We didn’t know it back then – in fact, in some cases, we thought just the opposite – but the Browns of the early 1990s had the best of the best.
They had the best NFL head coach today in Bill Belichick, who is taking his New England Patriots to yet another Super Bowl when they face the Atlanta Falcons next Sunday (more on that later this week).
They had the best college head coach today – along with Ohio State’s Urban Meyer – in Nick Saban, then the team’s defensive coordinator.
And they had the best NFL general manager today in Ozzie Newsome, then the team’s director of pro personnel.
That group was together intact from 1991-94, after which Saban left to become the head coach at Michigan State.
Year after year after year, I keep coming back to that era. It especially hit home on Saturday while watching the Senior Bowl, for which the executive director is Phil Savage, who was also with those early 1990s Browns, first helping Saban coach the secondary and then as a scout.
And did we mention that the offensive line coach of the Browns then, at least from 1993-95, was Kirk Ferentz, who has become one of the Big Ten’s top head coaches while at Iowa?
But it’s the Belichick-Saban-Newsome triumvirate who we’re focusing on here, and rightfully so.
Of course, those three men then weren’t close to being what, and who, they are now. They needed time to grow, learn, mature and develop.
That is why we need to give the Browns’ current regime of Sashi Brown, Paul DePodesta, Andrew Berry and, of course, Hue Jackson some time to show what they have, or don’t have. You can’t make snap decisions based entirely on the club’s 1-15 finish in 2016.
This is not to say that, even in a best-case scenario, they will ever grow to the level that Belichick, Saban and Newsome are at now. That’s not at all realistic. What you can expect from these men, though, is that they have learned from their mistakes in their first year together here and will do a better job in 2017.
Remember, it wasn’t until 1994 that the Belichick-era Browns broke through and got to the playoffs after going just 20-28 combined in their first three seasons.
It will take a while this time, too, to get things turned around.
