Draft Day--Where Fantasy and Reality Collide

It’s nearly Draft Day for the Cleveland Browns and it’s funny how the movies and real life can collide, especially when it is serio-comic and especially when it involves the Browns.

In Draft Day, the movie, a beleaguered fictional Cleveland Browns general manager working for an unrealistic owner feels pressure to change the course of the team with its early first round pick in order to restore respectability to what was once one of the league’s great franchise. In Cleveland, the reality, it’s much the same except that it’s hard now to remember a time when the Browns were once one of the league’s great franchises.

Actually, the real difference between the movie plot and what’s taking place in Berea is that the Browns’ real general manager, Ray Farmer, isn’t beleaguered so much as inexperienced, significantly inexperience.  He’s 39 years old and is in his first stint as a general manager anywhere and is responsible for the first time ever for finalizing a roster that has more holes in it than the plot of a typical Kevin Costner movie.  (Short movie review: I actually thoroughly enjoyed Draft Day.  You think it’s easy to wring drama out of a movie dedicated to picking college football players? Jennifer Gardner helped plus Costner is at his best when he’s in a sports-themed movie.  The pictures of Cleveland were nice, too.)

Here’s where the movie and reality differ.  The Browns of Draft Day, despite a series of lousy records, were far less dysfunctional.  The biggest cock up, as the British like to say, was that Costner’s character had fired his father, who had been a somewhat revered head coach of the Browns. He did it at his mother’s request.  That’s about the only thing that hasn’t yet happened to the real Browns.  Give them time. 

Consider:  The management clowns in charge at this time last season tanked last year’s draft, sacrificed the present for a not too distant future to bring forth a portfolio bursting with plenty of draft picks for 2014.  And then those same management clowns, confident that the draft picks would be valuable because they constructed a team destined to lose became suddenly fearful that the rookie head coach and a pesky local product second/third string quarterback could accidentally turn things around, started gutting the team as if they were really channeling the plot of Major League to make sure their not too distant future plan bore fruit.

They needn’t have worried. 

So next Thursday was to represent the coronation of the accelerated plan for respectability concocted by Joe Banner and Mike Lombardi.  It was the day the Browns and their fans would finally get their most fervent wish; a franchise quarterback who didn’t fling the ball underhand into opposing players arms when pressured; a running back who could hit the slim gaps in the line more than once a season, a defensive backfield that didn’t spent most of every game with its back toward its own line and maybe a linebacker or two that could cover a tight end.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to executing the grand strategy.  Club President-For-Life Banner and Talent Evaluator Extraordinaire Lombardi revealed themselves to be the snakes we all thought they were as they conspired to rid themselves of the next great head coach they said they had just hired less than a year prior.  As the fans revolted for, like, the thousandth time in the last 6 years and federal agents set up shop in the Tennessee headquarters of Pilot Flying J, Browns’ owner Jimmy Haslam started seeing conspiracies and hearing voices and quieted the din by starting over not at Pilot Flying J but with the Browns.

Haslam sent Banner back to whatever rock he crawled out from under, Lombardi likewise and suddenly the Browns had themselves another new administration, securing forever the simultaneous records for number of organizational colon cleanses in a decade and the number of ex-employees still drawing a paycheck they didn’t deserve in the first place.

The problem of course is that while Haslam has a flair for the dramatic, he lacks the internal clock necessary to accurately gauge timing.  He dismissed Lombardi and Banner after they had alienated any potential head coaching candidate with a modicum of experience and then had to settle for a guy that wasn’t on the short, medium or long term list of any of the 12 other franchises seeking a new head coach this offseason.  To make matters worse, he then elevated a rookie into his first job as general manager.  Their mission: faithfully and successfully execute the Most Important Draft Day Ever.

It’s this backdrop that informs what the Browns do next and if it hadn’t happened in real life you’d never buy it in the movies. 

Farmer and his two months of prep could surprise. But let’s be clear.  Prep does count.  No one needs the amount of time the NFL actually allocates to the draft.  Indeed, the whirr and spin of all that takes place in the two weeks prior to the draft is essentially nonsense or nonsense² this year as the league actually pushed the draft out two weeks this year.  But most teams, most people would agree that a team needs more than 2 months to prepare for the draft.

With the draft on the doorstep Farmer gave the obligatory press conference that general manager’s give, the kind where nothing is said but everyone tries to read between the lines anyway.  The only difference this year to year’s past is that it was a far more pleasant experience.

Farmer is young and inexperienced, meaning he hasn’t been around long enough to become a douche.  Or maybe he’s just a decent guy that the Browns lucked into for once.  But at least Farmer didn’t act as if he was having his back molars removed through his alimentary canal every time someone asked him the equivalent of when the ground war was scheduled to start.

