Hello Readers,
Today I would like to talk about a topic that is a little
outside of the typical post I put here. As I said in my short bio, I am a big
sports fan. I also almost worked for the Browns. This is where I would like to
take the discussion today. Surely 1,000 different media outlets will cover this
topic and I highly doubt you will get any ground breaking information from me
that you haven’t heard or seen elsewhere. What I can offer is a unique
perspective of this topic and the business and marketing impact.
ESPN
For those of you who haven’t heard, The Cleveland Browns
traded running back Trent Richardson to the Indianapolis Colts for the Colts first
round pick in the upcoming draft. Some of you may not know football or the NFL
well and some may not know Trent Richardson well so I will try my best to
explain as I go but I am not giving a scouting report on the guy or explaining
what football is. Trent Richardson was the 3rd overall pick in the
2012 NFL draft. The Browns trade up in the draft to get him which usually is
very costly. The only players taken before him were Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin
III. That alone says quite a bit about the type of player you have in Trent.
I will admit, I am a little biased. Trent Richardson is
probably my favorite running back in the entire league and one of my favorite
players. I love complete running backs. I hate when a back is one dimensional
and thus a team must employ a platoon or dual running backs to take advantage
of the strengths of one and not allow the weaknesses to be exploited. Trent is
a complete back. He is seen as a big back but stands just 5’9’’. However he
weighs 225lbs of pure power packed muscle. He is a bruising runner who has the
speed, running the 40 yard dash in 4.45 seconds prior to being draft (I dare
you to try to beat that time at 225lbs). He is also a capable pass catcher. On
top of all of this, Trent can block very well for a running back.
People will point to Trent’s lack of long runs as proof that
he is not an elite back. To this I say look at where he plays. Cleveland’s
passing game is sub-par at best. Defenses understand the talent that is Trent
Richardson and they key on the running game. He faces a loaded box with great
regularity and still ran for over 1,000 yards as a rookie. Watch him at
Alabama. Sure it was college and he was a man among boys but this will show you
his pure speed and breakaway ability on a team that can attack in both the
passing and running game.
And he has more than enough power to break tackles.
Trent is a beast, plain and simple. One of my best friends
is a huge fan of Alabama Football. I talk to him about player there regularly.
We disagree at times about the abilities of a player. We do not disagree about
Trent. We both say he is the best back to come out of Alabama since the ‘90s
and possibly ever (I’ll admit I am not knowledgeable enough on Alabama history to
say that definitively). Shaun Alexander came out years before Nick Saban took
over the team. Alexander had a couple of good years in the NFL and on great
game where he broke the record for touchdowns scored. The next prominent back
was Glenn Coffee. I remember watching him while visiting my grandmother in her
retirement community and watching that game I said he’s good but the kid behind
him is better. That kid was Mark Ingram and he went on to win a Heisman Trophy
Award. While Ingram was doing what he was my friend was telling me “Yeah, he is
good but that kid behind him, Richardson, HE is unbelievable.” So I started
watching more closely when Ingram was not in the game and I was blown away. For
the second time I thought the backup was better than the starter at Alabama.
Behind Trent was Eddie Lacy. I like Lacy but he could not hold a candle to
Trent. Sure Lacy was big and powerful but Trent did it all. Then behind Lacy
was T.J. Yeldon and I said boy he is better than Lacy but he is still no Trent.
Yeldon is considered better than Ingram by some but still he is no Trent.
Now that you understand how I feel about Trent (you can call
it a man crush if you would like), let’s talk about the Browns. They traded up
to get Trent. They must have liked him A LOT. However, they didn’t win and that
group that decided to get Trent was replaced. Evidently, the new decision
makers do not feel the same way about Trent. Some people may say that they are
clearly rebuilding but I disagree. First off you have to have been good recently
to rebuild and the Browns have not been good for a long, long time. Also,
typically when a franchise rebuilds they trade away their older players in the
end of their career for younger players or draft picks. Trent is in his second
NFL season and is just 22. So this is not a move in the rebuild process. You
can say the Browns are trying to retool or get a team that fits the style they
would like to play, that’s fair.
