Cleveland Browns Place Tony Pashos, Robaire Smith on IR; Sign Two Players

On a side note, remember this guy? Phil Trautwein out of Florida, guy looks like he´s Ron Perlman´s lost son. I know you´re not supposed to comment on how people look, but I couldn´t resist. We should get him back from the Rams, for the double whammy in the red head department, no?:

Big guy in action:

I remember that pic. Rookie hazing, right?

“The scrappy we’ve been looking for since Ryan Tucker”

This made my night.

surprised he didn’t play for the steelers with that hair cut.

That is too bad. Gotta be tough to come to that realization as a player.

Just had a good talk wit Mangini! Talked about some real ish! Great dude!
About 23 hours ago by Robaire Smith Cleveland Browns – Defensive End

Man that’s rough.

Tough. Wasn’t he named a captain this year? If I remember right, it was the first time he had been named a captain and was very gracious and motivated by that. I’ve always really like Robaire… hopefully he can make another run at playing, but if not, he has a successful post-football career/life.

I have a Spanish test followed by a math test today. Awful, awful day.

Better take it down. SB must be appeased… :)

Just finished part 1 of my english final.

Now, i have to read 100 pages and do 2 short 1-2 paragraph essays on the 100 pages by tomorrow at 6 (plus work tonight…)

I feel ya about it sucking.

Man I listen to Econtalk and Planet Money as a hobby. How sick is that?

I don’t see any point in firing him mid-season really—what would we gain? I see the players playing hard. I think the coaches should be better at gameplanning than they have been. We have been close and competitive in many games, despite the fact that we probably don’t have the talent edge against almost all of the team’s we’ve played.

The big questions Mangini must answer—at least the big questions I have for him—are things that have to be answered behind closed doors. Mostly about how he fits with Holmgren and the structure of the organization—how his philosophies meld with H&H.

At this point of the season, how do you think Mangini is doing?

Mangini is who we thought he is. I’m really not a big fan of alot of his gameday decisions personally. Stoneface bonehead. And he is loyal to a fault to Daboll.

Do you think he job will be there at the end of the year?

Barring extreme circumstances I think there is no chance he gets fired IN-season. None. Holmgren just doesn’t work that way.

What do you think he may need to do to keep his job?

I think it would be much harder to lose it than keep it. Wins/losses is tough to say…but if i was prez; this team talent wise is better than last years IMO, so I’d say he needs to win 5 or more (not likely—but possible I suppose). Bear in mind he’s got Daboll etc. as fire bait, too. Replacing Daboll and bringing in a proven, veteran OC in the offseason could definitely buy Mangini some more time. My instincts tell me he ends up back next year…even if we only win 3 or 4.

I’d probably give Mangini a B. I don’t think the team is typically underachieving (see The Cowboys for this) but we probably should have won a game or two that we lost. Is a B good enough? It is if you don’t have an A to put in its place.
I’m of the opinion that Holmgren may have retained Mangini and Daboll as fall-guys for what surely looked like a pretty rough season this year. If he comes in an puts his own guys in at the beginning, then he takes a lot of the blame for an unsuccessful season. Right now there is a “blame buffer” between himself and the fans. The first buffer is Daboll and he might go mid-season. The second buffer is Mangini and he may go at the end of the season but ONLY if there is an A-list replacement. I can’t imagine Holmgren bringing in a new, untried head coach from the either the college ranks or the coordinator pool. I think Holmgren is all about getting obviously better with every move. Change is only good if you are reasonably sure you are making an improvement. Otherwise, change itself can become the problem.

Reply failure to Champion64.

I think the team is obviously trying to win, and playing the games is part of improvement. I don’t know where you got the idea they were doing anything for the sake of the draft.

you know what will keep us fans watching? the fact that this team hasn’t given up. the fact that they are competitive in every single game. I would be extremely surprised if we don’t win at least 5 games this season.

i don’t know what he’s supposed to say? the trading deadline has passed, so there’s very little of meaning that the browns can do to improve the roster. the team has actually played 5.7 close games, so it seems pretty clear that they haven’t quit… i just can’t think of what he’d say in a statement about the season, or why anyone would assume that the organization has packed it in for this year.

I honestly don’t think Holmgren needs to come out in support of Mangini. Aside from the Steelers loss, exempting Colt looking like he had a clue, I’ve think we have proven to be competitive and have shown improvement. We’ve played a pretty tough schedule thus far and have not looked any worse than league average in my opinion. Which might not seem great, but I think it says alot considering where we’ve been.

I just feel like we all think thought this team is would be better.

it would feel like we’d be going backwards.

but we wouldn’t be going backwards. how you “feel” about it is irrelevant to reality. I feel like Rick Nash deserves the Hart every year, but he doesn’t.

Again, wins are unimportant this season. we aren’t making the playoffs. would you rather be 7-9 and look terrible, or be 3-13 and show improvement every game?

Who’s Rick Nash? Here, let me Google that for you.