NFL teams treat draft information as if it were nuclear launch codes so there was no chance that any useful information could be gleaned from his press conference.  There was no truth to discern either from what he said or what he didn’t say. 

Farmer talked about what a great football player Johnny Manziel is and how his goofy, immature off the field antics don’t change that assessment.  That means that Farmer either is going to draft Manziel or he wants someone above him to so he doesn’t have to.  That’s the point. 

Opinions differ on who the Browns should take in this draft, and that’s probably just speaking for those in the draft room.  Nonetheless expect the Browns to be conservative because that’s how rookies in the front office act—conservative.

Remember that scene in Draft Day when Kevin Costner fleeced a rookie GM in Atlanta?  It happened because the Atlanta GM in the movie was new and afraid of making a mistake.  Expect Farmer to not necessarily get fleeced by another GM but to tread lightly nonetheless, afraid of making a mistake.

Draft days can be and often are unpredictable, particularly in a year where there is no strong consensus number one pick.  Guys who looked like they’d be high on draft boards could drop, further complicating the calculus for Farmer who, all things being equal, would probably like to take an offensive lineman and then see what falls his way late in the first round.  All things being really equal, don’t be surprised if Farmer kicks the can down the road for even more draft picks in 2015.  At least then he’ll have had about 14 months of preparation, assuming of course that the voices in Haslam’s head of quieted a bit.

It will be fun.  It will be interesting.  I doubt it will be game changing.  Remember, this team has a track record.  It didn’t get to this level of dysfunction quickly.  It’s built up over the years and once it takes root it is near impossible to completely eliminate it.  Still, if you want a prediction then you’re always safe quoting Clubber Lange when asked what awaited Apollo Creed in his next fight: “pain.”

The Numbing Sameness of It All, Again--Crazy Is as Crazy Does Edition

At many manufacturing facilities, a sign is posted chronicling the number of days since a lost time accident. Each day a new number is added until an accident occurs. It’s a nice reminder to the workers there to be safety conscious.  At the Cleveland Browns’ facility in Berea they ought to consider erecting a similar sign, only this one recording the number of days since a major front office disaster.  By my count, it’s been nearly a week since they had to reset the clock.

Last week the bomb dropped that Mike Pettine was not the team’s first choice as head coach.  To anyone following, that bomb hardly made noise in and of itself.  What was news was the extreme measures the team was willing to take to avoid hiring Pettine, such as trading some of the draft picks they had accumulated to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for their current head coach, Jim Harbaugh.

That the story broke seemed to be a little vindictive slip from the lips of the recently deposed Joe Banner or, even more likely, those of Mike Lombardi.  Trolls like those two never quite go quietly, even when they’re being paid to leave.

Owner Jimmy Haslam, exhibiting all the savvy of a new owner, essentially confirmed the story when being tight lipped might have worked better.  As a result, a shit storm opened up in San Francisco (though who cares?) and it once again made the Browns look like the most ill run franchise since the last time they looked like the most ill run franchise, which was probably a week or so before that.

While we’ll likely never know exactly the package that Banner/Lombardi floated San Fran’s way to set up a twice year Harbaugh vs. Harbaugh in the AFC North, conclusions can still be drawn.  For instance, when assessing the team’s needs, the prior brain trust felt that coaching was the biggest hole to fill.  Forget Brandon Weeden’s misfiring arm and ability to read defenses, forget the absence of a running back, forget a defense that was weak at nearly every position.  What this team really needed apparently was a head coach with some street cred.  That is how much Banner and Lombardi hated the job Rob Chudzinski was doing.

To this point no one seems to have yet asked whether Banner and Lombardi pursued trades for any other coaches or whether it was Harbaugh or bust.  It seems like if they reached all the way across the country for Harbaugh that perhaps they tried other more geographically friendly coaches.  Did they pursue Bill Belichick?  What about John Harbaugh?  Did Haslam call one of the Rooneys and ask if Mike Tomlin was available for a few draft picks? 

And if Harbaugh, Jim not John, was the only target, why him?  That seems a little shortsighted, as if Banner and Lombardi didn’t realize how much fans in Cleveland hate anything and everyone associated with Michigan.  Isn’t that what Braylon Edwards claimed when he was in the process of blowing up his career in Cleveland?

It’s really intriguing to ponder what Banner and Lombardi thought they’d accomplish by trading for Harbaugh or another active coach.  In a sense it’s a suggestion that the players weren’t the problem all these last several years, it was the lousy coaches.  That’s a pretty big stretch considering that in 9 of the last 11 (Holy God, 11?) seasons the Browns have won either 4 or 5 games.

It is true that the Browns haven’t exactly been coached by the cream of the coaching crop during that woeful stretch.  And to this point not a single one of the team’s former coaches, most of whom are probably receiving checks from either Randy Lerner directly or the Browns franchise, has gone on to enjoy success as a head coach since they left the Browns.  Only two have gotten other head coaching jobs at all—Butch Davis at North Carolina and Romeo Crennel at Kansas City.  Neither of those jobs ended well for them, either.  So a point could be made that bad coaching is indeed at the root of all of the Browns’ evils.

