Rob Chudzinski runs the distance to Browns
New offensive coordinator ready to tackle unit's problems with fresh energy
By Patrick McManamon
Akron Beacon Journal
BEREA - Rob Chudzinski couldn't play, so he ran.
He turned away from the video camera he had been assigned to operate, and he ran. Back and forth, across the gravel-covered roof of the building that overlooked the University of Miami practice field.
He ran sprints and distances, and then he ran some more.
And down below, where the team practiced, nobody knew that the kid who had lugged the video equipment up a ladder with his left hand wrapped and bandaged was running.
Chudzinski had been relegated to camerawork because the too-slow, too-this, too-that kid from Toledo had mangled his left wrist and hand putting it through a plate-glass window during a summer basketball game. It was a bloody mess that left Chudzinski with severed tendons and nerves and no feeling in the fingers of his left hand.
But he was on scholarship, the UM folks figured, so while he healed, he'd film practice.
Then they'd see if he'd play again.
That wasn't good enough for Chudzinski, who was given one of the last scholarships at Miami in 1986.
``I love when people say I can't do something,'' said Chudzinski, the Browns' new offensive coordinator, during a recent interview at the team's practice facility. ``I love when people say that because it motivates me and drives me to prove them wrong.''
So he ran.
And before the year ended, he wound up playing in a national championship game win over Oklahoma. Before his career ended with the Hurricanes, Chudzinski had won two national titles for two coaches and been an integral element of a Hurricanes offense that featured many NFL players.
On a team of personalities and characters, Chudzinski was the undersized but dependable tight end who gained as much respect as his more famous teammates (such as Michael Irvin and Bennie Blades).
``I was kind of the classic overachiever guy,'' he said. ``Undersized. Underspeeded, if that's a word. Under-athletic. All those kind of things.''
To this day, he does not have feeling in the fingers of his left hand. Yet that did not stop him.
``I think it's just one of those things that you figure out a way,'' he said.
Call that his mantra, for Chudzinski seems to figure it out every time he's told the way is impossible.
Chudzinski has spent almost every day since January trying to figure out a way to get a new offense installed with the Browns. He has the responsibility of pulling together an offense that has been downright offensive the past few years. The Browns' offense has not finished better than 26th in the league in the past four years, has no set quarterback and is going through yet another rebirth.
Focused, hands-on style
Much is made, and rightly so, of the Browns' three first-day draft picks, but the team's fortunes this season could rest as much on the hiring of Chudzinski.
``He's the best coach I know,'' said Browns tight end Kellen Winslow, who learned under Chudzinski at Miami. ``My father taught me the game, but (Chudzinski) took me under his wing and taught me everything I needed to know.''
How does Chudzinski attack the challenge with the Browns? The same way he attacked things at Miami -- by running. And running. And running some more.
``I've been back to San Diego for one day to pack up my office,'' he said of his former home. ``Otherwise I've been in the office nearly all day, every day.''
The story goes that Bear Bryant once saw the light on in his defensive coordinator's office late at night, and Bryant told a reporter: ``There he is again, making me look like a genius.''
``He's always here,'' Browns backup quarterback Ken Dorsey said. ``No matter when you come to the facility, he's up there working.''
Late nights in the office are merely a start, though. If hours worked guaranteed wins, every NFL coach would be undefeated. Chudzinski tries to take the attitude that worked in Miami to the practice field.
In the team's rookie minicamp, Mike Mason, an undrafted player from Tennessee State, ran the wrong route on one of the first 11-on-11 plays.
``Get Mason out,'' Chudzinski yelled as the offense re-huddled.
Another player took his place, but a few plays later, Mason was lined up wide. He ran down the field, and quarterback Brady Quinn threw short, clearly expecting Mason to break off the route.
Mason slapped himself in the head after the play, and receivers coach Wes Chandler let Mason know he had made a mistake.
Chudzinski yelled to Chandler to take Mason out.
