FilteringCraig

As the Browns have struggled this season, I have supported all sorts of strategies in getting this team back on track. When talking to my sister, she inexplicably calls for the Browns to “somehow” get Herm Edwards to come here.

I have no idea why.

Knowing that I can’t effectively make the argument, I have made a call to the bullpen for my best left-handed pitcher, Chris D. Chris D is a lifelong Jets fan. But you have never met a fan like him before. He can remember every game of every season (including some final scores) since he started watching the team as a young boy in New Jersey. Anyway, I asked him to put together a little post as to why Herm Edwards is not a coach anyone would want anywhere near their favorite football team. This should put it to rest, I think.

From Chris D:

Last year when the Jets released Herman Edwards many in the media said that the 4th or 5th round pick they got was a joke. I agreed. Who in the world would pay any compensation for Herman Edwards? Well, apparently I was wrong. You see, for those in the media, coaching excellence is synonomous with press conference prowess. Because Herm has a way with words, he is somehow inexplicably portrayed as a good NFL coach. I know I’m in the minority on this, at least nationally, but let me explain.

1) First, Herm is undoubtedly king of the press conference, which is an important part of coaching. He does a great job of taking the heat off of his teams or his performance by putting it on the spectacle of his remarks. I mean come on, “You play to win the game!”

2) Second, Herm will improve your Defense. What KC has done this year defensively is remarkable. That D was as bad as the Colts yet they somehow look capable of stopping people this year. I have to give him credit here.

3) Third, and here’s where I can advocate Herm no more, HE WILL KILL YOUR TEAM WHEN IT COUNTS. Herm is the guy that can make the second day of any poker tournament but always go out right before the money. Why?

a) He doesnt know how to call timeouts. He actually hired a guy with the Jets for this specific responsibility and they still f***ed it up. Herm’s the guy that calls a timeout with 20 seconds left to try the winning field goal because he just wants to have to kick off again. He doesnt know how to use the 2 minute warning or how the 40-second clock works. Basically, if you want a dumb 9-7 team, he’s your guy.

b) He makes Schottenheimer look like a riverboat gambler. And why not, he’s a disciple. As far as I’m concerned most NFL coaches are too conservative and to have a conservative one is deadly. You cant win. They try to run out the clock in close games when they should pass.
They down the ball and kick field goals from too far away(Cough, Pittsburgh, Cough).

In conclusion, if you have a 4-12 team and want to go 8-8 or 9-7 and snag a wildcard, Herm’s your guy. But I caution you Browns fans, as much as these past few seasons have sucked, which game will you remember more in 5 years? Charlie Frye’s interception against the Ravens, or Martyball costing you Superbowl appearances 15 years ago.

I thought so.

If you want to be good and crushed, Herm is your guy.

The Ohio Senate approved a law Wednesday that acknowledges a sad fact of the roadway: When teenagers tool around with carloads of friends, they often crash, and they and their passengers often die.
That’s what happened in March to 15-year-old Michelle Sanderbeck, a passenger in a car carrying five teenagers. The driver lost control and hit a wall, killing Michelle.

While I understand it, and it is certainly a sad story, some of the facts from this just don’t add up. Can we please replace self-importance and melodrama with common sense when it comes to governing our state? And for the love of Pete, can we please stop this trend of people thinking they need to turn everything that happened in their lives into a life lesson for others? If I decide to take a lesson for myself based on what happened to you, then I will do it myself and incorporate it into my life. Is there any reason that it needs to be put into a law?

And if it wasn’t enough, the “reporting” in this article is just laughable.

“When teenagers tool around with carloads of friends, they OFTEN crash, and they and their passengers OFTEN die.”

What the feces-filled-fruitcake does that mean? Are you saying that the MAJORITY of teens who drive with more than one passenger crash? And then, it couldn’t possibly result in a fender bender in which nobody dies? Please provide some facts or something to back up these statements because vagueries are not the basis of good reporting and the last time I checked this was a news story not an exercise in bending a reader’s emotions.

Now, I recognize the fact that kids with multiple passengers crash on occasion, but wouldn’t that be true of any age group? I am almost 28 years old and I am never more distracted than when I have 3 other people riding in my car. I recognize that teenagers are less experienced drivers and all, but they also (presumably) have more restrictions on their driving priveleges via their parents. So what proof is there that this all happens at a higher rate in teens. More importantly, what, exactly, is the rate and is it to a point that it justifies a special law driven by the emotions of a fragile set of parents who tragically lost their daughter.

By the way, I know this comes off sounding a little bit cold and heartless. I don’t blame the parents for being emotional about the death of their daughter. Although it has never happened to me, I can’t imagine a worse kind of emotional pain than losing a child. I feel sorry for the Sanderbeck’s but I just can’t get on board with legislating this stuff.

