I think it was a bad move to take Bernie Kosar out of his preseason color role. Nobody can replace his X's and O's instant insights, and I personally loved him for his blunt, if sometimes brutal, comments.
I hope the rumors I've heard of his being a featured analyst on a weekly show is true.
What's done is done, and Solomon Wilcotts will be taking over for Bernie in preseason.
I read one comment in which this goober ranted that Wilcotts was a former Bengal and Steeler and hated the Browns. This is utter nonsense. Maybe this was the same guy who hears racist "code words" in nearly everything said or written.
I've listened to Solly for years on NFL Radio, and he might be THE most insightful and fairest of them all in re the Cleveland Browns. In fact, he's often forced into defending them, as he was yesterday by co-host Ross Joan Rivers Tucker.
Solly thinks Jimmy Haslam's statements to and about Johnny Manziel only backed up what his head coach had already said. He believes that Pettine meant what he said: Hoyer is the current starter, Johnny will have to pry the job away from him, and he'd prefer any rookie QB to sit the bench for his first season.
And Wilcotts agrees.
He is openly supportive of Haslam. In some detail, he went back to Haslam's purchase of the team and the front office he brought with him. He explains to anyone who cares to listen that he is a first-time owner who quickly realized he had made some mistakes, and didn't screw around in correcting them.
He says that if you talk to those who know, Ray Farmer and Mike Pettine are both held in the highest regard, and however the time-line went, the bottom line is that Haslam has a better structure and team in place.
Ross Tucker likes to pick through each and every sequence of two or more words uttered by anybody to find hidden or deep meanings, and kept bringing up what the QB coach said about Haslam saying "Let's go get him" or something.
AHA! This means we've got another Jerry Jones on our hands!
Solomon points out that these discussions between the parties were old news, and that when it comes to first-round quarterbacks who will be the face of the franchise, every owner will reserve that right, and make that call.
He assures the Chicken Littles and conspiracy theorists that Manziel probably was indeed their highest-ranked quarterback, and Ray Farmer had him targeted anyway. In other words: Big deal.
Today I've read some more national writers bashing Jimmy for telling Manziel to act like a backup. It's fine for Herm Edwards to say that this was a disservice to the young man--you have to listen to a guy like that.
But that's a disagreement. These writers generally don't make sense.
Nor do they get it: Haslam wasn't talking to Johnny. He was talking to THEM.
I'm up to my eyeballs in both the real experts and the hangers-on treating the notion of Brian Hoyer as the opening day starter as laughable. The clueless writers are using this as a premise, and it's bullcrap.
Pettine and Shanahan by now know more about both quarterbacks than anybody else. Some say that the fact that Manziel was drafted in the first round proves that they had no confidence in Hoyer, which is just an olympic-calibre conclusion-leap.
The GMs all know this: If you have a shot at a potential franchise quarterback, you take it--even if you don't need him.
Johnny will have to beat Hoyer out. Assuming that he will, as a rookie, in a new system, with 24 college starts, reflects a deplorable lack of respect for a 4-year NFL vet who played like a franchise QB last season, and won two of the only four victories that team had in his only two complete games.
One ignoramus asserted that Hoyer had no advantage, since the system was new to Hoyer as well as to Manziel. But Hoyer has worked in similar systems in the past. In fact, the New England Patriots system isn't much different.
Four NFL training camps and scout-team reps are absolutely valuable, as we learned from "career backup" Kelly Holcomb. (PS Holcomb never flamed out. He just got hurt).
What if Hoyer simply continues to play the way he played in his last seven quarters? Johnny can't beat that! Hoyer was decisive, accurate, smart, and responded well to pressure. He passed from the pocket, the way he's been practicing to for his whole career.
Of course he's the starter! Of course the Redshirt Sophomore is the backup!
Manziel is very smart, and I know that if he were to read this he wouldn't be angry, and might not even disagree (although he'll never believe anybody is better than him, which is the attitude he has to have, and is fine with me).
As I've mentioned before, Pat Kirwan has often cited the success-rate of college quarterbacks with less than thirty starts who started as rookies. It's dismal. RG3 is the only exception to that rule. Not only did the others do badly, but many never recovered.
Late Note: I forgot Mark Sanchez...but what df happened to him?
But Pat, as I've mentioned, is studiously oblivious to the new personnel, coaching, and systems as well as to the several Pro-Bowlers on this roster. He will, as usual, expect the Browns not to contend.
He is guaranteeing that Manziel will be the opening day starter because he expects Pettine to realize that the awesomely dominating Steelers and Ravens are light years ahead of them, and they don't stand a chance.
So why not get the rookie in there so he can get some experience so that in two or three years he'll be ready to contend?
Did you catch it? Pat says that starting a junior quarterback is almost always bad, but that the Browns should start the little guy here. In-ter-es-ting!
Now that's what's laughable.
By the way...I need to research this: Who was the Jets GM who traded a first round pick to the Patriots for Drew Bledsoe? Might have been Pat Kirwan!
I'll just isolate game 1 and the Stoolers: They added ILB Ryan Shazier, which got a groan from me, because he's just awesome. He can do everything the younger Troy Polumalu did, including in coverage. He will single-handedly make that defense a lot better.
DL Stephen Tuitt is also really good. He'll start at DE and indirectly strengthen and deepen nose tackle.
RB Dre Archer is an explosive little shrimp who could show up in the slot and stuff.
WR Matavias Bryant is a solid reciever overshadowed by Watkins.
The other picks aren't that special. There should be three new starters out of this class.
Gramps Roethsenberger and Gramps Polumalu are still there, the corners are nothing to write home about, the offensive line is still maybe average.
They will get heat on the QB from the outside and the inside, and should be tough to run against as well, but a good zone-blocking team can run on just about anybody, short timing passes are a good answer to a passrush, and the new/improved Browns' defense is more than a match for that offense.
Pat is big on tradition, and the Steelers have traditionally dominated the Browns, therefore always will forever and ever amen. Regardless of coaching and talent.
He's fulla crap.
Of course, that's a home game for the Stoolers. It's harder to beat the referees than the team.
The Browns can contend, and you field your best players in that situation. I believe that with his intelligence, arm, and instincts Johnny Manziel will become a franchise quarterback.
Just not yet.
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