But let’s not give short shrift to the various players with whom those coaches had to work.  It also reads as a who’s who of mediocrity.  Like the dispensed with coaches, none of the quarterbacks who failed here succeeded anywhere since.  Some, like Colt McCoy and Brady Quinn, on occasion, toil as back ups.  Most are out of football all together.  The same holds true for the running backs, defensive backs, linebackers, linemen, you get the picture.

On the one hand there’s a chicken and egg level dilemma here, at least as Banner and Lombardi saw it.  They figured that upgrading the coaching would eventually beget better teams.  Someone else might reasonably think that the coaches would have looked better had the players been better.  Irrespective it’s a riddle that need not be solved.

The common thread to all this are the people in the middle, the Banners and Lombardis of the world.  They’re the ones that have been doing the picking on both sides of the equation for all these years (except when a guy like Davis was doing both).  What the Browns’ incredible streak demonstrates above all else is that if you want to upgrade a franchise, upgrade the front office first.

I suspect that’s the conclusion Haslam came to as well, for what the Harbaugh trade story really does is illustrate how batshit nuts Banner and Lombardi really were as front office executives.  The rest of the story is that Haslam came to the same conclusion, just a week or so too late.

The Browns’ under Banner and Lombardi weren’t necessarily any different than say, the Browns under Holmgren.  Crazy is as crazy does.  Holmgren vacillated with Eric Mangini and fretted over whether he wanted to return to coaching.  He ended up with a dynamo in Pat Shurmur as a result.  Banner scoffed at Shurmur and went after Chudzinski in a fever and then praised the selection as if he had just married Jessica Biel after divorcing Paula Deen.

When Chudzinski didn’t measure up to whatever shifting metrics Banner and Lombardi were applying, they dumped him and undertook the most torturous, most troubled, most ridiculous head coaching search in the history of organized sports.  Haslam stood back and let it all be, including the ill fated trade for Harbaugh.  When Banner ended up with the 38^th name on a list that was only 10 names deep originally, Haslam finally, mercifully pulled the plug.

Both Haslam and new general manager Ray Farmer now find themselves married to Pettine for better or worse, which is hardly where either would like to have been or should have been if Haslam had just pulled the plug quicker on the flea circus Banner and Lombardi were running. 

That sinking feeling Haslam had in his gut, the one he referenced when he fired Banner and Lombardi, didn’t appear overnight.  He had it for days if not weeks and instead of just watching the incompetence unfold beyond the point of no return, Haslam should have acted sooner. 

That’s water over the dam at this point but is instructive nonetheless because Haslam can’t abide Farmer not to be the next Gil Brandt and Haslam and Farmer can’t abide having Pettine flame out quickly, at least if they don’t want to have to keep resetting the clock on the banner outside of Berea that currently reads “7 days since our last implosion.”

And Now The Other Shoe Drops...

About the only thing you can really conclude about the disaster that is the Cleveland Browns is that even when they make the right moves they still look like amateurs. 

Details spilling out from the inside pen of Monday Morning Quarterback’s Peter King aren’t particularly flattering or reassuring.  Despite all the prevarication from deposed CEO Joe Banner on the comprehensive nature of the Browns’ head coaching search, it appears as though it was that very process, ill conceived in designed and then poorly executed, that did in Banner and the apparition known as Mike Lombardi.

King writes, for example, that when Banner interviewed former Arizona Cardinals head coach Ken Whisenhut once again for the Browns’ opening, Whisenhut asked Banner at the outset why the Browns simply didn’t hire him last year, the implication of course being that had they there would be no need for another “process” this year.

Banner was his usual smug self, telling Whisenhut it was because he didn’t think Whisenhut was going to be able to put together a championship caliber coaching staff.  That’s laughable for a couple of reasons. 

First, while former head coach Rob Chudzinski apparently was able to do just that, it still wasn’t good enough to allow him to keep his job anyway.  So much for focusing on the wrong subjects.  Second, assembling a champion caliber staff wasn’t a barrier in hiring new head coach Mike Pettine.   You won’t find anyone in the league who believes that Pettine’s staff meets the criteria of being championship caliber.  Jim O’Neil, the defensive coordinator, has never held that job.  Kyle Shanahan has had a mixed career thus far but nothing about it screams “outstanding" let alone championship caliber.  Below them it doesn’t get any better, either.

King also writes that both Bill Belichick and Urban Meyer called Banner directly to strongly recommend Greg Schiano for the opening.  Belichick in fact called him twice.  Had it been up to Banner he wouldn’t have even bothered to acknowledge either call.  Owner Jimmy Haslam decided to at least follow up on the recommendations and he and Banner flew to Florida to interview Schiano.  Per King, Banner was his usual smug self (does he have any other demeanor?) but Haslam was intrigued.  Nonetheless Banner won out and Schiano wasn’t seriously considered.

