Friday, January 14, 2011

Pat Shurmur hired as Browns head coach

The selection is a less than sexy one and every time that I think of this,I keep seeing the androgynous Saturday Night Live character "Pat" in my vision,but the Cleveland Browns hired the offensive coordinator of the St.Louis Rams,Pat Shurmur as the latest head coach in what seems to be a parade of thousands.

Shurmur is a less than inspiring pick to me,but at least he isn't Marty Mornhinweg and that is something in his favor.
It appears that Shurmur's main attraction to the Browns was his background in Mike Holmgren's beloved West Coast offense having been trained by Holmgren's top protege' Andy Reid and since Shurmur came up through the Eagles organization,GM Tom Heckert has plenty of familiarity with Shurmur as well.

My main issue with the hire was the overly conservative offense that Shurmur ran with the Rams.
I watched both Rams games against Seattle and wasn't overwhelmed with his play calling in either contest.
In the final game of the season against Seattle,a game that truly was the playoff opener,Shurmur ran Steven Jackson just eleven times in a 16-6 Rams loss and seemed reluctant to let Sam Bradford go down the field very often.
Does any of this sound familiar to you,Browns fans?
Some of this sounds very similar to the Brian Daboll disaster,doesn't it?

Shurmur does seem to have set a strong foundation for success with Sam Bradford and looks to be an excellent choice to be the coach tutoring Colt McCoy,which is a key to the success of the team for both next season and beyond,but I have questions mainly due to his lack of experience.
Experience is not always a end game for a good/bad coach,but I am saying that Cleveland is once again in the position of being the entry level position for head coaches.
First time head coaches are such pot luck and with the West Coast guys,the pot luck has been even more so as they have ranged from successes from Andy Reid and Jon Gruden to middle of the roaders such as Steve Mariucci and failures such as Marty Morninweg.
My main complaint on the WCO coaches are that they have one consistent thread through them all-all of them think they can turn crappy QB's into great ones just by inserting them into their scheme,but as long as McCoy gets to play the full season,I can live with whatever backup is brought in.

All in all,I am pretty non-plussed with the hiring.
However,I trust Mike Holmgren's judgement for the most part and I am willing to give his choice the benefit of the doubt.
Holmgren needs to be right on this one as considering the limb he crawled upon for the selection of Shurmur is a short one.
Browns fans are open minded enough to give Pat Shurmur a chances based on the credibility of Mike Holmgren,a failed Shurmur tenure would take much of that away from this front office...

Photo Credit-Chuck Crow-Cleveland Plain Dealer

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