Sanderbeck said limiting the number of people in the car is important. “Michelle’s our inspiration,” he said. “We want her to have a legacy, too.”

That says it all, doesn’t it? It isn’t all just about this being the right law based in truth, fact and reasonability. They are trying to immortalize their daughter by forcing their lessons on everyone else. I am not saying it isn’t a lesson worth learning, just that nobody should be forced to do so.
I know I am expecting a lot, but can’t I expect Ohio State Legislators to empathize with parents like these and then move on to actual legislation?

I have the solution for the Cleveland Browns to fix all of their problems. Unfortunately, given the Browns most recent history, I don’t know that it could ever work out this way. But, here goes nothing.

The Browns need to cut Romeo Crennel loose. Not that I really want the team to fire another coach, but his press conferences are embarassing. They are chock full of quotes like, “I don’t know. I am going to have to try to figure that out.” Crennel was given the benefit of the doubt multiple times, and he has indicted himself in almost every circumstance. This is especially difficult because unlike other coaches in Cleveland, fans don’t seem to dislike Romeo Crennel. Browns fans everywhere have been pulling for him because he seems like a nice guy who has put in his football dues as a defensive coordinator.

Crennel might end up being a good head coach, but it would be nice if Cleveland would stop being a first-time-head-coach training ground. The Browns seem to have the knack of giving all these guys their first shot at the job. Chris Palmer was the coach in 1999 after being a career offensive coordinator. And even Butch Davis was a first time head coach because all his prior head coaching experience had occurred in the college game. And if you want to go to the pre-expansion Browns, Bill Belichick got all his screw-ups out of his system as a first-time head coach of the Browns from 1991-1995 before going on to become the bad-fashion-boy-genius in New England.

It is time to stop that trend. The Browns need to make Bill Cowher the highest paid head coach in the NFL. There has been talk all season about Cowher’s contract situation, and whether or not he is going to come back to coaching next season at all. While I am inclined to believe that Cowher will be taking a year off if he isn’t coaching the Steelers, this would represent the ultimate opportunity for the Cleveland Browns to resurrect their franchise.

Cowher is a player’s coach, but he governs his teams with “atta-boys” and his famous dirty looks. He makes his players want to perform for him. Sure he will get angry and berate a guy occasionally, but he is never short on praise either.

This is exactly what the Browns need. They need someone who knows how to coach a defense. They need a coach who can figure out how to establish a running game. They need someone to keep the special teams players well-coached and motivated to run through a brick wall. They need someone who can use auxiliary players like Josh Cribbs, who could easily become the Browns’ version of Antawn Randle El.

Most importantly, they need someone to provide an identity to the team. Bill Cowher can do that, while reviving one of the NFL’s most storied (and recently uncompetitive) rivalries. The Browns finally get a coach who has been there before. They get a guy who gained a substantial portion of his football experience in Cleveland as both a player (1980-82) as well as his first coaching job (1985-88) under Marty Schottenheimer. It would be a homecoming of sorts, but it would also be a significant blow against a divisional rival.

This is why the Browns need this to happen. They need to MAKE this happen. It is perfect. There is no other way.

In fact, it is so perfect that I am sure Cowher’s contract extension with the Steelers will come across the newswire any second now.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have not looked good during the past few weeks of this NBA season. They haven’t played consistently. Their rotations have been strange at times. As a result, they haven’t been able to capture any sense of identity. They lost Larry Hughes to a high ankle sprain about 10 games ago and he appears ready to come back. But in his absence, the Cavaliers have gotten a chance to find out a bit more about some of the newest members of the team.

In beating the Toronto Raptors 95-91 in Cleveland last night, the Cavaliers found a rookie who might be a real spark for the team in a regular role. Daniel Gibson, a second round draft pick from Texas, got his first start for the Cavaliers last night. The start came last night in particular because Daniel Gibson has played with Toronto’s point guard T.J. Ford in the past. Plus, the matchup with Gibson is more favorable than with any of the other guards on Cleveland’s roster because of Ford’s quickness.

The results from Gibson were pretty impressive. Gibson recorded 18 points, 2 assists, 5 rebounds and only 1 turnover in his first start. Even more impressively, he held T.J. Ford to 8 points versus his regular season average of almost 15 points per game. Ford did have 10 assists, but overall Gibson did a nice job of keeping Ford off balance for most of the night.