I’m not sure Schiano was the right fit anyway given his problems in Tampa.  Indeed that hiring would likely have hit fans in about the same way as Randy Lerner’s hiring of Eric Mangini.  Still, Banner’s conduct speaks volumes about his vaunted “process.”  We know though it did have an impact, a pretty unfavorable one, on Haslam.

This is really the telling point because more than anything else it completely discredits Haslam’s claim that the franchise’s reputation as toxic and radioactive is a media creation.  No, sorry.  The reputation is being spread by those inside the league who know that the dysfunction was a Banner creation borne out of his need to look important.  Maybe Banner didn’t get enough love as a child.

It also speaks to exactly what happens whenever the Browns are in the mix.  Nothing, but nothing can go right.  Banner was thrust on Haslam by the league but Haslam disclaims that it was a shotgun marriage.  He told King he could have declined to hire Banner but felt Banner was the right fit, much the same way that Lerner felt Mike Holmgren was the right fit.

Then of course is the story that was circulating earlier and not in the King column regarding former offensive coordinator Norv Turner’s impassioned and noisy departure.  Turner reportedly gave Haslam and Banner who likely was listening as he played Flappy Birds on his iPhone) a blistering assessment of the team's problems including that the treatment of Chudzinski was unfair and that he and the entire coaching staff did exactly as Banner had ordered and now were being fired for doing the job they were told to do.  Haslam had to love hearing that from someone with far deeper NFL experience than Haslam or Banner will ever gain.

The larger question that King’s column and the Turner story raises is exactly why Haslam didn’t jump sooner to kill the beast that he’d allowed to live.  Taken together it was pretty clear during the interview process that Banner was out of his element, Donny.  Unquestionably Haslam had his reservations, too, but treated them like a nagging pain in his gut that he couldn’t quite identify. 

Haslam waited until Pettine, nobody’s choice for anything but a defensive coordinator’s role in Buffalo, was under contract as the Browns new head coach before coming to the conclusion that Banner had to go.  Haslam had to support Pettine at the press conference because he had no choice.  That said, and despite suggestions to the contrary from others, Pettine can’t feel comfortable about how this has all gone down given what’s now come out.  If Pettine can’t grasp the essence and import of the issue, that Haslam is now questioning ALL of Banner’s decisions, then Pettine, too, is out of his element, Donny.

So in a sense, Haslam wasn’t quite impetuous enough.  Had he really followed his instincts and dumped Banner far earlier, it’s highly doubtful that Pettine would be the coach today.  More likely the Browns would have ended up with Josh McDaniels, Adam Gase or Dan Quinn.  That doesn’t mean that Pettine won’t succeed.  He might, particularly given the changes that Haslam belatedly made.  But his resume in comparison to the others available who wouldn’t come near the job with Banner in charge suggests that once again the Browns and their fans were shortchanged.

But hey, this is what you get when your franchise is a league laughingstock.  Things don’t go the way they should precisely because it is run, if not by idiots, then incompetents.  The sad truth in all of this is that Haslam is still trying to figure out exactly how much he doesn’t know but charging fans premium prices as he goes through his own learning curve.

Meanwhile, the Browns are sitting on some truly valuable NFL assets in the form of draft picks and cash and have probably the most inexperienced staff in the NFL guarding them.  Ray Farmer comes highly recommended but he hasn’t made a draft pick in his life and his first foray will be under the white hot lights of local and national scrutiny, the likes of which he’s never faced before. 

Farmer could very well be up to the task but why is it that Cleveland fans always have to be the lab rats for every bizarre experiment?  I’m glad Haslam rid the franchise of the evil Banner and the inscrutable Lombardi but that doesn’t directly equate to having faith that the rookies now in charge will be up to the task.

Haslam’s biggest risk in all of this is not that he jettisoned two discredited bumpkins.  It’s that he turned around and he gave the keys to his Ferrari to a kid with a learner’s permit.  I guess the good in all of that is that even if Farmer chokes it doesn’t make the franchise worse.  That, friends, would be impossible.  All it really does is lengthen the timeline to achieving the very modest goal of making this franchise respectable.  But heck, fans here are used to that anyway.  They’ve waited 15 years now, what’s another 15 among friends?

The Numbing Sameness of It All, Again--Bold Moves Edition

The temptation is to say, much as I did a week ago, that another week begets another firing in Cleveland professional sports.  But firings are for folks like Rob Chudzinski, the Cleveland Browns’ former head coach.  When the two individuals higher up the food chain and most responsible for the mess that is the Cleveland Browns get canned, the talk is more polite. 

