Day 88

I have two good friends from Pittsburgh, Doug and Brian. Both are huge Steeler fans. I watched every second of the Steelers/Colts game yesterday and was amazed at the complete domination of coaching by Bill Cowher over Tony Dungy. I came to this conclusion yesterday: The Cleveland Browns are an absolute joke of a franchise compared to our arch rival Pittsburgh Steelers. I wouldn't even call it a rivalry anymore, because they own us. But they own us in every aspect. From the owners all the way down to the hot dog vendors. They have been telling me this for years. I knew it, but I didn't want to believe it until now.

Bill Cowher has been the coach their for 13 years, the longest tenured coach in the NFL by far. In 1991, when Art Modell owned the Browns, there was a groundswell for Modell to hire Cowher, then the young defensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs and former special teams coach for the Browns three years prior. Instead, the Browns hired Bill Belichick, who we all know at the time was a miserable failure in Cleveland before becoming one of the top coaches of alltime in New England. At the time Modell was quoted as saying that he thought Cowher was "too young and not ready to be an NFL head coach." A year later, the Steelers hired him as their head coach and the rest is history. Since that day, the Browns have left the city, seen 4 head coaches in 11 years, three playoff games, and zero division titles. In that same span, the Steelers have won the division six times, reached the wild card three other times, made it to the Super Bowl in 1996, and had 50 Pro Bowl Players. By contrast, though the Browns were gone from 1996-1999, they had only 8, and none since they came back in 1999.

The Steelers consistently show a better eye for talent than the Browns. Every year, the Browns draft high because of their bad record. What do we have to show for it? While the Steelers drafted their QB of the future in Ben Roethilsberger last season, we trade first and second round picks to move up one spot to draft TE Kellen Winslow, who since has played 2 games because of a broken leg and a motorcycle accident in which he will surely never be the same. Big Ben has done nothing but go 23-4 as the starting QB for the Steelers. OK, that is unfair. But while the Browns draft Chris Crocker at safety, the Steelers draft a game changing safety in Troy Polamalu, the kind of player who is all over the field and seems to make every big play. The Browns never draft offensive lineman, even though every year they are in dyer need. The Steelers snagged Max Starks in the second round who immediately was plugged in as their starting guard as a rookie two years ago. That same year, the Browns drafted LB Chaun Thompson, a guy who started at a Division III school that went 0-11 and a guy who experts said was no higher than a fifth round pick. WR Hines Ward was a 4th round pick. Their starting RB Willie Parker was an undrafted free agent who stepped in a rushed for 1200 yards this year. We wasted a first round pick on a guy with major character issues in William Green who has essentially already washed out in Cleveland without making any sort of impact. I could go on and on citing examples. Remember when the Browns signed Earl Holmes over James Farrior at MLB and Farrior turned into a pro bowler for the Steelers and Holmes was cut after 1 year?

There is a reason that the Steelers have had a 13 year run like this, its called stability. Cowher is a guy who his players would run through a wall for. Ownership has been smart enough to stick with him and realize what a good thing they have in him. In 13 years, talent and players change, but the attitude of the organization stays the same. Cowher is a great coach and solid talent evaluator. He is at his best when the chips are stacked against him. Cowher absolutely schooled Colts coach Tony Dungy yesterday. When the Steelers needed big stops, they blitzed like crazy and Dungy couldn't solve the problem. They blitzed all day long. Dungy is a classic Schottenheimer type coach. Good enough aint good enough to win the big ones. Tampa Bay fired him after a solid run of playoff years because ownership was convinced he took them as far as he could. They brought in the guy who could get them over that hump - Jon Gruden. Not coincidentally, the won the Super Bowl in Gruden's first season. There is a reason why Denver is always competitive, Dallas has been good since since Bill Parcells was hired, Washington is back in the playoffs, and the Patriots are a dynasty. Its the same with Pittsburgh. Its the head coaches. Mike Shanahan, Parcells, Joe Gibbs, Bill Belichick, and Cowher are the top 5 coaches in pro football. If you get one of the top guys, you hold them and don't let go.

The Browns organization is in disarray. They have no stability. The fans are lemmings who continue to read the articles, buy the paraphanalia, buy the tickets and flock to the lakefront every Sunday and continue to get disappointed year in and year out. How much more of this are Browns fans supposed to take? Give me Tribe baseball and KU basketball all day long before this joke of an organization. The Tribe ownership is a joke as well, but the people running the baseball operations have us competing for division titles in spite of the cheapness of the powers that be. Memo to the Browns, take a note!

Song of the Day: "Relax" by Deetah.