Show and tell for the Cleveland Browns came one day during June minicamp, when their new head coach, Romeo Crennel, brought some of his five Super Bowl rings to practice.
"To me, they were just beautiful," said Browns defensive back Daylon McCutcheon, who has been in Cleveland since the Browns brought pro football back to the city in 1999 as an expansion team but has just one playoff game to show for it. "He just wanted everyone to see them. After that, he was kind of like, `Look, all right, we're done with that. Now I'm the head coach here and if I don't prove anything here, then it doesn't mean anything."'
Crennel, long overlooked for head-coaching positions despite his success as an assistant coach with the Giants and the defensive coordinator at New England, finally, at age 58, has the job he spent nearly a quarter-century preparing for in the NFL.
But Crennel is taking over a Browns team that dipped to 4-12 last season. There is work to be done here. The cleanup job has begun with a new defensive scheme, new offense, new starting quarterback and 11 of 22 different starters from a year ago.
Although he earned his first victory as a head coach -- a 17-14 triumph against the Giants in a preseason game at Cleveland Browns Stadium last Saturday night -- Crennel knows he is not likely to add to his jewelry collection anytime soon.
"You look around and you think it's going to take time," Crennel said Monday. "We went to New England, it was going to take time there. We went to the Jets, it was going to take time there. Everywhere you go, it's going to take time. You coach them, get them to play hard, and hopefully it doesn't take as much time and maybe good things will happen sooner rather than later."
Crennel has been to all of those places and more, winning Super Bowl rings with the Giants in 1987 and 1991 as the coach of special teams and the defensive line, and adding Super Bowl titles in 2002, 2004 and 2005 with the Patriots as the defensive coordinator. He was with the Jets from 1997 to 1999 as the defensive-line coach and has long been a disciple of the Super Bowl-winning head coaches Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick.
Among his other stops along the way, Crennel was defensive coordinator for the Browns in 2000 before he moved to the same position with the Patriots in 2001. There are only a few players remaining in Cleveland from Crennel's first visit. They said they had not noticed much of a change.
"He's the same guy," defensive lineman Orpheus Roye said. "He hasn't changed from when he was here in 2000 for me. He's a laid-back guy 'til you ain't doing what you're supposed to do. Then he's going to get on you."
It is early for that. As Crennel walked the practice fields at the Browns' facility here in the Cleveland suburbs, he watched and occasionally scribbled notes on a piece of paper as he moved from group to group. There was no yelling or browbeating.
"I've been at this for a while," Crennel said. "I've had some success. I don't think I need to change who I am. I think the players appreciate that. That's not to say I won't change, because as pressure mounts, things do change.
"I'm a Gemini, so I've got two sides. Sometimes it takes a little bit for that second side, that negative side, to come out. But it's there. It lies dormant most of the time. Only time will tell if this job forces that other side to come out."
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