Joe Banner, the team’s CEO is stepping down.  Mike Lombardi is departing.  The words are irrelevant.  They’re both out.  Owner Jimmy Haslam is clearly sick and tired of running the worst franchise in the NFL and decided to do something about it so he broke up the band.  The Three Stooges are no more.

In their place, Haslam promoted Ray Farmer to general manager, kept Alec Schreiner as the team’s president and the person in charge of the business side of operations and, surprisingly, didn’t start over again by firing the recently hired head coach, Mike Pettine.  That may sound ludicrous, the firing of Pettine.  But no more so than anything else, particularly considering that Banner, not Farmer, was most instrumental in hiring Pettine after anyone else of note had long dropped out of consideration.

Haslam then decided to have all three, Farmer, Schreiner and Pettine, reporting directly to him.  In a sense it’s streamlined.  In another sense it’s weird though not unprecedented.  Typically the head coach would report to the general manager.  Farmer has control over the 53 man roster and Pettine has control of the players on the field.  When differences develop as they inevitably will between the two it will rest on Haslam, perhaps the least experienced owner in the NFL, to resolve the conflict.  By placing his impetuous self in the middle of the general manager and the head coach, Haslam effectively has given himself the role of final arbiter.  That should work well given how level headed Haslam has been so far.

It’s great that Farmer, the team’s assistant general manager, has become the league’s second African American general manager.   It would have been far better had Farmer been given the full range of what goes with that job—the chance to hire and manage the head coach.  Alas that wasn’t in Haslam’s plan.  Having watched impatiently and angrily from the sidelines last season as his team played like past versions when he wasn’t owner, Haslam wants to be front and center at turning around this franchise in his image, whether he’s qualified to be or not.  At least now there won’t be any questions over the real throat to choke when things go predictably wrong.

Haslam’s moves were bold, so we’ll give him credit for that.  So was the timing.  And for all those like me who clamored for the removal of those responsible for the processes that led first to Rob Chudzinski’s hiring and then his quick firing, our wish has been granted.  But let’s not pretend for a minute that this immediately solves any of the lingering questions hanging over this franchise like the dark clouds perpetually over the Cleveland skyline.

The biggest question it begs is why now or, more appropriately, why not before he let the team he just fired choose his new head coach?  Haslam got that question and a variety of others that essentially boiled down to “what the hell?” during his press conference on Tuesday by an emboldened press corps not particularly concerned about being polite.  They peppered Haslam with questions that were often tough or at least uncomfortable.  He didn’t necessarily back away from them but that doesn’t mean he answered them either.  Haslam wants to look forward folks, not dwell on the past even if that past is only a few weeks old.

It’s not hard to imagine that a Browns front office under this week’s design might have been more attractive to potential head coaching candidates but that didn’t seem to concern Haslam as he’s fully vested in his own version of reality as to the state of his franchise in the court of public opinion.  Nonetheless, the trepidation many of those potential coaches probably felt having to work for Joe Banner and with Mike Lombardi was a drawback given how poorly it worked out for Chudzinski. 

If there was anything noteworthy other than the timing coming out of the press conference it was that Haslam still is convinced that the perception of the Browns as a radioactive franchise is a media creation.   How he can honestly or at least earnestly come to that conclusion given the turmoil of the last six weeks is confounding. Frankly, Haslam’s words don’t resonate anyway.  His actions do and the remake of his franchise in just the last 14 months is astounding. 

Haslam was in full throated southern drawl sincerity for his press conference.  He wouldn’t concede, let alone dwell, on Lombardi’s shortcomings in picking personnel or Banner’s shortcomings in just about everything else.  Give him credit for understanding how criticism of those two only makes him look worse not better. 

But it was very clear at the least that Haslam felt that not just the structure but the people he had in place were not going to be able to move this franchise forward despite all the prior praise he had heaped on this same individuals.  Perhaps Haslam was most candid at admitting that being a NFL owner is a bigger learning curve then he thought.  That was a bow at least to the legitimacy of the criticism the moves he’s previously made have received.  Given these moves, that criticism won’t dissipate any time soon.

The Browns are or at least were a mess, assuming one sees Tuesday’s announcements as some sort of final sweep of the place.  Still, context matters.  The Browns’ quixotic search for a head coach was, charitably, bizarre and this final outcome, with Banner and Lombardi off to find paychecks elsewhere, doesn’t make it less so.

If fans are scratching their heads it’s because the slow drip water torture that this franchise visits upon them makes it difficult to absorb all that’s taken place.  Yet here’s where we’re at, though stay tuned, another week is just around the corner.

Pettine is the new head coach and an unknown commodity, a rookie head coach who, if the Browns were being completely honest to their fans, wasn’t on theirs or any team’s original short list of candidates.  His staff is mostly just as inexperienced.  Farmer is just as inexperienced as a general manager but at least he was far closer to the top job in his field than Pettine was at the time he was promoted. Scheiner is the guy behind the scenes, a neophyte also charged with making sure the checks get out on time and the bills get paid.

