2009 NFL season in review: Cleveland Browns
Tough year in Cleveland, so tuff that they had to broom aside their entire front office. Now Mike Holmgren is the man in charge and he has brought in an all star team that should get the Browns back on track. They still have issues, but the won their final four games of 2009. That is not something we can afford to overlook. Head Coach Eric Mangini may be abrasive, and run the team with questionable policies, but he may have finally reached this team. At the moment everything points towards a fast Browns turn around.
They are going to have to fix their offense, which means they need a QB and some players to be around him. In 2009 they scored 245 points or 15.3 per game. That was good enough for 29th among the 32 NFL teams. On the field they were led by Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson. Both played pretty poorly and at times it seemed that the Browns had no QB. They probably need to go in a different direction, but maybe Quinn gets one more year at the helm. On the ground they gained over 2,000 yards led by Jerome Harrison and Jamal Lewis in his final NFL season. This suggests that the Browns have a fine O-line, but need help at the skill positions.
The 2009 Browns defense gave up 375 points or 23.4 points per game. That means that on average the Browns were outscored by 8 points in 2009. Their take away differential was -12, so there is work to be done of the defense. No Browns defender had 100 tackles for the year, and that simply will not do.
So, now Holmgren steps into rehab the Browns, he will keep Mangini for the 2010 season and they will work together to turn this team into a winner. Job number one is going to be the evaluation of Quinn. Should they give him one final shot, or use their 7th overall pick on a QB prospect, or should they trade for a veteran. Let us not totally discount the idea of Brett Favre here, he and Holmgren have a long history, and Favre played for Mangini with the Jets.
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