sign with any club they wish to sign up with.

- Salary caps do not exist.

- There is not a single nation in Europe that has athletic teams at the university level. If an 18 year is worthy of a professional career he gets a paying job on a pro team.

- The revenue stream associated with European soccer is every bit if not more lucrative than the NFL. Fans pay top prices for seats and for games on pay TV. Advertisers are tripping over themselves to pay millions to get in front of Europe's soccer fan base.

- Finally, far more pro teams exist per capita in Europe. There are more leagues and many more jobs for pro athletes. There is a population of about 857,000,000 in Europe compared to about 300,000,000 in the United States. But if you only count the top ten European soccer nations (Italy, England, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Scotland, Holland, Russia, Sweden and France) there are nearly 200 top flight professional teams in Europe. That compares to 32 in the USA. You do the math. The comps get even more obvious if you look at all of Europe and itìs entire minor league system. There are over 1000 professional soccer teams in Europe in which players earn somewhere between a decent to an extraordinary salary. The fact that there are fewer than 100 professional football teams in America bares witness to just how successful the NFL Politburo are at exterminating any and all competition. Start a professional league such as the USFL, off to the gulag for you!

Capitalism is the greatest economic system ever invented. I do not envision that the NFL Politburo will ever implement a capitalist system in the NFL but have no doubt if they did, that the league would thrive, hundreds of new teams would be created along with thousands of good paying jobs for athletes, and fans would rush to buy seats just as they do today.

Bud Shaw sums up what I feel pretty damn well

Have a look at this article about patience and this article about the undertaking required for the Browns to successfully move to a 4-3 defense in 2011

Mangini's character gestapo

I recently heard a story, from a reliable friend, about a current Browns player who will remain unnamed. This key star very recently took part in a rather wild party and engaged in party animal behavior that bordered the limits of good character.

Look for the Browns current management team to be a bit less naive than Eric Mangini when it comes to using character to filter out bad apples. Mangini went too far when he got rid of players like Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow because of character issues, and this lack of playmaker talent in the end, cost Mangini his job. The final irony is that one need not put his ear too close to the ground to hear stories like the above about some of the current Browns. There were numerous players that were on Mangini's team that in fact "passed" his character test but are, like all the rest of us, just human beings with some of the same character flaws that drove Mangini to cut others. In reality therefore, Mangini didn't filter out all of the players with bad character, he simply got rid of the guys he did not like. Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow are most certainly jerks, but some of those close losses in 2010 could have been wins had we had some more talent in the receiving corps last year. My guess is that Mangini himself is already starting to realize the significance of the fact that his "character gestapo" was in fact both stupid and naive.

Meet Pat Shurmur

here is an in depth article that presents Pat Shurmur. One conclusion is already certain, Shurmur is a convinced disciple of the West Coast Offense and a conventional thinker. The Browns are going to use a traditional West Coast offense and a standard 4-3 defense. They will try to beat opponents by putting a better team on the field and by outplaying their opponents.

My worry is the Browns may now be in another 5 year plan that neither the fans nor the front office have patience for. Perhaps it was false hope, but there were moments last season in which Rob Ryan's crazy defensive formations or Eric Mangini's trick plays made one wonder if the Browns were ahead of the NFL in tactical innovation. I think one could reasonably argue that in 2010, especially on defense, that the Browns schemes allowed them to get far more results than the talent they had should have allowed. In particular, the use of 0, 1 or 2 man defensive lines allowed the Browns to mask the fact that they had no depth on the defensive front and in many cases, using up to 7 linebackers at a time, created massive confusion for the opposing QB. Just ask Drew Brees or Tom Brady. Moving forward, the Browns are clearly going to simply seek better players and play conventional football and that will require that the Browns make a major upgrade, especially on the defensive line.

On offense the Browns will go with the West Coast offense together with young QB Colt McCoy. The book on McCoy is out in the NFL, and we saw the results in the last two games this season: 6 intercepts in 2 games. I believe in McCoy but he still has to gain some experience and the West Coast offense needs strong wideouts for it to work. The Browns have the weakest receiver corps in the NFL so that is another position that requires major upgrade. Look for the Browns to work the free agent market aggresively and to draft to fill those position needs.

Pat Shurmur is going to have to clean house on talent to find new players to fit his approach and that likely means one step back to take two steps forward. Problem is that the Browns are about 5 steps from a Super Bowl. We believe Mike Holmgren but if Holmgren truly wanted to use his West Coast offense and a traditional 4-3, would it not have been better to cut the ties to Mangini one year ago?

Coach Shurmur?

Here is a good article on the man rumored to be the Brown's next head coach. Fritz Shurmur's son, Pat Shurmur.

Goodbye Coach Mangini

Onto the next episode

BL Live Blog: Goodbye Coach Mangini

If the effort of Browns players today is any indication, then it seems that they are voting in favor of Mangini's ouster tomorrow.

The NFL Politburo: Comrade Jerry Jones speaks!

Comrade Jerry Jones speaks out about the NFL labor situation in the below video from 60 Minutes Overtime.

Comrade Jones mentions in the video that "the model we have doesn't work." The current model between NFL owners and players involves a socialist revenue sharing scheme. Comrade Jones does not want to move back to a free market, what he does want is to further reduce the players share of the revenue.

Let's see if I have the facts correct. Owners previously agreed to share revenues with players, something players actually fought against in the last negotiation. Players want a completely free market but it angers the 32 NFL owners that in a free market the players command over 50% of revenues. One could argue that a good capitalist owner would not spend money beyond his means, but NFL owners are famous for their lack of control and all it takes is one big spender to drive up salaries for the others. That stated, is the solution to force players into a communist system because the owners cannot control themselves?!?!

In the original agreement, owners sold the communist salary cap as "cost certainty" and the players relutantly agreed to the owners salary cap proposal because they were able to negotiate a share of revenues that was almost in line with their expectations in a free market. Today owners simply want to reduce players share from the amount that the NFL Politburo previously agreed to.

It is a highly distasteful irony that NFL owners made their fortunes in the greatest economic system the free world has ever witnessed, the free market system. Comrade Jones in his private political life professes to be an American Republican however the NFL Politburo's actions speak louder than words. The NFL Politburo wants us to believe that further use of communist principals are needed to manage the NFL so therefore bring on new rookie salary limits and reduce the players percentage of the salary cap.

Karl Marx would be filled with joy at Comrade Jerry Jones approach, but I suspect that Ronald Reagan is turning over in his grave. The real solution to the NFL's issues are further market freedom by elimination of the anti trust exemption that the NFL has. Let free markets rule. Only a communist could disagree with that statement.

Interesting to note that CBS chose not to air these comments on the nationally broadcost portion of 60 Minutes.

Coach Holmgren?

One of the reasons I think it would be a mistake to replace Eric Mangini is that an owners lockout of NFL players in almost a certainty. A new coach would be severely disadvantaged should the lockout last months, as he would not be able to work with new players and implement his approach.

Therefore if Mike Holmgren decides to replace Mangini, look for the new Browns head coach to be... "Mike Holmgren".

There is no mistaking that the Browns are on the right path since Holmgren took over. We have competed all year long thanks to players brought in under Holmgren. If Holmgren decides he is tired of waiting for Mangini to mature, he will have the full support of all long suffering Browns fans as long as he names himself the new head coach.