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McCoy, the lockout, and contingency plans.

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(from a Grossi article... don't worry - its mainly just quotes from McCoy...) First, a couple of excerpts I found interesting regarding Bradford and Shurmur, and McCoy's friendship with Bradford... McCoy has gleaned the basics of Shurmur's West Coast offensive system from discussions with Shurmur and Rams quarterback Sam Bradford, McCoy's top rival in college who has become a friend and confidante... "It's a West Coast system," McCoy said. "I think it's a system, from my experience, that we ran a little bit of in college. It's a very quarterback-friendly system. That's what coach Shurmur keeps reiterating to me. He says we're gonna learn it together and be the best together. I think it's real quick, timing, get the ball out of your hands, make good decisions, and it also takes advantage of my ability to make plays with my feet. "Sam loves coach Shurmur. Was sad to see him go. He's real excited for me." (at least its nice to hear this about Bradford's opinion of Shurmur... given all the lingering question marks...) Now to the part which I found particularly interesting. I've been wondering how the Browns are going to manage the lockout dilemma, and very concerned about what the repercussions will be given the "current state of affairs" (for obvious reasons - i.e. our current 'rebuild' mode...) McCoy said Shurmur has laid out contingency plans for the players in the event of an owners lockout due to the unsettled labor situation. If some type of agreement isn't in place by March 4, players will be prohibited from talking with coaches and entering team facilities. McCoy said he will return to Cleveland later this month to take a crash course in Shurmur's playbook. He expects to then lead informal workouts with Browns receivers and tight ends if and when a lockout is imposed. Interesting. Not sure how comforting this is - would be interested to hear opinions on this from others... This also made me wonder if our defense (not discussed in the article) might have a similar plan. Is it possible a similar scenario might be implemented - i.e. for example maybe Fujita could be working in 'crash course' mode with Jauron for the next few weeks then lead 'informal workouts' with the defense (assuming we're moving to a 4-3 defense)?