… it doesn’t pay off in the standings.
One of the long-held beliefs in the NFL is the need to build a team “from within” – meaning you should focus on having a strong offensive and defensive line.
The Browns have been doing just that the past few years and it is starting to pay off in one respect, as Pro Football Focus ranked the offensive line as the fifth best in the NFL.
Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving was named the Eastern Conference Player of the Week on Monday, which should come as no surprise to anyone who watched the Cavs play last week.
In helping the Cavs to a three-game winning streak, Irving averaged 35.7 points per game, 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 1.7 steals. He scored more than 30 points in all three games, becoming just the fifth player in NBA history to have three consecutive 30-point games before his 21st birthday.
“This has been a very good week for our team,” Irving said in an understatement on the team’s website. “We’re working hard and making progress. While I’m honored to win the award this week, the most important and exciting thing is our success as a team and continuing our focus to keep getting better every day.”
On Feb. 2, the 46-member selection committee for the Pro Football Hall of Fame will meet to vote on this year’s class of inductees.
And there is a chance that the unthinkable may happen when the group gets together in New Orleans – they may actually vote Art Modell into the Hall of Fame.
The full list of the people on the selection committee can be found at the Hall of Fame’s website.
What follows is a list of the Twitter handles that we could find for the various members of the selection committee. If you believe that Modell is not worthy of being enshrined in the Hall of Fame, it’s important to let the people voting on his candidacy know.
Tweet them with the hashtag #ArtOut. Send them the links to our column and Jeff Rich’s column from The Cleveland Fan as well as this column from Jim Kanicki.
Let them know, because there is a very real chance that sympathies lie with Modell, but the people making the decision must be reminded about what he did to Cleveland.
On Feb. 2, the 46-member selection committee for the Pro Football Hall of Fame will meet to vote on this year’s class of inductees.
And there is a chance that the unthinkable may happen when the group gets together in New Orleans – they may actually vote Art Modell into the Hall of Fame.
According to the hall’s website, the selection committee is “charged with the vital task of continuing to be sure that new enshrinees are the finest the game has produced.”
In no way does that describe Modell and, if the selection committee ignores how he stole the Browns from Cleveland and votes him in, the Hall of Fame would be better off shutting its doors forever.
To learn more about Modell’s sham candidacy for the hall, head over to The Cleveland Fan.
Talking isn’t doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds. – William Shakespeare
Three days later and we’re still trying to wrap our brains around the fact that Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam signed off on a deal to bring Mike Lombardi back to Cleveland.
Plenty of people are talking about the decision – not surprising since Lombardi has not actually worked in the NFL since 2007 – and we have to wonder just what it is that 99 percent of the NFL missed on Lombardi all these years. So many openings, so few job offers.
So let’s take a look at what Lombardi’s biggest supporters have been saying.
A new regime and a new era in Cleveland Browns football.
That’s what fans were promised when Jimmy Haslam bought the team from Randy Lerner, cleaned out team president Mike Holmgren, general manager Tom Heckert and coach Pat Shurmur and installed Joe Banner as CEO.
But in so many ways, it’s still business as usual in Berea with Friday’s announcement that the Browns had hired Mike Lombardi to serve as vice president of player personnel.
Sad news for fans of The Wire and good acting as Robert Chew, who played Proposition Joe, has passed away at the young age of 52.
According to his obituary in The Baltimore Sun, Chew passed away on Thursday of apparent heart failure.
In addition to acting, Chew also taught and mentored child and young adult actors at Baltimore’s Arena Players, where he found the group of young actors who played the students in the Baltimore City School system who were the main focus of season four of the series (one of the most heartbreaking seasons for any TV show). He would eventually land roles in the series for 22 of his acting students.
“The Wire cast was an embarrassment of riches and it was easy, I think, for outsiders to overlook some of those who were so essential as supporting players,” series creator David Simon told the paper. “Robert’s depiction of Proposition Joe was so fixed and complete — from the very earliest scenes — that the writers took for granted that anything we sent him would be finely executed.”
As a character, Prop Joe moved through the Baltimore streets quietly, operating under a simple business plan of, “buy for a dollar, sell for two – and later for all that gangster bullshit.” The fact that Chew, a very large man, was tapped to play a character that wanted to remain invisible was a nice contrast and one of those little things that added up to make the The Wire so great.
Chew was so perfect in the role – as were just about every actor cast in the series – that it is hard to picture him playing anyone else. He was one of those characters that started out small and, over time, grew into a vital part of the series (and we still haven’t gotten over Cheese for betraying his uncle to Marlo).
The acting world is a little poorer today without Chew.
The Philadelphia Eagles hired Oregon coach Chip Kelly on Wednesday, surprising, well, pretty much everyone.
The hiring’s impact rippled all the way to Cleveland, where Browns fans were as bipolar as always with reactions ranging from betrayal that Kelly chose the Eagles over the hometown Browns, to anger at Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and CEO Joe Banner for not being able to “seal the deal” with the skittish Kelly.
The reality, however, is that the Kelly hiring should have absolutely no impact on the Browns – just because the Eagles sneezed doesn’t mean the Browns have to catch the flu.
To find out what this all means, visit The Cleveland Fan.
(Photo by Getty Images)
… the renaming of Cleveland Browns Stadium to FirstEnergy Stadium, Home of the Cleveland Browns, is currently near the bottom of the list.
The Browns made it official on Tuesday, selling the naming rights to their home field to the Akron-based energy company.
No one knows if this is going to work.
It is going to take time to find out.
Those were the two biggest (and most important) takeaways from Friday’s press conference to introduce Rob Chudzinski as the 14th coach (and sixth since 1999) of the Cleveland Browns.
No one knows how this is all going to turn out. It is just as likely that Chudzinski will be the next Chris Palmer as it is that he will be the next Andy Reid.
But there is one thing we do know – he deserves a chance to find out.
The rest of the story is available at The Cleveland Fan.
(Photo by ClevelandBrowns.com)
Red Right 88 