Welcome to the party, Adam. Just know you’re a late arrival and all the good slams have long since been taken.
That the
Browns lost 4 players to free agency doesn’t much qualify as news let alone as
an indictment of the worst franchise in football and likely in all of professional
sports. The Browns already have so many
indictments hanging over their heads that adding one to the mix doesn’t even
move the needle, not even a little, not even at all.
For this to
even be a concern someone, including Schefter, would have to tell me why losing
any four players on this team could possibly be impactful to the Browns. With these players the team has kept its
yearly win average at around 4, an average that’s been as rock solid as
anything can be when it comes to sports.
Are fans worried this team will actually take a step back? I’ve got news for Schefter and the others who
agree with him. There are no steps back
to take. The Browns are at the very
bottom, whether judged by culture or results.
There’s no place to which to sink and the loss of any 4 players isn’t
going to change that one iota.
I guess the
best argument one could must is that these four—Alex Mack, Mitchell Swartz,
Travis Benjamin, Tashaun Gipson—are in some sense building blocks, players good
enough to help the team take a meaningful step forward when surrounded by
similar blocks. A couple have been to
the Pro Bowl, a couple are still relatively young. All true, but so what?
Losing them
does create new holes at a time when the latest regime is busy trying to plug
the gaping ones that already existed nearly everywhere else on the team. Nothing new in that, and besides, what’s a
few more holes anyway? Even with the
latest escapees this team wasn’t going to be significantly, and perhaps not
even modestly, better next year anyway.
Let’s try
just once not to get overly involved in that grand Cleveland tradition of
overvaluing the players on our perennially losing team. At the price they played for last year the
team was still awful. It’s hard to
imagine how giving them even more money will suddenly make the team better.
No one,
including the teams these four signed with, are building teams around any of
these free agents. They’re nice haves,
not have to haves. Eating up cap space
by overpaying your own free agents when there are probably cheaper alternatives
with similar production is a better way to build a team in the long run
anyway. It’s just that in Cleveland fans
have been so beaten down by institutional incompetence that they knee jerk
their way to thinking that this team can’t sustain the loss of Mitchell
Schwartz. Or Tashaun Gipson. Or Travis Benjamin. Or Alex Mack.
Meanwhile
had this happened in, say, New England, no one would be questioning Bill
Belicheck’s wisdom. And for what it’s
worth, it’s pretty telling that none of these four signed with New England, to
use but one example.
I’m still
waiting for the argument that the Browns need to overpay average talent in
order to prove themselves to their fans.
This organization needs to be rebuilt from the bottom up and if every
player who donned a Browns uniform had been cut, I wouldn’t argue against that
either. At some point this team will get
the total scrub down it really deserves and that doesn’t happen by holding on
to the few flickers of talent it had, particularly at inflated prices.
It’s not
that these aren’t nice players, but the league is filled with nice
players. Among the list of stupid things
this franchise has done in the last 5 years alone, this doesn’t even make the
top 20.
What’s of
more interest is that the new regime absolutely added to the team and its
culture through the subtraction of Johnny Manziel from this franchise. Plenty of words have been written about this
train wreck and I’ve written many of those myself commencing with the decision
to draft him. But never has a player in
the history so deserved the fate that’s befallen him.
I have some
empathy for Manziel because he’s an addict.
His ability to think often isn’t rational. He got help last year and ultimately it wasn’t
successful. That’s not unusual. Many addicts need multiple stints in
rehab. At this point though Manziel is
his own worst enemy as he remains in complete denial about his problems, even
as he spins further and further out of control.
To blame the
Browns for not dumping Manziel as soon as the new league season started is odd. At least they dumped him. Professional sports, like most businesses,
operates on the greater fool theory. No
matter how dumb a deal you’ve done there’s often a greater fool out there
willing to bail you out of your problems.
When it came to Manziel, the Browns had to at least see if there was a
greater fool willing to part with a draft choice, even one loaded with
conditions. That wasn’t to be. Now they await to see if there’s a greater
fool wiling to at least claim Manziel off waivers in order to get some cap
relief on all the money they owe him.
That isn’t likely to be, either and Manziel will be left to scramble for
a foolish team to take a chance on a player to this point who’s been
poison. That will happen. Teams are always looking to catch lightning
in a bottle, even if it’s a bottle of champagne being wielded by Manziel as he
floats through a nightclub lagoon on a plastic swan.