This was just a bad business decision, though. You used the
3rd overall pick in the draft to get Trent. He is now on the Colts
who could now earn a wild card spot in the playoffs and I see their pick being
in the 20s or so. The better they do, the worse the pick and with Trent they
will do better. So you traded a known player who was selected 3rd
for an unknown player selected 25th? That makes no sense. It’s not
that simple, though. The Browns will likely be worse now so their pick will be
higher. Even if they don’t get the first or second pick in the draft, they
could try to use their pick and the Colts pick to get the first or second pick.
The fans can only hope this will be a quarterback. I’ll talk about the Browns
Fans later. Clearly the Browns have very little hope for Brandon Weeden, I can’t
blame them. But he was selected the same year as Richardson. You might as well
ask the NFL for a do-over if you are giving up or giving away both first round
picks. Some may say “hey cut your losses and move on.” And this is clearly what
they are doing, but why not adapt a plan around what you have instead of trying
to make a square peg fit in a round hole until you and give your square pegs
away for pennies on the dollar and try to buy round ones.
Trent was the Browns. He was the star of the team. Now who
do you have? Brandon Weeden? He’s on the way out so no one is buying his jersey
in Cleveland. Joe Thomas? He’s a great player but who has an offensive lineman
as their star player? Fans want to see their star in highlights on Sports
Center and I can’t remember seeing many highlights focusing on the O-line. Maybe
Barkevious Mingo. He’s a rookie and he plays on the defensive side of the ball.
A Linebacker is not always the most exciting and Mingo is not Ray Lewis,
DeMarcus Ware, or Von Miller. So the search continues. Joe Haden? Same as
before but he’s a cornerback. He’s a good cornerback but he’s not a statesman
like Champ Bailey and he isn’t as good as Patrick Peterson or Derelle Revis.
Let’s try the offensive side again. How about a wide receiver. The first that
comes to mind is Greg Little but he’s not even the top wide out in town. He has
been a bit disappointing. He’s sort of a less talented version of Bryalon
Edwards. So the search goes on. For now fans will have to wear their Jim Brown jerseys.
If you want a new one I recommend leaving it blank. Your odds of picking a player
that will still be there in two years and be good are about the same as winning
on a scratch ticket.
When I was in college I took a sport marketing class and we
read the book “On Being Brown” which discussed what is was like to grow up as a
Browns fan. You hear all the stories of the greatness that once was and you
have eternal hope that those days will return and you get dirt thrown in your
face consistently. At least they have the largest fan base of any sports team
in the world so you have plenty of people that share your pain. In the 90s they
lost the team to Baltimore and then came back to draft the savior, Tim Couch.
We all know how well that worked. They have had promise during the draft
recently just to fumble it when they put it all together and forget one or two
key pieces. Now this, they lost arguably the best offensive threat they have
had since Jim Brown.
The fans can only hope for Teddy Bridgewater to be the
outcome of all this. He is not a guarantee though. You knew what you had in
Trent. A rookie QB could be Tim Couch or Andrew Luck. And they are not guaranteed
to be in position to get him. Or they could decide they want to highlight their
defense and draft Jadavion Clowney. That should not be too exciting for the
fans. In today’s NFL you must score to win and defense does not do that.
How do you market this team? If they are honest they can say
“cheer for us, we will always let you down!” Ouch, that’s good if you are a self-loathing
individual but I think most fans want to see good things from their team. Maybe
they should make a better attempt at getting LeBron James to come back to
Cleveland.
I can’t imagine they
will sell many jerseys. I can’t imagine they will sell many single game tickets
either. At least they have a steady stream of season ticket holders to fill
more seats than the Jacksonville Jaguars.
It is a sad day in Cleveland for sure, but happy times in
Indianapolis. The Colts are saying “Trent is better than what we would have
gotten with that pick.” And he addresses a need. Sure they had a promising back
in Vick Ballard but he had his limitations so they got Ahmad Bradshaw to sure
things up but he’s at the end of his time and has injury issues. Trent is
young, promising, improving, health, and better than most backs as it is now. The
Colts can use their other picks to get good defensive players of offensive line
help and they will be very competitive for a long while. Good work by the
Colts! Browns, we will wait and see where the franchise goes from here.
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