Phil Speaks

Just watched Phil Savage's State of the Browns address.

I didn't get much out of it. He's good at candidly talking in a professional manner. Whenever questions come up about why guys were fired, or why guys were kept, he stuck to his line that "We make all our decisions as a team." He talks about it so naturally, I kind of believe him.

One point I did find interesting was when he was talking about Crennel's relationship with his coordinators. He made the point that Crennel really liked giving his coordinators alot of personal space, and that he was hands-off in alot of ways. He also said that that would change next year, and Crennel would be alot more into what was going on inside the meeting rooms. I read Savage's comments as saying that Crennel was giving his coordinators TOO much room, and that is in part why he was ineffective this year.

Steve Doerschuck asked a good question about the D-Line and not stopping the run. Phil certainly sounded concerned, much more so than when he was talking about the O-line. I fear that we might see the O-line fixed before the D-line ever gets there. That might turn us into a Bengals like team.

He explained the logic in bringing in Kevin Schaeffer, but he sounded like he has seen the light, and that maybe Schaeffer isn't elite left tackle material, and that he might get moved around if we can get in a new prospect.

Mary Kay Cabot threw Savage a softball of "Is it fair to say that Jeff Davidson had his hands tied in that he was stuck with Maurice Carthon's playbook", and Savage didn't take a swing. That certainly doesn't put much in Davidson's stock as next Offensive Coordinator. Phil's answer was essentially "Jeff did alot of good things from an operations stand point of making sure we got plays in on time and making sure guys knew what was coming. But, his play calling would not be alot different than Maurice Carthon's, it would just have some new tweaks". Phil, if you're of that mindset, and you will speak it to the Cleveland press, you would be a fool to bring Davidson back as coordinator.

Savage also had an interesting line about Edwards and Winslow: "The Face of the Browns' offense in the future is clearly Number 17 and Number 80". Phil really sounds sold on Edwards, and did alot of apologizing for him. He pointed out that Braylon's strengths are:
-Jump balls
-Catching a shorter pass in some traffic and breaking a big gain
-Blocking
I assume on that second point, he was referring to Edwards ability to break something IF he caches the ball.

Savage also made a comment about how the scouts all spend most of the season not even looking at the elite players, because they assume that they will be picking mid-round, and that the elite players will be gone by then. I wonder if that's why so many top-ten picks end up being busts. Everyone assumes that they're great, and they don't spend the time picking out their blemishes until its too late.