They Call Him Coach, Pat Shurmur

Well I guess this would count as late, somewhat irrelevant information, but now that I've finally got a calm moment in my first week back at school, I'll pass along what I'm thinking about the Browns recent hire of Pat Shurmur as their 13th full time head coach.

First off, was it a good hire?

I'm going to have to say yes. I know he's not the big name coach we all were hoping for (ahem, Jon Gruden), and that I wrote this pretty critical post about him in my "A Look At" series, but I think he's going to get the job done well. Shurmur comes highly recommended from Eagles head coach (and Mike Holmgren favorite) Andy Reid, he runs the West Coast offense, and he did a very nice job with Sam Bradford down in St. Louis this past year.

Did the Rams offensive stats set the world on fire this year? No. Did they make the playoffs? No, they actually kind of choked on offene the last game of the season to take them out of that equation.  Did they even have a winning record? Well, no again. But I think coordinating the offense that made Bradford have the best rookie quarterback stats since Peyton Manning is something for which Shurmur should be given a lot of credit.

All that aside, the next thing the Browns need to do is hire a great defensive coordinator, because defense is something Shurmur knows little to nothing about. I actually have no problem with that, as the last two Browns head coaches were former defensive coordinators of Bill Bellichick in New England, and neither of them paned out that well. In a sort of after the fact criticism of Crenel and Mangini, I think that if you have a specialty as a head coach, then your team should reflect that specialty, right? Well, the only successful Browns team in the past six years was the '07 version where we were 10-6, and that team was known for Derek Anderson throwing 28 touchdowns, many of which were to Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow Jr. Let's hope Shurmur can bring a good offensive identity to the team, since we really haven't had an identity at all since we got back into the league in '99.

But to get back to defensive coordinators, the Browns have interviewed former Bills and Bears head coach, and the current secondary coach of the Philidelphia Eagles, Dick Jauron. According to ESPN and the Plain Dealer, they're also looking at former Dolphins head coach Dave Wannstedt and former Arizona Cardinals defensive coordinator Bill Davis. Now, I'm not really sold on Wannstedt and Davis, the former because he's been out of the NFL since 2005 while serving as coach at Pitt, and the latter because he just got fired from the Arizona Cardinals - if he's not good enough for them, he's not good enough for us.

That brings us to Jauron, who has a pretty good resumé, and is also a candidate to replace the recently fired Sean McDermott in Philadelphia as defensive coordinator. Now that's a team we should be competing with for a coordinator. I'm not sure if he'll come here, but he would also be great to have around the building just as another resource for Shurmur to bounce his head coaching ideas off of - especially when it comes to defense.

Also, we're going to have to change from the 3-4 to the 4-3 defensive scheme. This actually could be a problem that sets the Browns back a couple years because right now we are just not built for that at all with the players that are currently on the roster. We're going to need an overhaul at the defensive line position, and that's a shame because Ahtyba Rubin has been doing a great job stuffing the run for the past couple of seasons at nose tackle. In a perfect world, we'll acquire a couple of great defensive ends who will be able to rush the passer and we'll build around Scott Fujita at the linebacker position. When I think of a great 4-3 defense, I think of the New York Giants because of the way the rush the passer, yet still defend the run quite well year after year. With any luck, we'll be like them in...maybe 2, 3...or 5 years.

That's a lot of information to diget, Browns fans, so make sure you don't go swimming for a little while (not that you would if you're in Cleveland, or anywhere in the world where it's winter this time of year - unless you have an indoor pool, of course). I'll probably be back this weekend to assess what I think are the two best games of the year in the NFL - the conference championship games. The games this week promise to be great, with division rivals Chicago and Green Bay squaring off in the NFC, and two teams with top defenses battling in the AFC, the Steelers and Jets.

Enjoy the games on Sunday - I know I will.

~MAS