Report: Pat Shurmur, Tom Heckert fired in Cleveland

Posted by Josh Alper on December 31, 2012, 9:11 AM EST
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The heads started rolling with Jaguars General Manager Gene Smith on Black Monday morning and it seems that Browns coach Pat Shurmur is the next man to walk the plank.

Jay Glazer of FOX Sports reports that the Browns have done the expected and ended Shurmur’s tenure as coach after two years. Glazer also reports that General Manager Tom Heckert will be let go too as the Browns’ new owner Jimmy Haslam and new CEO Joe Banner install their own team this offseason.

Shurmur posted a 9-23 record in his two years as the coach of the Browns, extending the team’s run without a postseason berth to 10 years. The team does seem to be in better shape now than when Shurmur arrived to the team, with Heckert adding some useful talent over the last two drafts, but it didn’t develop enough for either man to stick around as part of the new regime remolding the team.

There wasn’t much mystery about what the Browns were going to do on Monday and it doesn’t look like they’ll be doing anything to stretch out the suspense. A press conference is expected to start shortly.

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24 responses to “Report: Pat Shurmur, Tom Heckert fired in Cleveland”

  3. Surprised they waited till this morning to make the announcement. I figured it would’ve happened as soon as the game ended. Now hopefully Mr. Haslem will find a quality coach & this franchise can finally get turned around.

  4. Just your average Cleveland procedure, don’t over-think it. It’ll be interesting to see their next failed hire.

  6. Pat came into a terrible situation for sure. That being said, I saw nothing that that he did to help his team win on gameday. Taking a timeout in Colts territory only to punt on 4th down, Hodges then punts into the end zone, net 15 yards. The next week down 7 with 3 timeeouts left goes for it in his own territory. Unbelievable miscues. Weedon deserves another chance, I have no confidence in the coaching staff to make him better.

  9. Hire these guys : Tom Clements, Green Bay Packers, Vic Fangio, San Francisco 49ers, Mike McCoy, Denver Broncos

  12. Didnt need to draft weeden in first rd, they only did because wright was gone. The browns offense just wouldnt attack deep. I understand they dont have the best WRs in the league but to have teams crowd the line to stop trent and not use play action off of that is rediculous.

  14. If they hadn’t whiffed on RG3 at the draft they might both still be employed. It’ll just be more sadness for awhile, not one marquee name is going to be interested in the Browns HC job because of the QB situation. Trent Richardson was a great consolation prize but a RB isn’t going to get you to the promised land in this league nowadays. Dilfer is the only ho-hum QB that I can think of in recent memory with the ring, and that’s because his team had arguably the best defense in history – and that hurts to say coming from a Browns fan! Cleveland will always be a 5-11 type team until we can get a quarterback.

  16. Any Browns fan with half a brain and a decent memoryknow s that RGIII and Weeden we’re mistakes that HOLMGREN made and not Heckert. As per heckert’s post draft comments, he would not have taken the qb in the first round. As per Holmgren comments on the failure to acquire Griffin, HIS deal fell through, and he was jumped by the skins. Heckert is a fine GM in my opinion.

  17. Pat Shurmur, in his desire to become a head coach in the NFL, took a job knowing he was being put in an impossible situation. He went to a franchise that was in total rebuilding mode and he had no experience being the man in charge. That said, the players played hard for him and he stuck to his guns in developing players he felt could, at some point, become serviceable, if not good, NFL players.

    Inexperienced head coaches coaching inexperienced players is a recipe for disaster but as they learned together the light at the end of the tunnel became brighter. Shurmer will get another shot someday and he will be better the second time around.

    I would have preferred the Browns stick with him and Tom Heckert for the long haul and I have strong concerns about Joe Banner and his motives. To me he seems like a bitter little man who now has total power and that scares the hell out of me.

    Whatever, best of luck to Pat Shurmur and Tom Heckert, both classy guys.

  18. This is a head coaching job to be taken seriously. The Browns aren’t quite as bad as their record makes them look and a good head coach along with the new owner might could have them in the playoffs pretty quickly.

    Of course they have huge problems at the QB position. If the new owner and GM could pick up someone like Matt Flynn they’d be on their way.

    Of course that’s a really big IF.

  19. Granted there were a quite a few miscues and at times the play calling was atrocious, but Pat had the Browns fired up and ready to compete every week. You must admit when the Browns went on their winning streak, up until they lost to the Redskins without RG3, it felt like Browns could beat anyone and teams really didn’t want to see a young, hungry Browns team. I can understand the Shurmur firing, but I don’t agree with the Heckert firing. He’s done a great job of making the Browns relevant with young talent building through the draft. There’s no doubt in my mind that if the Browns could’ve stuck to the 5 year plan we would’ve been deep in the playoffs. I hate to see the Browns rebuild again, but hopefully know it all Banner knows what he’s doing. Hopefully 1 step back two steps forward. Keep Jauron, give Weeden another year, keep Thad Lewis, get rid of Colt, draft Milliner, sign a veteran receiver preferably Greg Jennings, give Trent the ball 20-30 times a game and don’t bring Lombardi back…unless Bill Belichick is coming with him.

  20. At least with an active owner this time change might be acceptable. We finally have an owner who actually plans to attend the NFL “owners” meetings, loves American football and is fully engaged with the team. No more throwing the keys to another Davis, Mangini, Holgrem, etc.

  22. What I dont get is ppl saying Shumur and Heckert knew they were in an impossible situation coming in. No one knew the Browns were going to be sold. Im sure they thought they would have more than 2-3 years.

  24. I really thought when Haslam purchased the browns the three ring circus was over………. Apparently not…. He just saw a cash cow waiting to be milked……Shurmer had to go, Heckert was the best thing to happen to the browns in a long time……. Look at his record….. Haden, Ward, Richardson, Gordon, Little, Robertson, Taylor, Sheard, Winn, Hughes, and those are just the impact players, not to mention all the other developmental picks…… Dont blame McCoy or Weeden on Heckert, we all know those were holmgrens projects………. Oh yea how quickly we forget holmgren brought in jake delhomme to save the franchise…………… There isnt much a GM can say when the Owners hand picked fill in says jump

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