Pros And Cons Of Romeo Crennel

Former NFL player and current ESPN analyst Ross Tucker talked with 810 WHB this week about Romeo Crennel and the Kansas City Chiefs open head coaching job. Tucker has a unique perspective on all of this because he played for the Cleveland Browns under Romeo Crennel (for a brief period) and also with the New England Patriots.

You can listen to the audio of his appearance, which was pretty good. I snagged a few quotes where he's talking about Romeo, including the pros and cons of retaining him as the permanent head coach.

On Romeo: "Everybody really likes the guy, kind of like a big teddy bear. I don't know, just a nice guy. You don't want to let him down. He treats everyone with respect,. Everybody likes the guy because he treats you honestly and I can see how the players love him and rally around him and clearly if you just judge it based on what he's done with the defense he's probably deserving of an interview."

Pros: "The pros are he's not a yeller. He's not a screamer. He's not going to come down on the guys. He's just very professional about it, very relaxed and if you're not getting the job done he just puts the other guy in. It's not a big to do or whatever. The guys like playing for him because they believe in him, believe he's honest and I think he's a father figure to some of the guys. They like the way he treats them, it's with respect."

Cons: "The negatives are...I thought at times there could be more discipline. To be fair, I was only there for about a month. I was traded to Cleveland from New England and it was just a huge difference in terms of expectations and what was allowed to fly, what was allowed to get by. I can remember one practice where guys kept jumping offsides and that just wouldn't be allowed in New England. You'd have to run. It just wouldn't be allowed. I also remember during a special teams period, the offensive linemen would just kind of sit there and watch practice, the special teams unit or talk amongst each other. That would never happen in New England. You'd be working on something else offensive line related with the offensive line coach."