The Browns are just two years into building their team around the 4-3 defense. People will argue they finally have depth along the defensive line and progress is evident. To change now will set the team back again (again), and force us to wait and watch as they trade away young players who don’t fit in the scheme.

I would prefer they stick to the 4-3 scheme as well. Drafting for and building the 4-3 seems to be less risky. It is simpler.

All you need are athletic defensive linemen who create their own pressure on the opposing quarterback. Once you have that, the rest of the team can just sit back and play. It’s how the New York Giants always seem to stymie offensive juggernauts like the Green Bay Packers and the New England Patriots.

Projecting college players to the 4-3 in the NFL seems easier as well. It’s all about athleticism, not nuance, and the majority of prospects play in 4-3 college schemes.

That being said, here are a couple reasons why changing back to the 3-4 wouldn’t bother me:

• The 2013 draft. There are thousands of mock drafts on the Internet right now. Find one. The only disparity among the lot (currently) seems to be where this crop of average quarterback prospects will fall. Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III are not in this draft. There don’t appear to be any game-changing running backs or wide receivers worthy of a top 10 pick in there, either. This draft is going to be all about linemen and projecting outside linebackers to the 3-4. If you must switch the defense, perhaps this is the year to do it.
• The public seems to have identified Jabaal Sheard as the big loser if the Browns swap back to the 3-4. He’s one of the promising young players we’d hate to see traded, as he seems to only fit as a 4-3 defensive end. I don’t have a problem with this, either. The Browns don’t have a second-round pick in this year’s draft, and if anything, Sheard has value and could help the Browns rebuild without necessarily putting them behind. He’s young, but he’s not a star yet. If the guy is truly useless in a 3-4, it is not stupid to make the move and fill a hole in your draft.
• Browns fans really shouldn’t be playing the who doesn’t fit/who does game anyway. When Phil Taylor was drafted, everyone scratched their heads because he was projected to be an ideal 3-4 nose guard. Ahtyba Rubin, D’Qwell Jackson, T.J. Ward and Joe Haden (to name a few) have played well in both formats. Here’s an NFL draft video suggestting Sheard is more suited to be a 3-4 linebacker!
• Does building a 3-4 defense really take an eternity? It might seem that way to Browns fans because Romeo Crennel, Phil Savage and Eric Mangini failed to build good units over the course of six years. The Seattle Seahawks have built one of the league’s most terrifying defenses in two years. Pete Carroll’s unit ranked 25th in the NFL in points allowed his first year with the team, and then ascended to 7th overall in his second season. This year, they’re in the playoffs and rank first. The Internet will tell you they play in a base 4-3 defense, but they actually run a scheme which features combinations of 3-4 alignments. Couldn’t the Browns do that too? Aren’t we calling for them to innovate?
• Most importantly, to complain about a scheme change and the time needed to implement it successfully is to fall victim to the short view.

Schemes will always evolve in the NFL and, thus, will always come and go. The Browns have a new owner and that is the long view we should be focusing on. As soon as Jimmy Haslam purchased the team, the front office, Pat Shurmur and any and all schemes were subject to change.

Long-term success does not lie with the odds of Jabaal Sheard and John Hughes becoming irreplaceable players. It lies with an owner who is personally involved, holds his team accountable, actually attends his own team’s games, and is the one interviewing candidates to become the head coach.

The hard part is over. Cleveland Browns stability begins now.

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Ranking the worst losses in Browns history is nothing new, but after the debacle witnessed in Cleveland Browns Stadium this past Sunday, perhaps we could use a refresher.

Here are five recent games that I feel should be mentioned in the top ten:

Redskins 38 – Browns 21
December 16, 2012

For my money this drubbing by the Robert Griffin III-less Redskins qualifies as one of the ten worst defeats in the expansion era. Kirk Cousins embarrassed a hot Browns team in their own house in his first-ever NFL start. It’s rare that you see an entire organization completely undressed to the level the Browns were in this game.

