USA Football

ROMEO CRENNEL HAS BEEN AROUNG FOOTBALL his entire life. He has coached the sport for 35 years, 24 of which he has spent in the National Football League. He never played in the NFL, perhaps being robbed of that chance when he switched from defense to offense prior to his senior season at Western Kentucky University.

In high school — Crennel attended both Fort Knox High School in Fort Knox, Kent., and Central High School in Va., — the current Cleveland Browns head coach was a standout defensive lineman. He played defense at Western Kentucky for three years in the late 1960s before his coaches asked him to move to offense. Initially, the move seemed brilliant as Crennel was named the team MVP that season. But he wasn’t drafted and never played in the NFL. Instead, he began his coaching career, starting as a graduate assistant for the Hilltoppers.

Over the years, he coached at Texas Tech, Mississippi and Georgia Teach before becoming the special teams and defensive line coach for the New York Giants in 1981. He spent 11 years with the Giants before coaching in New England, with the New York Jets, and in Cleveland as the defensive coordinator. He then took the same job in a second stint with the Patriots, where he was part of a true football dynasty.

In all, Crennel coached in six Super Bowls as an assistant, winning five of them. In 2003 he was named the NFL’s Assistant Coach of the Year by the Pro Football Writers Association.

Two years later, he became the 11^th head coach in the storied history of the Browns. It was a daunting rebuilding job from day one, and the early results are mixed. In 2005, Crennel guided Cleveland to a respectable 6-10 mark considering the talent at his disposal, but the team seemingly took a step backward last year when it went 4-12. The Browns are already on the verge of eclipsing last season’s win total, having posted a 3-3 record through six games in 2007. In Week 4, Crennel was named Motorola Coach of the Week after the Browns defeated the Baltimore Ravens.

Crennel is unfazed by the heavy lifting he still has to do, however. He says part of his job is analytical, and he spent this entire off-season engaged in evaluating his talent.

“You’ve got to evaluate your team and its needs constantly,” he says. “You’re always figuring out where to plug in the best athlete, the guys that give you the best chance to win. You want to figure out the guys who can make a difference for you.”

One place any coach should look when building a team — at any level — is the offensive line, says Crennel. More specifically, the left tackle spot is as important as any other on the roster.

“Left tackle is a crucial position to the team,” Crennel explains. “You can’t succeed on offense without a solid left tackle.”

The latest football trend at all levels is the adoption of the two-back system, in which a pair of complementary runners are shuffled in and out of the game depending on the situation. High school coaches have been quick to embrace this system, and Crennel says it has some inherent positives, provided a team is well-staffed in the backfield.

“There are advantages to a two-back system, because that’s a position that takes a lot of pounding,” he says. “You’ve got to have two good ones first, but when you do it can really help to rotate a guy in from time to time to take the pressure and the pounding off of your first back and give him a break.”

For now, Crennel will continue to work to rebuild a once-proud franchise.

If you are working to make your youth football players better linemen, be sure to register for the Drills Library, available only through the USA Football Coaching Membership.

Story courtesy of Red Line Editorial, Inc.