Whatever merits these moves may have now and in the long term, the timing is still mystifying but explainable because this is the Browns and everything always seems to be ass backward in its approach.

But as the smoke clears at least even the most jaded among us would have to concede that the Browns actually have in place a new team that isn’t just the perpetuation of failed regimes elsewhere, for whatever that’s worth.  All 3 of Haslam’s direct reports are of the hotshot up and comer variety, not retreads.  It doesn’t mean the Browns won’t be terrible next season.  They probably will be.  But at least there is the semblance of a real, legitimate new team in place.  It’s up to Haslam to now rest his trigger finger for a few years and give this bouillabaisse time to simmer.  

In the meantime all Farmer has to do is correct the mistakes of Lombardi and all the others that have gone before him.  He’s got enough draft picks and cap cash to do something dramatic.  Whether he’s capable is a question to which all fans are once again awaiting an answer.  All Pettine has to do is figure out how to be a head coach and then coach up the players he’s handed and hope against hope that none of the key ones get injured.  It’s felled everyone else that’s come before him.  As for Schreiner, he’s charged with putting lipstick on this pig and selling more season tickets. 

In other words, it’s going to be the longest year of each of the three’s lives.  

The Numbing Sameness of It All, Again--Another New Coach Edition

It looks like the combined pressures of running the NFL’s most inept franchise and conducting the NFL’s most inept head coaching search in history finally got the better of Cleveland Browns management as today they officially hired their 7th or 8th choice as their next head coach after sending contrary signals that they wouldn't make a decision until after the Super Bowl.

Mike Pettine, step on up.  You’re the next contestant on Sucker Showcase.  The first task?  Find a credible coaching staff from what’s left in the bottom of the coaching barrel.  At least you’ll be familiar with the inhabitants having been elevated from those same ranks to become the Browns 635th coach in the last 20 minutes.

That it was Pettine isn't much of a surprise. He’s exactly the kind of coach you get when you conduct a search like the Browns did on behalf of the kind of team the Browns are. It instead could have been some other similarly anonymous coordinator from another mediocre team desperate enough to cast his lot with this lot.  The NFL coaching ranks don’t lack for desperate coordinators.  In either case, the challenges will be the same and as insurmountable as ever.

The stunning ineptness of this particular iteration of a Browns coaching search is what was so fascinating, assuming you’re one who finds multi-car pileups fascinating.  It’s hard to imagine, actually, how the Browns could have gone about doing a worse job of finding a new head coach but then the Browns sapped me of imagination years ago.

The Browns job was always the least attractive of any of the openings, mainly because of owner Jimmy Haslam and his two most trusted Stooges, Joe Banner and the Shemp to his Moe, Mike Lombardi.  By firing Rob Chudzinski so unceremoniously and so precipitously, the Stooges sent a powerful message to every good coach looking to upgrade that the Browns franchise is as unstable as it ever was.

Believe if you choose all what you hear from Berea about a methodical search, but the reason the Browns were the last to fill their coaching slot was not because they have some secret recipe or better process but because it represented by far the worst posting on the NFL head coach wannabe job board.  Coming as it did today and not after the Super Bowl smacks of desperation, a team unwilling and unable to face the continued backlash of a fan base that had grown both suspicious and impatient with the utter lack of progress it had been seeing.

The Browns settled, and that isn't a knock on Pettine necessarily.  They had to settle just as they’ll have to settle for the lower tiered assistants a relative minor coach like Pettine will attract.  That was always going to be the case anyway.  

That’s why Pettine ended up in Cleveland.

Again, for emphasis, this isn't to criticize Pettine before he gets a chance to fail.  I don’t know much about Pettine and neither do most of the fans.  The same holds for most of the others that were on the Browns’ list.  My guess is that they're decent sorts who have managed to carve out some semblance of a coaching career.  And one of them could actually turn out to be a successful head coach somewhere.  But the chances of that happening at this time in Cleveland are roughly the same as the chances that Adam Sandler will make a funny movie again.

There simply isn't anything about the Browns that even suggests that a head coach can be successful here, whether it’s the number of coaches they've cycled through, the draft picks they've blown, or the free agents about whom they've been wrong.  Still, you have to admire the pluck of the press release announcing Pettine’s hire.

Haslam is “thrilled” but not with the hire necessarily but with the ability to “announce” the hire.  The heat must have been getting to him.  Haslam called Pettine “tough,” “aggressive,” and “innovative,”  “the epitome of what the Browns were looking for.”  He also pointed a zinger right in the direction of Chudzinski, saying that Pettine “has repeatedly shown the ability to lead his players to consistent improvement and success, clearly what we are striving for….”  That was a classy touch, using the hackneyed excuse for firing the last coach as the sine qua non for hiring the new one.