From the damning regression of Brandon Weeden, to being laughably out-coached (and yes, the Redskins were reportedly laughing at the Browns after the game) and the squashing of the entire front office’s organizational philosophies, this was the signature game of the 2012 season and served as the metaphorical nail in the coffin for Pat Shurmur and Tom Heckert. While you could argue that these guys would have been shown the door anyway, they still carried a lot of juice with the fan base into this game, only to completely lose every last ounce of it.

Ravens 37 – Browns 27
November 2, 2008

Like the Redskins game above, this loss crushed an entire organization while signifying the end of Romeo Crennel and Phil Savage, and the rise of Joe Flacco and Ray Rice. The Ravens ripped off 24 unanswered second half points, punctuated by Derek Anderson throwing a screen pass directly to Terrell Suggs, who returned it for a touchdown and then taunted the stunned Dawg Pound.

Before that blunder, Anderson had actually made the greatest throw of his Browns career: a 50-yard bomb to Braylon Edwards on 3rd-and-ten for the would-be game-sealing score, except the ball slipped right through Edwards’ hands. Anderson was replaced by Brady Quinn as the starting quarterback after the game, the Browns would finish 1-7 the rest of the season, Crennel and Savage were both fired and Flacco hasn’t lost to Cleveland since (video).

Ravens 34 – Browns 3
September 27, 2009

After new head coach Eric Mangini spends the entire preseason trying to mask who his starting quarterback is to gain a competitive advantage, his 0-2 team rolls into Baltimore and is totally embarrassed. Brady Quinn started the game and threw a pick-six on just his third pass. At halftime, the score is 20-0 and Mangini makes the switch to Derek Anderson, undermining any deception accomplished to that point and effectively wrecking both quarterbacks for the season.

Steelers 28 – Browns 10
October 17, 2010

Colt McCoy’s first start as a member of the Browns. The former third-stringer is pressed into service as both Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace have high ankle sprains. Asking a rookie quarterback to play his first-ever game in Pittsburgh is one thing, but of course, the Steelers have also convinced themselves they owe us one after the Browns defeated them for the first time in five years a season earlier.

James Harrison goes on a killing spree – see below the famous, league-altering hit on Mohamed Massaquoi, which Harrison was actually not penalized for during the game (the flag thrown was actually on Alex Mack for delay of game). Seeing as the Browns also defeated the Steelers this season, I’d like us to keep this game in mind as they prepare for their final game in Pittsburgh.

Jets 26 – Browns 20, OT
November 14, 2010

Cleveland loses a heartbreaker to the headlining New York Jets after Chansi Stuckey fumbles the ball away in overtime with the Browns in field goal range. This was Eric Mangini’s revenge game against his former team, and also Braylon Edwards‘ return to Cleveland, which he referred to as his personal war, the day after Memorial Day. This may go down as Colt McCoy’s best start as a pro, and at the time, gave the fans some hope that he would become the man. The Browns never recovered from this one, however, and Mangini was gone two months later.

And here are five additional losses there shouldn’t be any debate over. All epic, hallmark failures so famous there’s really no need to explain them all:

Dwayne Rudd’s Helmet
September 8, 2002

For as much as we cry about how absurdly awful the Browns have been, and how tortured we feel, we haven’t seen anything close to the Rudd helmet game in the ten years since. Enjoy.

Bottlegate
December 16, 2001

I attended this game with my younger sister and it was her first-ever NFL game. Needless to say, she thinks Cleveland fans are preposterous drunks. She also lives in Philadelphia now and has accepted that this behavior is not confined to just Cleveland.

Season’s Beatings
December 24, 2005

If the day ever comes where the tables are turned, Ben Roethlisberger has slipped off into retirement or prison, and the Browns are on something like a ten-year run of complete domination, and Steelers fans like Cindy start to complain that Cleveland fans have infested Pittsburgh and are rubbing it in too much – just point to this game in Cleveland to remind them we will never be square (recap).

The Only Playoff Game
January 5, 2003

Ohio University is a great place to follow the AFC North, as the school is composed of Bengals, Browns and Steelers fans in equal parts. I watched this game at the Pigskin in Athens with a friend of mine who was a Steelers fan and I learned the golden rule all Browns fans have to learn at some point in their life: Never, never, never, never, NEVER, never start celebrating a win until the clock reads 0.0 (recap).

