Monday, December 21, 2009

286 yards and a cloud of dust

I'm seeing alot of irony in Jerome Harrison's monster 286 yard performance against the Chiefs. I present for your consideration:

>> Jamal Lewis' 295 yards against the Browns back in 2003 was a similar effort as Harrison's yesterday. Both were equal parts luck, good offensive line play, and poor tackling.

>> Although Lewis has had a solid career, I think the consensus is he's no Hall of Fame material. His 295 yard game and 2000 yard season were outliers, with the rest of his career being pretty pedestrian.

>> Despite the fact that those performances were outliers, Lewis continued to benefit from them for the remainder of his career. The way I see it, without those two high marks on his resume, he would've been no higher regarded than Thomas Jones or Fred Taylor. I doubt he would've gotten paid as much as he was by the Browns if that 295 yard day wasn't so prominent in the Browns' collective memory.

>> It seems like its been years that I've been calling for Harrison to get more touches, rather than making Lewis the feature back. Albeit, Lewis is a bit of a different style from Harrison, but I'm sure working as much in his favor was his history of accomplishments, as well as his pay grade.

>>I doubt yesterday was Harrison's coming out party. It will probably get him some more looks, maybe give him a marginally better payday once he hits free agency. Either way, I doubt the current management is going to try to make him into a feature back.

>> I started off with a point, but seemed to have lost it some where along the way. So it goes.

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Re: Holmgren and Mangini-

Holmgren sounds like a great possibility, one should never underestimate a fat man with a mustache. That being said, you're putting a HECK of alot of faith in the man by letting him decide if he's going to be GM or coach. I think thats been one of the Brown's management's biggest problems: putting too much pressure on one guy, making him carry the whole weight on his back.

I won't defend Mangini, I just hate coaching changes. Its a guarantee for a wasted season and a wasted draft. If Holmgren does come in, I hope he considers the situation very closely before making a decision. I won't blame him if he can't make it work with Mangini, but change for change's sake doesn't do anyone any good.