Chuck Wagon

It seems the Browns are talking to EVERY candidate, but I can't tell if it's them doing due diligence or if they have to cast a very wide net just to find someone semi qualified who'll take the job.

Since we are all just speculating..... Judging on some internet searching it looks like he's from a very small town in Florida. I'm also from a small town, once I went to a division 1 college and spent some time in some major cities on the scale of Buffalo my small hometown did not feel like "home" anymore. Very possible he's experiencing something similar.

I think he makes the most sense out of any of the candidates they are on tap to interview. Whoever takes that job is taking a giant leap of faith, I wouldn't think Patricia is feeling any sort of desperation for a head job.

I hesitate to say it can't work, it's clearly worked to some degree in baseball (though Moneyball does conveniently omit a MVP shortstop and 3 CY Young winning pitchers) and it's in the process of completely changing how the NBA is played. That being said, as others have mentioned football is just so subjective. You can take measurables such as size, 40 times and lifting scores and try to apply them to find players, but that's nothing new to football and usually fails more often than it works. College teams do completely different things so comparing someone from Georgia Tech's offense to someone from Texas Tech's is about as apples to oranges as it gets. Good for the Browns if they discover some magic formula to find better players who are bigger / stronger / faster than other teams uncover, but right now it feels like trying to reinvent the wheel and grasping at straws.

I hate this. Either he thinks Whaley and Rex are the right guys for the job and he should give them a couple of years to work things out, or he doesn't think they are the guys and he shouldn't waste any more time in replacing them. I'm sure Whaley and Rex already know the ice is thin, giving them a playoffs or bust ultimatum will only lead to short sited decision making. We were a .500 team the last two years, other than Mario / Kyle most of the roster is trending up, if they go 10-6 next year and miss out due to tiebreakers, should everyone be canned? Besides, the goal of the franchise shouldn't be "make the playoffs" it should be "build a championship caliber team". I understand at this point the baby step of making the playoffs would be nice, but just showing up to the dance and getting our butts kicked because we "accomplished the goal" is pretty hollow.

I'll get excited about the opening game because it will mean football is back. Until then, I'm not buying in or getting overly excited until we've secured a playoff spot.

I fully expect the Cowboys to trade a 7th round pick for JFF and give a generous offer to RG3. Either guy could be a cash cow for their franchise if they can take over for Romo when the time is right and after the disaster at backup QB they experienced this year it's going to be something Jerrah is going to address in a big way. If the 49ers hire Chip, I don't think Kaep is going anywhere as they would bring Chip in try and fix Kaep. (Just saw you just said the same thing). I do think a QB who plays a similar style to Taylor is the way to go, Taylor is going to get hurt, if we tailor our offense to a mobile QB, bringing in a statue like Mallet to back him up seems an odd move.

Whaley drafts Roberto Aguayo - Florida St kicker in the 3rd round.

I would be shocked (and thrilled) if Thomas didn't come out. He's likely a first round pick, at worst a top of the 2nd round pick, but he could shoot up the board if he came back and Urban built the offense to feature him.

Curious as to them looking at Chris Brown from Notre Dame and not Will Fuller, but I don't know your process. Fuller fits much better with our needs and is much closer to the group of the other guys.

This is a pretty good take. My takeaway was our expectations were a bit out of whack, we turned over our entire coaching staff, brought in a first year starting QB and overhauled the starting backfield and guards. Granted, the new coach built up the expectations to unrealistic levels. We got hit hard by injuries, even the Pats (last 6 games were 2-4) and Packers (last 10 games were 4-6) struggled when their injuries started stacking up, but injuries are a part of the game. When Taylor was healthy we were 8-6 with a handful of games that could have gone either way. Obviously everyone is disappointed, the defense regressed badly and we did not coach or play smart football, often times in this league success comes out of finding ways to avoid mistakes, that's our biggest area for growth going forward. Bottom line, Whaley brought in a handful of guys (Taylor / Shady / Karlos / Richie / Miller / Darby / Clay) who were clear upgrades over what we had last year. The only spots we really downgraded (Mario / Kyle / Aaron Williams / Preston Brown) were due to injuries / growing pains from scheme change. This team has a solid core, but they have to learn to play smarter.

Hughes is 2nd in the NFL with most penalties at 13. Browner is 1st at 21. Marcus Peters is 2nd in most yardage accrued from penalties at 119 yards, Browner is 1st at 207.

I can see those other 3 above Murray. Bowe is literally stealing money, Browner has turned in one of the worst defensive seasons in recent history and Maxwell was signed as a #1 corner and has been beaten like a drum. Murray was just a panic signing into a system he didn't fit.

