Five wins in two NFL seasons – the dubious distinction the Cleveland Browns
lay claim to at the moment – calls for a drastic resurrection and reclamation
project.
And who better to resurrect a broken-down football program than Butch Davis?
|  | | New Browns coach Butch Davis find himself in the middle of another rebuilding program. |
If this man, who took over the shattered and shamed University of Miami
program and not only turned it back into a national power on the field but
into a respected institution off of it as well, can make a winner out of the
Cleveland Browns again, he will own the kind of reputation that calls for some
kind of distinct nickname.
If Davis makes the Browns a winner again, call him the "Resurrection Man"
of football coaches. Also call him one of the best football coaches around.
Bill Parcells, first by circumstance and then by preference, became that
kind of coach – the one who immersed himself into a broken-down football
program and revived it, made it a proud winner not long after being a
doormat. He did it with the Giants, Patriots and Jets.
The Browns have been the NFL's doormat the last two seasons since they
became the new Cleveland Browns when pro football returned to Cleveland for
the first time since the old Browns left to become the current Super
Bowl-champion Baltimore Ravens. Chris Palmer was the Browns' first coach and lasted only two seasons before
finally bowing out with a 5-27 record.
At first, just having an NFL product back in Cleveland was enough for the
city's diehards. However, with consecutive No. 1 overall draft picks in 1999 (Tim Couch) and 2000 (Courtney Brown) and expectations raising by the minute, merely having a team is not enough in Cleveland anymore.
Enter Davis.
What's most interesting about Davis is the fact that he could have gone a
number of other places besides Cleveland. He had potential opportunities to
coach the Bills, the expansion Houston Texans and others, but he seemed
compelled by the challenge of bringing winning football back to Cleveland.
So, why Cleveland?
"As a head coach you want to go someplace where you have an opportunity to
have a major impact in the direction and guidance of the team – from being
able to pick the talent, have in input in trades and free agency," Davis replied.
"I like the process; I like the rebuilding. It happened in Dallas (where
Davis was Jimmy Johnson's defensive line coach). That was a down and
struggling team. Then, going to Miami, there was an enormous turnaround and
transformation in a program that was downtrodden and had NCAA probations, and
we put it right at the brink of a national championship.
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I always wanted to coach someplace where the team was a religion. That was the way it was at Dallas. In Cleveland, there are no distractions. ... They live, breathe, eat and die with the Cleveland Browns. That's neat. ” |
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— Butch Davis, Browns head coach |
"I always wanted to coach someplace where the team was a religion," Davis went
on. "That was the way it was at Dallas. In Cleveland, there are no
distractions. It's the Cleveland Browns, not South Beach or Disney, MGM
Studios or the Everglades.
"They live, breathe, eat and die with the Cleveland Browns. That's neat."
Indeed, if Davis can turn Couch into a winning – even Pro Bowl – quarterback and make the Browns' defense formidable and bring a winner to Cleveland, he'll own the town. He'll be a hero.
And the fact that it's all there in front of him is what excites him. It's
what drives him.
Davis, too, believes the 1-15 disaster he went through with Johnson in their
first year with the Cowboys is something that'll help him be patient with his
program in Cleveland.
Much like a golfer must trust his or her swing and stay committed to
it, Davis believes he must trust his formula and stay the course rather than
panicking at the first sniff of adversity.
He called Johnson's coaching influence on him invaluable.
"I learned from Jimmy that in building a football team you have to have
speed on the field," Davis said. "With all good teams Jimmy has had, one of
the characteristics was speed. He had it at Oklahoma State, Miami and in
Dallas. We truly believed you have to have team speed, chemistry and football
junkies with no divided loyalties.
"That 1-15 season (with Dallas) will help enormously. It clearly helped me
in Miami because as we went through the struggles we knew we were doing the
right thing. Situations didn't allow us to deviate from what we knew was
right.
"The 1-15 year was probably as instrumental to me in my coaching career,
because it really challenged what you believe in."
At Miami, Davis believed the only way he was going to truly turn the program
around was by recruiting not just quality players but quality people.
"When I got there I said, 'We've got to come here and work 365 days and pick
people we like being around,' " Davis said. "We were not going to compromise
on character and intelligence. We were so scholarship-stricken (from previous
violations) that we had 13 scholarships when everyone else had 25. So we
couldn't afford to have kids flunking out. Everyone else could bat .500, while
we had to bat .800 for the first few years.
"Everybody wanted a quick fix. We could have signed a bunch of junior
college players, but we didn't. I equate that to the Cleveland situation. We
could go sign a lot of free-agent veterans and go 8-8 this year, but those
are one- or two-year players and by the time you really want to be good those
guys are too old. There is no quick fix.
"I hope people will know that we have a plan, a clear plan of exactly how I
want this thing to happen. And it's going to happen."
Mark Cannizzaro of the New York Post writes an AFC notebook every other Thursday for ESPN.com. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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