In the last week, the Cleveland Browns have nearly completed their coaching staff deciding to give quarterback duties to offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt. We discuss what this means, and why some are disappointed, and we discuss Van Pelts’s history as a quarterback coach. On the same day, the team announced that veteran offensive coach Bill Musgrave was joining the team as a senior offensive assistant. We also hit on the release of John Johnson III
The show continues talking about the offseason so far and discuss Andrew Berry’s press conference from the NFL Scouting Combine. You can watch this week’s podcast here on YouTube to hear all these topics and more looking at the last week of Browns news.
The offseason for the Cleveland Browns is in full effect with the NFL Scouting Combine kicking off in Indianapolis this week. The Browns announced eight coaching changes on Monday and some fans are not happy about not adding a new quarterback coach and voice to the room. With free agency and the draft taking place in the next couple of months, what will the Browns’ overall plan of attack be?
Let’s take a look at these and more reader’s questions in this week’s mailbag, you can email future questions to brownsmailbag@gmail.com to get your questions answered in future mailbag articles.
Outside of the hiring of Musgrave, here are seven other moves the Browns have finalized as we get set for the start of the new league year, the combine, and for some new faces to join the roster in free agency.
The Browns have added a veteran as an offensive assistant to their staff.
As the Cleveland Browns continue to shape out their staff before the NFL Scouting Combine arrives, they have added veteran coach Bill Musgrave as an offensive assistant. Musgrave has been around the NFL for 19 years as both a quarterbacks coach and an offensive coordinator and most recently has spent the last three seasons at the University of California Berkeley.
Musgrave has spent time with the Denver Broncos, Oakland Raiders, Philadelphia Eagles, Minnesota Vikings (where he and head coach Kevin Stefanski were on the same staff), Atlanta Falcons, Washington football team, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Carolina Panthers.
This, however, does not sound like the quarterbacks coach hire, as the Browns still need to replace Drew Petzing as well.
Lanning was asked about Oregon’s historic upset of No. 4 BYU in 1990. He said he was excited to learn about it. You should learn more about it as well.
Picture it.
Autzen Stadium, 1990.
The Oregon Ducks were coming off their first bowl win in 26 years with the Independence Bowl victory over Tulsa the year before. But this wasn’t Tulsa.
This was No. 4 BYU coming into Autzen Stadium and they boasted a Heisman hopeful in quarterback Ty Detmer. The Cougars had put on a campaign for the ages in order get their guy to New York in December.
But BYU had not expected the kind of atmosphere that was awaiting them of 45,000 delirious Duck faithful. The Cougars also didn’t expect a defensive line to play out of their minds. Oregon sacked Detmer five times, including defensive tackle Marcus Woods planting the Cougar signal caller into the turf of the east end zone of Autzen.
Oregon led 12-7 at the half and blew the game open in the third quarter with two Bill Musgrave touchdown passes to receiver Michael McClellan and tight end Jeff Thomason to make it 25-10. Musgrave finished the scoring early in the fourth with a three-yard touchdown run and the Ducks defense took it the rest of the way.
If that bowl win in 1989 didn’t give an indication of what Oregon’s football future could be, this upset victory the very next year certainly did. The 32-16 Ducks win put a damper on Detmer’s Heisman chances for a while (he wound up winning it anyway), but any hope BYU had of a possible national championship went by the wayside as they finished the season 10-3.
Oregon head coach Dan Lanning was four years old.
In his Monday night press conference leading up to the upcoming game with BYU on Saturday, Lanning was asked about this historical contest. As expected, he didn’t have a lot to say.
“I’m gonna look it up now,” he said. “I haven’t heard a lot about that game. But looking forward to going back and finding maybe some old film.”
All Lanning has to do is to go look on YouTube and obviously, there are no on-the-field factors he can take away since it was 32 years ago. But Lanning will see a raucous crowd that will not only take the opponent out of their game plan but also lifts his own team up to do things they thought that possibly they were incapable of doing.
Those factors will be present on Saturday. Oregon can only hope the end result is also there.