295
September 14, 2003

For perspective’s sake: when Jamal Lewis set the single-game NFL rushing record of 295 yards on this day against the Browns, and then added 205 yards in their follow-up meeting, his season total of 2,066 (which is currently good for second in league history) was built on 500 yards in two games against the Browns, or 24.2% of his total.

This year, Adrian Peterson has a legitimate shot at breaking the all-time single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards, set by Eric Dickerson in 1984. Peterson has punished his divisional opponents to the tune of 273 yards in two games vs. the Lions, 262 yards in two games vs. the Bears, and 210 yards in one game against the Packers. Despite a great season, the odds of him going for 290 in his second meeting against Green Bay are unlikely, and tremendous proof that Lewis’ record-breaking 2003 season should have an asterisk of Browns horribleness by it forever (recap).

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The matchup has loomed on the schedule all year – it’s the conclusion to the Browns’ slate against the NFC East and a chance to see, and hopefully slay, what could have been yours.

Griffin has given his fans at the Washington Post much to brag about. He’s not just a football player, he’s a born star.

He lights up the camera with his smile, has inborn leadership and makes jaw-dropping big plays. ESPN spoils him every chance it gets while thanking its lucky stars he didn’t wind up in Cleveland.

With the passing of Mark Sanchez, Robert Griffin III has become their next Silver Panther.

And, as he attempts to come back from a scary injury suffered at the hands of Haloti Ngata last week, they’ll do him one better by claiming that Griffin is not actually a man.

Instead, he’s a cyborg, impervious to injury and oh-so-close to being Cleveland’s replacement savior.

It is here that what is remembered about Mike Holmgren and Tom Heckert will twist again.

What the public has come to believe about the No. 2 pick in the NFL draft is that the Browns, with two first-round picks, missed out on a golden opportunity. After a halfhearted trade offer had been brushed aside, and after his boss chewed him out for the first time ever, Holmgren defended his hack job by claiming that Jeff Fisher and Mike Shanahan’s special relationship burned the Browns. You know, no fair.

But the truth is, the Browns were never hot for Griffin. For some reason, 50 percent of the fan base wasn’t either.

That may be tied to, in part, the astronomical (and now seemingly irrelevant) price the Redskins paid to swipe Griffin. But beyond that, this became a question of style.

Griffin was never perceived to be a fit in the Holmgren-Shurmur mutation of the West Coast offense and he was never thought to possess a skill set realistic enough to compete in the rugged environment of the AFC North.

This has been hard for Browns fans to swallow as Griffin rips off 76-yard TD runs and trends on Twitter while traces of Mike Holmgren are systematically removed from Browns headquarters. Griffin also leads the league in touchdown passes longer than 25 yards, the Browns have a losing record, and Holmgren is turning his attention to drinks with little umbrellas in them.

Or so it was a hard pill to swallow…

Suddenly, it’s Week 15, the Browns have won three straight and have more momentum than at any other point in the Pat Shurmur era, and Griffin trots into town with a knee injury suffered as a result of his playing style.

This is not to say the indecision to pass on Griffin was correct, only to hypothesize that perhaps our tune on Holmgren is subject to change. Heckert’s stock continues to rise, and a victory over these Redskins certainly says a little more than a victory over the Chiefs.

Despite the fact that the Browns seemed to backtrack on their position of not being impulsive when they drafted the 28-year-old (at the time) Brandon Weeden, their overall philosophy might as well be on the line in this game.

To defeat Griffin is to slay ESPN’s and Peter King’s and the NFL Network’s Silver Panther.

And, if his injury prevents him from even taking the field, while the parts that would be his sum do (Weeden, Trent Richardson, Josh Gordon, and Mitchell Schwartz), that’s just as well.

This is the Browns’ chance to validate their blueprint, if only temporarily.

In one of the strangest seasons of all-time – from the rise and fall of Boutygate, to the replacement officials, the sale of the Browns and the death of Art Modell – how will we remember the first chapter in the trade that never was?

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