Red Right 88

What do the Browns have in Pat Shurmur?

Now the the exhaustive search is over, the press conference is finished and the deed is done, Browns fans are left wondering just what the team has in new head coach Pat Shurmur.

We watched the press conference and listened to what Shurmur, team president Mike Holmgren and general manager Tom Heckert had to say. We’ve read the stories and blogs and we’re still not sure what the Browns have. After everything, we’re left with a feeling of … extreme neutrality … a preponderance of beige, perhaps.

Part of the problem is that once the Browns decided to fire Eric Mangini and move in another direction, it was easier to focus on who we didn’t want coaching the Browns, rather than who we did:

• Jon Gruden: overrated
• John Fox: mediocre coach
• Bill Cowher: never going to happen
• Jim Harbaugh: college coaches fail miserably at the NFL level

And with no “hot” coordinator on the market, we were left feeling lukewarm about the potential candidates. Unfortunately, being on the fan side of the equation means we don’t know what Shurmur or the other two candidates the Browns interviewed – Mike Mularkey and Perry Fewell – were like during the interview process. We don’t have an opportunity to be sold on a potential coach the way a team does.

The same thing happened in Pittsburgh when Mike Tomlin was hired. Tomlin wasn’t a big name – in his one year as defensive coordinator in Minnesota the Vikings were last in pass defense – but he was impressive in the interview and got the job.

Have the Browns finally found their Mike Tomlin? Only time will tell. Of course, would Mike Tomlin still be coaching in Pittsburgh if he didn’t have Dick LeBeau as his defensive coordinator?

That hits at the heart of the Browns on-going problem with constant turnover in the coach’s office: the Steelers are successful because they have talented players, certainly, but also because they have a system in place and they select players that fit the system. They don’t switch philosophies every few years, necessitating continued turnover of the roster.

This is where Shurmur needs to make his mark.

Right or wrong, real or perceived, Holmgren made the decision that his philosophy could not mesh with Mangini’s. There’s something to be said for having everyone 100 percent on the same page if the Browns are going to finally be a team that can compete on an annual basis.

If Holmgren knows the type of players that fit the West Coast offense, and Heckert knows how to find those players, and Shurmur knows how to coach them, then the Browns are on the right track.

There is no such thing as a universal right or wrong offense or defense to run. The right offense (or defense) for a particular team is the one that maximizes the abilities of the players on a certain team. If the Browns decide they are going to run the West Coast offense, and everyone involved knows how to get the players needed and coach them properly, then that’s the right offense for this team.

For all the talk about how the AFC North is a smash mouth division, the other three teams in the division pass the ball a lot. In Saturday’s playoff game, Pittsburgh threw the ball 32 times while Baltimore threw it 30.

Not exactly three yards and a cloud of dust yesterday at Heinz Field.

The one part of Shurmur’s introductory press conference that we keep going back to was when he talked about how he sees the coach’s role as that of an educator: “We take highly motivated, talented people and then we teach them to do very basic tasks, then we tie it all together. Then we go out and let you folks evaluate it and try to have those tasks point to efficient football and winning. The foundation of what we do is teach. “

That teaching refers to not only coaches to players, but from Holmgren to Shurmur, and not just now in Berea. You can trace the educational path all the way back to Paul Brown, who taught Bill Walsh in Cincinnati; Walsh taught Holmgren in San Francisco, Holmgren taught Andy Reid in Green Bay, and Reid taught Shurmur in Philadelphia.

That’s quite a wealth of accumulated knowledge.

But can Shurmur translate all of that into wins? That’s the big unknown.

We hope Shurmur took time to watch Saturday’s game between the Steelers and Ravens and keeps the game tape handy in his offense. Because that is what the Browns must face four times a year.

And if they can’t get past the Steelers and Ravens, then all the talk of being on the same page and meshing of philosophies will just be a lot of hot air.