State of the Browns

This is just beyond sad. So frustrating. And it just never ends. How is a team so consistently bad? They're not just bad, they're boring. There's nothing fun about watching the Browns. They make football the most boring sport.. Seriously. Can't we get these games blacked out so we have no choice but to not watch them?

How does this team get better? We have two first round picks. One of them should be in the late teens, early 20s. One of them should be in the top 5. My guess is that we'll draft right after the team that takes Andrew Luck.

Looking at Mel Kiper's big board (who may or may not be the slightest bit reliable.. Braylon Edwards and Mike Williams were can't miss prospects at one time) It looks like there's a good OT available, Matt Kalil. We can always use more of those. We could take a RB, Trent Richardson. Assuming that we let Hillis go, which looks apparent. We could takeWR Justin Blackmon and hope he's an AJ Green and not a Julio Jones. We could go Defense and get Joe Haden again but on the opposite side of the field with CB Morris Claiborne. Or we could take one of the runner up QBs, Landry Jones or Matt Barkley. Both of which are the poor man's Andrew Luck. Or are they? Jay Cutler did pretty good for himself after not being projected as high as Vince Young and Matt Leinart..

How do you make this team better? What do they need?

I'm going to break down the Cleveland Browns into four categories:

Stars, Could be-Stars, Backups/Special Teamers, Filler, and Crap.

Stars:
Joe Thomas
Phil Dawson

Could be-Stars:
Haden
Ward
Sheard
Taylor
Rubin
Hillis
Watson
Mack
D'qwell Jackson

Backups/Special Teamers:
Hardesty
Cribbs
Sheldon Brown
Moore
Little
Massaquoi
Alex Smith
Fujita
McCoy
Wallace

Filler:
Jordan Cameron
Ogbanana
Adams
Young
Patterson
Schaffering

Crap:
Norwood
Mitchell
Pinkston
Hicks
Vallos
Lauvao
Greco
Pashos
Cousins
Thaddeous Lewis
Mitchell
Stephens
Paxon
Spears
English
Tripp
Gocong
Titus Brown
Skrine
Dockery
Ventrone
Hagg

Bonus Category, Worst Player on the Team:
Owen Marecic


So far, that's the single biggest mistake of the Holmgren era. Letting Lawrence Vickers go. We had the best fullback in the league. An offensive lineman who could run like a RB. And we let that go, in favor of starting some fourth or fifth round draft pick. Marecic is getting his ASS KICKED out there. Granted, Arian Foster is the running back, but now that Vickers is on Houston plowing over defenders, aren't they better off?? No one on the Browns realized that our Running Game last season was almost all because of Vickers? Hillis had all those holes because Vickers was putting people on the ground. Now, we have some guy, who I think is smaller and slower than Hillis. Great.

So how does Holmgren fix this mess for next year? Hell if I know. No one has been able to do it since I started watching the Browns again in 2002-ish. Crennel had one extremely easy schedule. Davis had a fairly lucky year, all things considered (idiot players, QB controversy). Palmer got thrown in front of a train. Mangini didn't do ANYTHING. And now Pat Shurmur. The most boring Head Coach choice produces the most boring football team I've ever seen.

Someone "qualified", FIX IT.