And this is the important thing for the Cavaliers this season. They aren’t desperate to find superstars who can take over games. They have one of the top five in the league already in Lebron James. What they need to find are the role players who can come in and give solid supporting performances when the regulars aren’t getting it done. They need the kinds of players that can come in toward the end of the first quarter when the team is struggling and down by five to ten points and help keep the game under control or take the lead back. If there is any silver lining to Larry Hughes’ injury that has to be it.

Last year, the Cavaliers found Anderson Varejao. This season it appears that they gained a few more capable role players. Damon Jones appears to have his shot back on track. Sasha Pavlovich has also shown more burst and ability this season than at any point in prior seasons. Combine that with a rookie like Gibson or Shannon Brown and all of a sudden the team has the most important thing that an NBA team can have: depth on the bench.

That is the thing that gets NBA teams through the long 82 games of an NBA season. That is what will allow them to go deep into the playoffs. The Cavaliers are a half step closer, despite their unimpressive 11-7 record. They are a step closer to finding the identity of the team. Then the consistency and wins should follow.

We have a really smart cat. I know everyone thinks their pets are amazing mostly due to an unhealthy level of attention some owners pay to some pets. You won’t catch me spouting off any superlatives to describe our cat, but I can tell you one story that proves that our cat Pixie really has her shit together. Literally.

When Jen and I left Cleveland to get married in Indy, we had a couple of very nice people who were willing to stop in and check on the cat while we were gone for the wedding and the honeymoon. In order to decrease the level of torture on our willing and gracious kitty caretakers, I decided that it would be a good idea to set up a second box of kitty litter in the exercise room/Pixie’s room. That way, whoever was watching Pixie wouldn’t have to change the litter while we were gone.

An interesting but not-so-important side part of this story is that I have kind of a weak stomach. I especially have a weak stomach when we are talking about clumped up balls of sandy cat waste. The overwhelming smell of amonia that emanates from kitty tinkle is enough to make me throw up in my mouth, which I have done on more than one occasion when I had the cat (and her awful litter) before Jen and I moved into our house. I know most people clean out kitty litter with that scoop that picks up clumps and lets the “good” sand fall back through the little holes so that it can be re-used.

Not I. My process looked like this.

1. Carry atomic litter outside into the garage, holding nose the whole way
2. Set atomic litter on one side of garage
3. Walk to other side of garage to catch breath and grab garbage bag
4. Hold breath as if you are a life guard diving into a pool after a drowning kid
5. Put entire litter box inside large garbage bag
6. Run back to other side of garage to catch breath (hopefully not puke in mouth)
7. Hold breath and tip litter over in garbage bag, pull litter box out and place on ground
8. Run across garage to catch breath again
9. Tie up garbage bag so that the smell is tightly sealed away (This step can be tricky because you need to grab the bag, and squeeze some of the putrid air out of it in order to have enough slack to tie it. Putrid Air = Throwing Up)
10. Pour a whole new instance of kitty litter into the litter box and carry litter box back inside

As a result of this process and the fact that I used to use about three times as much kitty litter as your average cat owner, Jen was gracious enough to take over this task when we moved into our new house.

So, back to the story. We had two kitty litter boxes set up when we got back from our honeymoon. For whatever reason, we didn’t get around to taking one away. And then last week Jen noticed something. Pixie has changed her habits using the litters. She uses both of them, but she doesn’t fill one and then move to the next one. She separates her usage depending on whether she needs to go Number 1 or Number 2.

That’s right. According to Jen, she uses one litter exclusively for pooping and one exclusively for peeing.

I am guessing that this isn’t a normal thing, but I could be wrong. Trust me I don’t have this identified as a clear jump in evolutionary status for cats or anything, but it does seem particularly smart for a creature that is willing to do their business in a pile of sand.

So, what do I do with this information? Do I set up experiments? For example, I was wondering, if we move one of the litter boxes to another part of the house, will she still use them based on what she has to do, or will it become a convenience thing based on not having to go up stairs? Do I risk taking one of the litter boxes away, or is it too big of a risk that she will continue to only do one thing in one box and then do the other anywhere else in the house?

By the way, I think I just crossed over into the territory of paying an unhealthy amount of attention to my pet.

It is only a controversy if you let it become one. That is the phrase that I am sticking to right now with regard to the Cleveland Browns quarterback position after Charlie Frye hurt his wrist on Sunday and Derek Anderson led a game winning drive in overtime. My philosophy in this case being; How can there be a controversy when I won’t let it happen? There can’t. Plus, there is really no reason for it at this point in time. Here are the reasons.

• First of all, the Browns are 4 and 8 on the year. Four wins doesn’t justify a conversation about the starting quarterback. With a record like that, the quarterback is either really bad or the rest of the team is so bad around him that it really doesn’t matter.

