Is GM Ray Farmer too slow to make decisions?

Farmer

Note: On NNR today Samantha Bunten of NBC Sports & I reviewed the trades and free agent signings. The podcast is on https://fryingpansports.com/radio-show/.

So far in the Browns off season from hell they have signed a backup QB and yet another #2 wide receiver. At least Brian Hartline is taller than most of the receivers on the roster.

There is almost no chance that the Browns can land an above average WR with the list of quarterbacks on the roster. Wide-outs want a stable offensive system with a QB that they trust to get them the ball. The Browns have neither of those qualities.

GM Ray Farmer missed a chance to bring in a true #1 WR in Kenny Stills. He has speed and size. Since the team has struggled to bring in FA wide-outs, getting a young player with 2 years left on his 5th round salary by a trade would have been huge. But the Dolphins got the deal.

The frustration of Browns fans everywhere is that despite having a ton of cap space, the Browns seem to be hording it. There is no question that the Browns lack of stability means that they will have to … Read more at FryingPanSports

The NFL Channel is desperate for programming.

nfl

NOTE: No NNR show until Monday. Thanks

One trick that sports talk shows use to generate calls and controversy is making lists. Lists of teams, players or anything else cause calls and fills an otherwise slow period of late June and early July. Now the NFL Channel is doing the same thing.

The Top 100 player list is not only stupid, it is bad TV. I am convinced that it is impossible to rate players from different positions in an overall list. The NFL is a quarterback league. Any guard that is rated above a Super Bowl QB like Russell Wilson is unjust. If the NFL Channel needed to rank players, do it within each position. These overall ratings are nothing but a popularity/PR contest. No fan should pay attention to them.

It is June and the NFL is desperate for programming to broadcast. So watch it at your own risk. Those are hours of your life you will never get back. But don’t take it too seriously either.

That is what I think. Tell us what you think.

Bill Smith is a former coach of several semi-pro teams, has officiated both football and basketball, done color on radio for Read more at FryingPanSports

Want to know how American Football got started?

How American Football Got Started

Our good friend Evan Weiner of NewJerseyNewsroom.com has written an E-Book entitled America’s Passion: How a Coal Miner’s Game Became the NFL in the 20th Century.  Here is an excerpt:

The National Football League is the premier sport in the United States. But it always wasn’t that way. Author Evan Weiner takes us back to the days when the NFL was a mom and pop store operation with the players and others who witnessed the league’s growth first hand. The game started in the coal mines in western Pennsylvania and is a multi-billion dollar business today.

The NFL started in 1920, teams came and went. That history would repeat itself in the 1930s and the 1940s. Stability finally occurred in the 1950s with the arrival of television. Television transformed North American sports. In 1950, Baseball, Boxing and Horse Racing were among the most popular sporting events in the country. Within 10 years, football, the NFL, would begin its ascent and by 1965 become the country’s most popular sport.

In the old days, you could find Chicago Bears owner and coach George Halas at the Chicago Bears offices in the fall and part of winter, … Read more at FryingPanSports