The Remote Report: An Analysis of Rob Chudzinski (A “Chud-nalysis”)

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First of all, that is maybe the grossest fake word I’ve ever used. Second of all, there’s something I want to address about the hiring of Browns head coach Rob Chudzinski. In this world of having mountains of information at our fingertips, we get to glimpse into the minds of the athletes we follow on Twitter, Instagram, and/or Facebook. We get to find out what’s going on at any given moment, provided the athletes want to share.

I don’t follow a ton of Browns players on Twitter, but I do follow a lot of people who commonly retweet Browns players on Twitter. Despite this, I don’t recall seeing much of a peep out of anyone after the hiring of Rob Chudzinski. Let me state that I didn’t see anyone being suspicious about it, nor did I see anyone expressing concern over what his hiring would do to the team. I just didn’t see anyone tweet anything like, “Welcome aboard, Rob Chudzinski! Excited to have you. #swag” or something ridiculous like that.

Now, I will confess that, like I said, I don’t follow Browns players religiously, so something may have slipped past me without paying much attention to these players, but when Nick Swisher signed with the Indians, or after his press conference, he was retweeted about 95 times any time he did or said anything. No one seemed to be spreading the “Hooray for Chud” sentiment, and that concerned me a little bit. I don’t think this is reason to freak out or decide that he is or is not a good head coach-to-be, but it’s hard not to notice a general lack of sentiment about the newly-appointed leader of your eternally listless favorite football team.

It probably doesn’t add up to anything. Players are probably busy doing whatever they want and are on their offseason vacations. Most players probably got a text or call from a teammate/agent/Twitter that said “Browns hired Rod Chudzinski,” shrugged their shoulders, and stared back at the beach and/or pure blue water. What should they care, right? The coach will be there when offseason practices and meetings get underway, regardless of who that coach is. The players will report (most of them, at least), they’ll work, they’ll mostly follow the coach’s orders, and they’ll fight for playing time.

So how much does the coach matter in the NFL?

Okay, dumb question. They matter. Bill Belichick would have more success than, say, Pat Shurmur with any team, but I’m trying to make the point that fans place added pressure and meaning onto things all the time. They decide who the favorite candidate is based on a lot of things that don’t really make sense.

When Chip Kelly was reported to be the Browns’ coach, most people were extremely excited. When it was reported that he was going to the Eagles earlier this month, Browns fans were furious. Not just furious, but hurt that he would choose someone else over the Browns, blah blah blah. Then he says he’s going back to Oregon and Browns fans pause, scratch their heads, and think “Okay, well, he did have the cushiest job in the country for people not named Nick Saban” and let it go. Now he signs with the Eagles in mid-January and Browns fans feel like the team dodged a bullet.

So chew on that. We over-analyze in the moment, we ignore logic for emotion because we work on reflex, and then we brag about being right when things go wrong. We are a broken system, Browns fans.