• Maurice Carthon made any realistic judgement of Charlie Frye impossible. Carthon was not only green and inexperienced; he had no ability to relate to players and subsequently lost the support of his team. Things like mismatching play calls with blocking schemes will cause a team to revolt in a hurry. Bad play calling is one of the main reasons that Charlie Frye was laying flat on his back for the entire first part of the season. The other reason that Frye was on his back. . .
• The offensive line is one of the worst in the league. While Browns fans were distracted by the horrific thought of going into the season without a decent center after Lecharles Bentley got hurt, they didn’t think about the rest of the line. The Browns ended up getting a decent starter at center in Hank Fraley from Philly. And as the fans were wiping the nervous sweat off their brow, they failed to see that guards Cosey Coleman and Joe Andruzzi, although relatively young in human years at 28 and 31 respectively, were playing like men who could get the free cup of coffee at Denny’s with their “Moons over My Hammy.” Couple that with Ryan Tucker’s “undisclosed mental illness” and I think it is probably safe to say that judging a QB behind that “line” is pure and utter silliness.

And even if we had good data on Charlie Frye, who’s to say anything about Derek Anderson right now?

• Derek Anderson won the game on Sunday, but hasn’t shown anything yet. How can you have a quarterback controversy when your starter hasn’t been properly judged as I have stated above, and then you have even more suspect data on your backup? People will always remember Derek Anderson as the wacky scrambler who wouldn’t go down in overtime as he set up the game winning field goal. I am not that short-sighted. He also had the ball near midfield at the end of regulation with a chance to get into field goal range. That was when he threw a horrendous interception. On first down, I think. And I can’t emphasize the word “horrendous” enough. There wasn’t even a remote possibility that the target was going to be open.

• At least when the Browns last had a controversy between Tim Couch and Kelly Holcomb we had a couple great performances to back up the idea that Tim Couch wasn’t going to cut it and that Kelly Holcomb was better. But even still, Browns fans kind of missed the point during that controversy. It should have provided a valuable lesson to Browns fans and this is my final word about why there is no controversy. Anytime you have a controversy with a young guy, a career backup, two young guys, or two career backups, you probably need to go back and reevaluate the personnel in your organization before arguing over which guy is less awful. Obviously, you haven’t found “the guy” just yet. Usually a team just knows when they have found their QB. When you are looking at Trent Dilfer vs Charlie Frye, it isn’t a controversy. You are just in trouble. Doug Flutie and JP Losman? Trouble. Until further notice Frye and Anderson just means that the Browns don’t have their guy yet. It isn’t a controversy if neither one projects to be great. And if either one was “great” we would probably know it already.

Controversies never help the team. I am sure there are occasional situations where they are warranted, but not here and now with this Cleveland Browns team.

No matter what happens with the final BCS polling there are always going to be complaints. That will always be a fact as long as the final X number of teams don’t get the opportunity to play the hierarchy to completion in a special “end-of-year tournament” that the rest of the sports universe calls “playoffs.”

But for now, that argument is tired and I don’t think there are significant numbers of thinking individuals who support BCS polling and bowl games as a ranking method to continue with that argument. Instead, we have another BCS poll that moved teams around based on the last week’s play and seeded the teams into spots for the bowl season. And miraculously enough, the BCS is right this year.

And as Michigan fans plan a Jihad upon my home, let me tell you why.

Michigan ended up where it belonged in the BCS, despite what some ESPN writers think. I think Michigan is probably the second best team in the nation OVER Florida, but how many times have we seen this in other sports?

The Yankees and Red Sox fought tooth and nail to face St. Louis when the Red Sox won the ALCS. I think either team would have smacked St. Louis in the World Series, but that doesn’t mean that we get an ALCS rematch and cast St. Louis to the side. The fact is that Michigan lost to Ohio State already. They had their chance and they lost. Michigan had its chance on the field. Florida should have that chance too.

In this system with the way it is set up, when you look at a two team race between Michigan and Florida for a chance to play in the National Championship game, there is only one stat that matters. The two teams each have one loss. They each have a tough schedule. The only thing that matters in my mind is that Ohio State already beat Michigan on the field. So, even if Michigan “projects” to be a better team than Florida, Florida gets the game.

End of story.

And Michigan fans, I know you are all crazed right now because of the “injustice.” But what would have happened if Michigan had beaten Ohio State in the final game of the regular season? If Ohio State lost the game against Michigan, they would be playing LSU, because they wouldn’t deserve to play in the National Championship either.

Watch what happens with this guy from the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, who is desperate for an internship, do a “baby bird” impression. Momma bird happens to be a 300 pound man who has consumed 75 double shots of egg nog.

If you have a weak stomach, please do not watch this video.