Taped signals saga involved the Browns
By now, you're probably aware of Matt Walsh, the former New England Patriots lackey accused of taping coaching signals. The whole mess — not-so-cleverly referred to as SpyGate — began when the Patriots were caught spying on the New York Jets.
Eventually, the Boston Herald wrote that Walsh taped the Rams prior to the 2002 Super Bowl. A whole can of worms was sitting waiting to be opened, yadda yadda yadda, a senator got involved, yadda yadda. You know the story. It's pointless for me to re-hash the whole thing.
Anyway, Walsh just handed over the other tapes he made to the NFL. One of them is of the Browns in 2001. That's right, someone was taping the team during its juggernaut 7-9 season. Clearly, Patriots coach Bill Belichick wasn't trying to get coaching tips from Butch Davis.
Notes…
This season will be the last for outside linebacker Willie McGinest. The Browns signed McGinest to a three-year contract in 2006. Some consider the signing a flop, but it's neither that or a boom. McGinest is just kind of there. He has some impact on young players and does a good job on running downs. The problem is that he's been injury prone and has clearly lost a step.
The Browns will have OTAs next week. They're not open to the public. It should be interesting to hear how new defensive linemen Corey Williams and Shaun Rogers adapt to the new team and the 3-4. Braylon Edwards missed the first day of last year's OTAs and it caused a bit of a stir. Hopefully nothing like that happens this year.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Clearly, Belichick feared Butch's awesomeness back in 2001.
May 12th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
I loved Butch Davis. The media got carried away with wanting his head. Terrible GM? Sure. Terrible coach? Not in a million years.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:17 am
^ I actually agree here. Butch Davis the GM was the worse enemy of Butch Davis the Coach. As a GM, he was horrible. As a coach, he wasn't nearly as bad as advertised.
May 13th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Davis really never blew me away with his play calling. I only think as highly of him as I do because he followed Chris Palmer, who was atrocious.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I think 2001 and 2002 were years that showed Butch could coach. In particular the last half of 2002 when they opened up the offense a bit more. Yeah Butch made some bone headed personnel decisions that ultimately made his coaching disintegrate, but it's in the past.
Palmer was maybe the worst head coach I can remember. The guy was just overmatched, and never had a shot. I think in Houston we saw too it wasn't just circumstance, because he ruined David Carr's career too.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Lets be real here, Butch didn't have a clue.. its not college ball, and florida don't have all the best players. its just shows his scouting was bad, his coaching was bad, the seperation in the locker room was bad, his Gm duties wass bad, He didn't let his offense and Defense cordinators do their job, another bad trait. the main thing he thought he was too good and didn't know how to work with other coaches. Now does the guy know football, yes… but knowing football and being a head coach is two different things. AS goes for palmer, not as bad as butch, but not a head coach in fact that he felt you could years to develop a team/organization…. and there was absolutely no organization when he was coach, and what little got put together, davis destroyed. Yes he showed us to the play-offs his first season, but went backwards hard and fast, not too many anchors reach bottom as fast as he did, ofcourse the sure has been alot of other offers for him as coach as well.