A Look At... Pat Shurmur

In the third "A Look At" post of the week, I'm...well, taking a look at someone the Browns are bringing in to interview today, current offensive coordinator of the St. Louis Rams, Pat Shurmur.

Shurmur, 45, has spent only one season (nope, I was wrong about that) two seasons as the OC of the Rams, but before that he spent nine years with the Philadelphia Eagles, seven as the quarterbacks coach. It's widely known that the Eagles run the west coast offense with Andy Reid, which is obviously a plus in Holmgren's eyes. It would be nice to have a head coach with not only a specialty in that offensive system, but also with quarterbacks to help the development of Colt McCoy. Shurmur obviously knows his fair share about both topics as he coached Donovan McNabb to three Pro Bowl selections in his time as the QB coach.

He was brought on to the Rams staff last year and clearly helped speed along the development of the first overall pick of the 2010 NFL Draft, Sam Bradford. Keeping in mind that he was a rookie this year, Bradford was 20th in the league in completion percentage (60%), 12th in passing yards (3512), 18th in touchdowns (18), 9th in interceptions (15) and 25th in QB rating (76.5). Those are pretty solid numbers for a rookie. By comparison, Peyton Manning completed 56% of his passes, threw for 3739 yards, 26 touchdowns and led the league with 28 interceptions.

The rest of Shurmur's offense was definitely not as impressive this year, as the Rams ranked 21st or below for each yardage category (26th overall, 21st passing, 25th rushing). They also ranked 22nd in first downs with 292, and were tied with Arizona for 26th in the league in points per game with 18.1. I don't know about you, but those numbers really don't get me excited.

So why are the Browns interviewing this guy? Well, he's got the connection with Tom Heckert from their time spent together in the Eagles organization, he runs the west coast offense, and he's a quarterback specialist. Plus he comes with a high recommendation from Eagles head coach Andy Reid, someone Holmgren knows well and respects a great deal.

Because of all that, unfortunately I think Shurmur has a decent chance at becoming the next Browns head coach. If it comes down to him being our top candidate because everyone else turns us down, I'd hope that Holmgren would just decide to coach the team himself.

More to come!
~MAS