The players have said it themselves, they believed their press clippings instead of putting the work in. Rex fed into that mentality as he's all flash over substance. It's kind of unbelievable. Taylor has his warts, but he's a first time starter and put in one of the better QB seasons we've gotten around here for a while. I really don't know what people expect, we weren't bringing Cam Newton in, especially when we didn't have a 1st round pick.

Roger Lewis was an OSU recruit who was charged with rape while in high school. He was acquitted of the charges but OSU stopped pursing him and he ended up at BG. He's a big time playmaker.

I'm in your camp and I had the exact same reaction during the draft. I think Wilson is amazing and continues to be criminally underrated. The idea the Seahawks could just roll whatever QB out and keep on rolling is ridiculous, you can't put a guy like EJ out there and realistically think he's getting anywhere near the Super Bowl. There's a reason they can go from Marshawn Lynch to Thomas Rawls without missing a beat and it's not the oline (which is awful). Wilson is killer in the zone read game (almost always makes the right call and almost never takes a hit) and throws one of the best deep balls in the game. Due to his physical statue, he's always going to get doubted but he just keeps proving doubters wrong.

It neuters what was easily a top 5 DL just 1 year ago. Typically in a 3/4 scheme you want your 3 down linemen eating up the 5 oline blocks. I think Mario/Dareus could serve fine as the DEs in this scheme, but it seems like a waste of salary/their talents to simply use them as pluggers. Arizona runs a 3/4 and I see Mario/Dareus as very similar to what Calais Campbell / Darnell Dockett did for them for years. We need to get a Wilfork type NT, but that could be found in the middle rounds of the draft. Hughes / Kyle are the bigger concerns. Hughes was in a 3/4 in Indy and really struggled. He's surely learned since then and could potentially be similar to Suggs from Rex's Ravens defenses. Kyle is a tough fit, he's not long enough/big enough to be a typical 3/4 DL. As I see it, a plugger NT, a 2nd MLB (Bradham may be fine filling this role but may not be able to hold up in the run game) and a versatile big OLB/rush end opposite Hughes (Mario doesn't have the cover ability) are the biggest needs to fill for this transition. We'd likely need to use our 1st to get the other OLB opposite Hughes as guys like that don't last in the draft, but the other 2 spots could be found later. Cutting ties with Kyle / Mario and using their cap savings to sign Wilkerson would be a wise move to make this transition.

How Russell really wants to respond: “Would you put him there with the guys that can transcend their supporting cast? The Morningwhigs, whether it's David Shula, Kotite, Rod Rust, the ones that you would consider the two, three, four worst guys? No. But he's certainly coached himself into that next tier. He coaches at a low level, he's very unproductive and they lose, now a lot of that I think is a function, too, is he's the perfect coach for what they do. To me it goes both ways."

I'd love to see AJ McCarron lead the Bengals to a Super Bowl win.

It leaves your system much quicker than actual marijuana. If you were a very large man and you had a very important drug test coming up in 2 months, you'd better steer clear of the real stuff. (I mean don't do drugs anyways kids, just giving rationalization).

Right now the only thing Evans is doing better than Sammy is dropping balls and picking up penalties.

I just hope we lose out, but I could see us running the table over Washington / Meh Cassel / Rex's continued revenge against the Jets. The way everything is jumbled anything from pick 8 to pick 20 is in play.

All this arguing over Sammy / Mack / ODB is ridiculous. Sammy is one of the 10 best players from that draft class. If you really want to use hindsight being 20/20, the real value would have been Aaron Donald or Zach Martin at #9 and Allen Robinson or Jarvis Landry over Kuoandjio at #44. People should be grateful we walked out with Sammy instead of guys like Justin Gilbert or Ebron, not looking at it glass half empty lamenting Mack and ODB.

You touch on some very good points. The Giants don't even attempted to pretend to have a balanced offense, it's basically feed ODB and occasionally try to catch the defense off guard with something else. I view Eli's "off target" throws as giving his guy a chance to make a play on the ball, Tyrod still plays it pretty close to the vest, players of Beckham/Sammy's pedigree are rarely able to get wide open for easy plays. Some of the chance plays/crazy catches ODB are able to make are plays where Tyrod would just tuck it and run.

The Vikings would have had pick 8, not the Browns. The Browns said they would have taken Sammy at #4. The Vikings might have just taken Barr or may have moved down, who knows. There's a chance if we stay at #9 we just take Ebron, who Whaley was also high on. I can see your point on picks #19 - #49, it's still obviously very early, but there's no one in that range who clearly stands out as being better than Darby (who is generating some real defensive ROTY buzz). Whaley looks right on that class, it's all kind of MEH outside a couple of Winston-Mariotta-Cooper-Williams-Gurley. Amazing how many guys have gotten hurt or just haven't been that effective.