The rookie wound up watching most of the rest of practice, standing alone.
The tough-love scene is not untypical in the NFL, but it was a glimpse into the approach of the new offensive coordinator, who was as demanding of an undrafted player in a rookie minicamp as he is the team's starter in a full-squad practice.
``That's the first thing that can kill you, if a guy is not doing what he's supposed to do,'' Chudzinski said.
Chudzinski probably would hate that Mason is being mentioned -- and Mason remains on the roster -- but the coach clearly holds players accountable and wants precision in every play of every practice.
``That's all you need,'' he said. ``Eleven guys going out executing, doing their job. If you have 11 guys doing it, you'll be fine.''
Former Browns offensive coordinator Maurice Carthon was a silent type who stood far back from players. He was hardly heard at practices, and players complained that when he was heard, it was negative.
Chudzinski seems to be everywhere.
``Don't quit on that route,'' he yelled to Kendrick Mosley during a receivers drill.
``Come out of it,'' he yelled to another receiver running an out.
``That's it -- now get back into it,'' he said after the receiver caught the ball and turned up the field.
When a running back stopped about 15 yards downfield and started to turn back to the huddle, Chudzinski sprinted down the field, pointed to his left and yelled: ``The end zone is that way.''
When the veterans reported, part of one practice included Chudzinski telling receivers where to line up on plays.
``That's three yards,'' he would say, pointing to the spot three yards outside the tackle. Not 3 ½ or four. Three.
``He came in the first day and started talking about precision,'' receiver Joe Jurevicius said. ``He's always talking about splits, he's always talking about depth.''
Precision. Accountability. Attention.
All seem to be his focus, and it almost seems as if it's his focus because that's how he had to approach things when he played.
Chudzinski grew up in or near Toledo, moving several times in the area. His family followed the Browns, and he jokes that a photo of him much like Quinn's exists, wearing a Browns jersey around the age of 4.
``Classic '70s, though,'' Chudzinski said. ``I had on the bell-bottoms with the stripes.''
He played basketball and football, and ran track.
As he described his track career, he laughed. ``I was kind of the guy in the meet that if they needed somebody to do something, I'd go, but I wasn't winning anything,'' he said.
The only schools that recruited Chudzinski out of St. John's Jesuit High School were Mid-American Conference schools, until at the last minute Miami called. It was January, so he figured what the heck, he'd make the flight south, never expecting a scholarship.
But at the end of the visit, Jimmy Johnson called him in and offered him one.
``My jaw about hit the ground,'' he said. Baffled, he asked if he could go home first. Johnson agreed, and Chudzinski called soon after arriving home to take it.
Chudzinski redshirted his first year, then went back home in the summer. During a pickup basketball game with friends, he went for a loose ball, and his left hand found the plate-glass window.
Arteries were partially severed, the tendons that go to his middle finger were cut and the nerve that controls the sensation in his hand was severed.
``It was pretty significant,'' he deadpanned.
Many thought his career was over. UM coaches sent him up on the roof to videotape practice. He used the occasion to stay in shape, and by the opener of the next season, he was starting and catching a 19-yard touchdown pass in a 31-0 drubbing of rival Florida State, then ranked No. 1.
Those were wild days in football in Florida.
The season started with the Seminoles celebrating their No. 1 ranking with a video dubbed the ``Seminole Rap.'' The Hurricanes, though, were the team with the reputation for dancing and celebrating.
It also was a team with amazing talent -- and an attitude in practice that would make some teams flinch. Miami practices were more physical than games, with players celebrating big hits and taunting teammates after plays. The games were merely an extension of practice.
How did a slow, undersized tight end succeed?
``The bottom line was that if you weren't tough, if you weren't competitive, you were not going to survive,'' Chudzinski said. ``If you were weak, not mentally tough, you weren't going to make it.
``That's another thing that helped me evolve.''
