The Curious Case of Holmgren/Heckert/Shurmur

I am going to start by saying this: Truthfully, this is an overreaction to today's stunning, bitter loss to the Bengals, but I need to rant. Hopefully come January we can look back at this piece and laugh.

When Browns President Mike Holmgren fired Eric Mangini and hired Pat Shurmur, the bar was set: despite beating the defending Super Bowl Champion Saints, the always winning Patriots, and coming within a Chansi Stuckey fumble from beating the Jets, apparently Pat Shurmur could do better than Eric Mangini as the Browns' head coach...so Mangini was fired, and Shurmur was hired.

Now, after a loss to a team that was 4-12 a year ago, starting a rookie at QB, that lost its best defensive player, we're supposed to be "patient?" 

All offseason Holmgren and Browns GM Tom Heckert skewered the offensive scheme of the 2010 Browns, subtly indicating that it was the scheme's fault that the offense was terrible, not the fact that there was a dearth of talent on the field.

Now, only a Greg Little addition later, the Browns offense looks no different. And the team is far more undisciplined than they were a year ago. The penalties in the first quarter alone were sickening and inexcusable because most high school teams shows more discipline.

The bar was set when Mangini was fired: this Browns team needs to win more than 5 games or else this change at head coach was an absolute failure.

After all, Mangini wasn't given a lot of slack, right?