The more important question, though, is it true?  Has Pettine repeatedly shown the ability to lead his players to consistent improvement and success?  It depends how carefully you want to define success.

If the whole point of defense is not to give up points, Pettine's results were mixed, at best.  The Jets were the 15th best team in the league in 2008, the year before Pettine got there and in his first year they were the best team in the league.  From there though it was steady progress downward.  In his last two years, the Jets were 20th in the league in points yielded.  In his one year in Buffalo, his team was 20th in points yielded, which was an improvement from the previous year’s ranking of 26th.  In other words, some good years some not so much.  Still it would hard to call this consistent improvement and success.

Again, and again, let's not prejudge Pettine particularly since defensive ranking statistics can be wildly misleading, especially points yielded.  What this does illustrate though is how hard the Browns are working to make chicken salad out of the chicken shit they created..

Haslam also said that Pettine knows what it takes to beat the teams in the AFC North, apparently as the result of the 7 years he spent as a Baltimore Ravens assistant.  But heck, who doesn't know what it takes to beat the teams in the AFC North? Chudzinski knew.  Pat Schurmur knew.  Russ in the mail room knows, too.  It takes a team with better talent and until that happens Pettine’s inside knowledge, whatever it consists of, will be useless.

Banner’s words were even more carefully parsed and equally if not delightfully insidious.  He said the Browns “interviewed everyone they could.”  There were plenty they couldn't because they weren't interested.  Gase comes to mind.  Banner then said that of those interviewed Pettine was “the best individual for the job.”  By the end, though, it was a small group from which to glean such judgment as it didn't include those who, having interviewed, took themselves out of the running.

Pettine has been officially introduced to the media in the usual nondescript fashion.  He said about what you’d expect him to say and in the manner in which you’d expect him to say it.  He showed some sense.  He refused to predict a Super Bowl in the team’s future.

With that bit of business behind them, Banner and Lombardi can now go about ignoring Pettine as they get ready for the draft.  He’ll get about the same level of input as Chudzinski did and that’s the exact point at which he’ll realize that his future really isn't his to own.  That leaves Pettine to do what new coaches here typically do.  He’ll order some part of the Berea complex repainted and then will find a house in Westlake he can rent on a month to month basis. He’ll also talk about the importance of the upcoming minicamps.

Meanwhile the fans will get a feint whiff of excitement once again as they continue to put faith into “what if” scenarios.  And when it’s all said and another season is done, the Browns will once again be drafting at or near the top and Pettine, the poor sap, will be on the hot seat, one way or the other.

And that, friends, is the cycle in which this franchise is interminably caught and from which it cannot escape. It's insanity built upon doing the same things in the same ways and expecting a different result.

Welcome to Cleveland, Coach Pettine.  Enjoy your stay and don’t forget to get your security deposit back on that house in Westlake.

The Numbing Sameness of It All, Again--Chud is Done Edition

In a manner totally befitting the random, callous way that the Cleveland Browns operate, Rod Chudzinski was fired after one inglorious year.   

They did it first by dropping the rumor in the media a few hours before the Browns were scheduled to suffer their annual year-end beat down at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers.  They then left Chudzinski dangling at game’s end by issuing a press release in which they deliberately refused to end the speculation.  They finished the job sometime after the game, informing Chudzinski Sunday night telling him, undoubtedly, that the organization was moving in a different direction.

The problem of course is that this organization never moves in a different direction.  If there is one thing that’s clear, it’s that the Browns are committed to the same losing path year after year.  Occasionally they change out the tour guide in the misguided hope that the previous one was the problem.  It hasn’t worked yet.

This organization has never been able to honestly look itself in the mirror and the firing of Chudzinski simply continues that disturbing pattern.

Chudzinski deserved better and had every reason to think that when he was hired, he would receive better.  So did the fans.

The suggestion that somehow Jimmy Haslam, the new owner of the Browns, was going to come in and do something different came with the implication that different meant better.  Given how low this franchise had sunk, it was almost unthinkable that different could mean worse.  And yet it’s exactly where things stand after still another miserable, lost season.

Given how many coaches have cycled through this franchise without the benefit of a decent front office that could identify and secure talent, Chudzinski’s fate doesn’t surprise.  Nor will it surprise in a year or two when still another coach is fired and another is hired.

This is the essence of the numbing sameness of the Browns.

When he was vying for the necessary votes to become a NFL owner, Haslam spent time cozying up with 

NFL royalty like Bob Kraft to uncover the secrets of doing things right.  It was apparently just for show or he just didn’t listen.  His first hire, Joe Banner, brought with it the illusion of credibility when in truth Banner carries himself with all the personality and darkness of Dick Cheney, but with half the charm.