Career path
Chudzinski knew he had few professional prospects -- ``I didn't get drafted, and there were 12 rounds in the draft then,'' he said -- so he stayed at Miami and worked on his MBA. Soon after, he started to work for a business consulting company, where he was until he ran into Hurricanes coach Dennis Erickson.
``He asked out of the blue when I was going to come coach for him,'' Chudzinski said.
``I remember that,'' said Erickson, now the coach at Arizona State. ``When he played, he was always a smart player, an overachiever. He approached things the right way. Some guys, you can just tell. Some will be good coaches, some won't.
``He was one I always thought would work out because he had the approach and the demeanor.''
Chudzinski stayed one year as a graduate assistant while working toward his master's, then was promoted to tight ends coach when Butch Davis became coach.
When Davis came to the Browns, his successor, Larry Coker, made Chudzinski offensive coordinator. While Chudzinski was coaching, Miami made the cover of Sports Illustrated when the magazine suggested the football program be abolished. ``That was the low point,'' Chudzinski said.
He remembered hearing that folks said the team could never get back to where it was.
``That for me was a motivation -- to be part of helping the program get back to where it was,'' he said. ``We did that.''
In his three years as coordinator, the Hurricanes won one national title, played for another and won 11 games the third year. In 2002, Miami's offense set school records for points (527), total yards (6,074) and rushing touchdowns (33) and averaged 40.5 points per game.
Davis brought him to the Browns to coach tight ends and to work with Winslow, but that lasted one year. When Davis ``resigned,'' Chudzinski went to the San Diego Chargers for two years.
Browns General Manager Phil Savage then tabbed him in this offseason to take over the team's offense.
Chudzinski brought a whole new playbook and a whole new play-calling system. It's based on many facets of his experience, but its terminology goes back to the days of Air Coryell, on which Norv Turner based his offense with the Dallas Cowboys in the '90s -- an offense that Chudzinski worked with at Miami.
He sees no shortcuts and has no magic elixir that will transform things. His play calling is logical but won't revolutionize football. He said there are no ``magic plays,'' but there is something to ``timing and execution.''
``The key to offensive football is knowing what your people can do and putting them in the best positions to win,'' he said. ``Utilizing their skills. And execution. Stressing execution. You can run the simplest plays, you can run the most complicated plays. But you have to execute.''
So a split has to be precise, and a route has to be correct, even if it's run by an undrafted free agent at one of the first practices of a rookie minicamp.
Chudzinski does not shy from the reality of his situation. He knows Browns coach Romeo Crennel might be on the hot seat this season, and he knows that if Crennel goes and a new coach comes in, he might go as well.
But he said that reality goes with the territory. And he need only point to his former team, where Marty Schottenheimer was let go after the Chargers went 14-2 last season.
The pull of home, the pull of the Browns meant too much to Chudzinski not to return.
``This place is close to my heart,'' he said.
Ask him who influences his thinking, and Chudzinski names almost every coach he has worked for, but he made a point to remember Fred Beier, his high school coach at St. John's.
``He instilled a lot of things in me that I'm trying to instill now as far as work ethic, toughness, determination and teamwork,'' Chudzinski said.
He then goes through Johnson, Gary Stevens (his offensive coordinator at Miami and a Cleveland native), Erickson (whom he credits for changing football with the one-back, spread-offense system), Davis, Turner and Coryell.
Then he mentioned one other person.
Someone not in football, named Barbara Vogel. She's Chudzinski's aunt and was a big part of his life when he grew up.
``You ask why I'd come back to this situation and all, and she always said something to me that will always be a part of me,'' he said. ``And that's to remember where you came from.''
Chudzinski the man came from Ohio, and he wanted to return.
And Chudzinski the player and coach came from the roof, where he started running when folks told him he couldn't make it at Miami with a bad hand.
Now he's come to the NFL, to a team that has struggled and an offense that has had almost no success.
And he's still running.
And a free torn ACL to take home!
