By Rick Morris
In a momentous triumph of historical illiteracy, drunken Browns fans everywhere are celebrating the dismissal of GM Phil Savage.
A mere four years after Butch Davis, the Haley's Comet of NFL suckitude prowled the sidelines, Browns fans are full of "it's never been worse than right now" self-pity and delusion.
Realistically, and what I'm about to truthfully lay out is over the heads of all of these folks, this team averaged out to 7-9 over the past two years. They weren't as good as the 10-6 record of a year ago and aren't as bad as the 4-12 of this year. Even in the sparse good times of the past four years, the team was battling to overcome the underachievement bred by Romeo Crennel, a heckuva nice guy and great defensive coordinator who was woefully ill-prepared to take this roster and do anything with it. So the talent is at least at a 7-9 level, more likely 8-8 or 9-7 (albeit it is very thin everywhere), but it's all going to be torn down now as the new guy comes in and gives the "look at the crapola I inherited" routine to buy himself some time.
There are many players up and down this roster who have at least shown flashes of being impact players, only to fall prey to coaching that cannot consistently get that level out of them. Somehow Romeo Crennel's failure to get the most out of this roster is being put onto Phil Savage, and when Savage pointed this out recently, he got made the bad guy for speaking an obvious truth. But hey, the team got overrated by everyone coming into the season (as I warned, in my usual precient style) and didn't live up to unrealistic expectations, so let's whack everyone and set back the program many years just to feel better in the moment! Yeah! Let's shotgun another PBR and whine about Lebron leaving while we're at it!
Randy Lerner is sucking up to his pathetic fanbase -- one of the very worst in all of sports, mind you -- in an attempt to get these pouting, foot-stamping crybabys to approve of him. While Savage has fallen short of the lofty expectations of four years ago, he EASILY earned enough leeway to get a respectable amount of time on the job and to at least bring in a head coach fully of his own choosing who will not bury his draft picks willy-nilly as Coach I'm Thinking Arby's so frequently did.
One of the many insanities of Cleveland Fan is his fear that anybody who gets let go by an area team will win a championship elsewhere. Given Savage's bona fides as a talent evaluator, has there been a coach or executive who has left town over the years who has been so obvious a candidate to succeed elsewhere? Granted, the mouth-breathers who call terrestrial talk radio shows don't see this, nor do the troglodytes on the Cleveland Plain Dealer message boards, but that doesn't make it any less true.
There's always the chance with Lerner's caysh that he'll manage to bring in an upgrade at the GM position -- Scott Pioli or Bill Parcells if he leaves Miami. But given his track record, it's more likely that he'll take a step backward, perhaps by throwing too much control at Bill Cowher in a desperate attempt to woo him. While it's popular to repeat the brainless mantra that it can only get better from here, it could clearly and easily get worse.
As such, the typical Browns fan may well be about to get the reward they deserve. As a loyal, non-weathervane lifelong Browns fan though, it's certainly not the reward I deserve.
Phil Savage fired, moron Browns fans rejoice
