Hiring Dick Jauron, A Negative Nancy and Losing Brad Seely

It've got a trifecta of topics burning on my mind today, so let's get right to it with...

Hiring Dick Jauron
As I wrote in this post, I think Dick Jauron is the best man for the Browns defensive coordinator job, and thus I'm pretty happy that the braintrust of Holmgren, Heckert and Shurmur picked him up. The coaching pedigree that he has along with coming from the Andy Reid family of coaches (albeit he was only there for  the 2010 season as the defensive backs coach and senior assistant) I'm sure made him the front runner all along.

Jauron is going to have the probably somewhat unpleasant task of transforming a...well... competent 3-4 defense into a staunch 4-3 defense. The old adage "Defense Wins Championships" has never been more true than this year, when we have all four teams competing in conference championship weekend with defenses in the top 10. Combine that with a division where you play Pittsburgh and Baltimore two times a year - both of them with defenses that routinely rank in the top ten - and I think Jauron is sort of in a tough position as a coach.

I know that implementing the west coast offense has been a big focus of this offseason, as evidenced by the hiring of Pat Shurmur, but if the Browns want to be competitive in the AFC North, they're going to have to be at least above average on D - at that might not even cut it unless we have a top tier offense. We'll have to wait and see how that's going to turn out.

A Negative Nancy
I don't really publicize this all that much, but between the two Browns beat writers for the Plain Dealer / Cleveand.com/sports, I vastly prefer Mary Kay Cabot over Tony Grossi. The main reason is that Grossi is so obviously a jaded Cleveland sports fan, and he lets that carry over into his writing all the time. Last year he was probably the harshest Mangini critic, and that was largely true for this season as well. But what bothered me yesterday as I read stories online was the headline "Browns Lose Dave Wannstedt to Bills." I clicked on the story, and promptly read "[Dick] Jauron has been the Browns top choice all along." So my question is, if the Browns had their guy in mind, and ended up hiring him, how in the wide world of sports does that constitute losing Wannstedt?

That's exactly what I mean by the jaded sports mentality. If you get what you want, then you're inherently not losing. You're winning. Why Grossi had to frame the story in such a negative way, I have no ide other than that's just the type of writer he is. Negative.

Losing Brad Seely
Now this is actually a really big deal. Brad Seely is widely regarded as one of the best - if not the best - special teams coaches in the league, and the Browns have let him go to join Jim Harbaugh's staff in San Francisco. Now, the Browns could have blocked him from leaving (which I think would have been a good idea) but I'm assuming that Holmgren didn't want to make him work in a place where he didn't want to.

You know what? I think when you have someone who is the best at their position, you do whatever you have to to keep them. Coaches like Seely don't just come along every day. If you have contractual control over the guy, I say you exercise that and keep him. It's like putting the franchise tag on a player - sure he might be unhappy, but if he wants a job elsewhere when his contract is up he better keep performing at a high level.

I don't mean to be a negative Nancy myself, but when your special teams have been as good as the Browns have been the last few years, I think it's easy to see why I might have a problem with letting Seely go. I'm not entirely sure that this is true, but I believe the Browns haven't given up a touchdown on a kick or punt return in at least two years - the time that Seely has been with the team. Replacing him is going to be one heck of a task.

*Update* Seely actually had a clause in his contract that allowed him to leave the Browns if Eric Mangini was fired. And that explains a lot...

Well that's all I've got for today, Browns fans. Enjoy the weekend!

~MAS