Banner then went ahead and brought in someone with even less credibility, Mike Lombardi, to make personnel decisions.  Lombardi has always been long on mouth and short on accomplishment.  At least he has some self-awareness.  Recognizing exactly how little he’s thought of around these parts, Lombardi stayed off the radar screen, confining his machinations behind the scenes. Just as incompetent, just not as visible. 

Together Banner and Lombardi went through a process, less exhaustive apparently than advertised, to land on Chudzinski, a decent NFL lifer waiting to take the next step in his career.  Banner and Lombardi flirted with Bill O’Brien and Chip Kelly but got nowhere.  Kelly in particular seemed to string the Browns along until he could secure a better offer from a more stable franchise.  That led to Chudzinski’s hiring.

How exactly they went about making the decision to hire Chudzinski deserves some significant scrutiny in retrospect.  It’s hard to imagine why Lombardi and Banner agreed to hire him in the first place.  What did they think they saw then that turned out to be so incredibly wrong less than a year later?  Maybe more to the point, given how poorly they botched the last hire, why should anyone, including Haslam, trust them with that kind of decision again?

This isn’t at all a knock at Chudzinski.  Indeed it’s difficult to know exactly what he does or does not bring to the table given how poorly Lombardi performed his job this season. 

It wasn’t Chudzinski that saddled this team with Brandon Weeden for another season.  It wasn’t Chudzinski who left only two healthy quarterbacks on the roster once Brian Hoyer went down.  It wasn’t Chudzinski who traded away Trent Richardson and then left the team without a NFL caliber running back.  Chudzinski didn’t draft Barkevious Mingo or sign Paul Kruger.  Chudzinski didn’t deliberately decide not to upgrade the secondary, trade this year’s second and third round picks or keep the team some $24 million under the salary cap. These land squarely on Lombardi’s lap and, by proxy, Banner’s.

All of these decisions and non-decisions led directly to the results on the field so naturally it makes sense that Chudzinski would lose his job.  It wouldn’t surprise if Banner and Lombardi get a raise in the process.

In the context of Lombardi and Banner, the decision to fire Chudzinski makes sense.  It’s the best way, really, to deflect from their own misdeeds, starting with the flimsy hiring process they undertook and culminating with the firing they engineered.

What is harder to understand is why Haslam is letting all this happen.  Even Barak Obama thinks Haslam is having a bad year. 

Haslam vowed to be a full time owner and removed himself from the CEO position of his little family 

enterprise, Pilot Flying J truck stops just to make that point.  He bought a house in Bratenahl.  He was going to be visible.  Hardly.  In what should now be considered foreshadowing, Haslam almost immediately pushed aside his new CEO and took back the reigns.  He’s less visible in Cleveland than LeBron James.  Let’s just say that loyalty isn’t his strong suit.

Then Haslam saw his business engulfed in a major legal scandal that started with a FBI raid and has thus far resulted in a number of convictions of former employees.  Haslam has denied any knowledge of the illegal skimming operation but unquestionably his mostly family owned company benefited from it.  Most of this season has been spent by Haslam paying back customers who were victimized by the skims, navigating dozens of lawsuits, and doing what he can to make sure he doesn’t end up in front of a criminal court himself.

All in all, it’s been a pretty distracting year for a rookie owner.  Banner and Lombardi don’t lack for savvy and the manner in which they’ve hung Chudzinski out to dry as if he’s the problem shows exactly how they’ve been able to exploit Haslam’s situation to bolster their own standing within the organization while continuing to keep the Browns ensconced as the embodiment of franchise malpractice. 

Everyone understands that as owner Haslam has every right to hire and fire anyone he wants.  It is likewise his prerogative to put clowns like Banner and Lombardi in positions of authority and defer to them.  Similarly, if said clowns have become convinced that Chudzinski isn’t ever going to be successful as a head coach, then it’s there duty to stop a failed experiment as soon as possible instead of fiddling for another year as Mike Holmgren did with Eric Mangini.  But it’s hard to fathom exactly how Banner and Lombardi could become so convinced so quickly that Chudzinski, the man they hired, was such a mistake just as it’s hard to fathom how Haslam could so easily sign off on that without holding either of Banner or Lombardi accountable for that mistake.

Chudzinski wasn’t able to eke out any better results than any of the other Browns coaches who have come before him but the manner in which Chudzinski fell out of favor so quickly still stuns.  This Browns team was terrible.  It lacked both talent and character.  I suppose Chudzinski is being held accountable for the lack of pride with which this team went about its business this last month or so but, again, who drafted these players?  Who constructed the final roster?  Chudzinski’s fingerprints aren’t on either of those.

I guess the Browns are rebooting again but the better question is why they are even bothering to reboot.  That suggests that the systems in place are fine; they just need to be restarted to get rid of whatever bug was plaguing it at the moment.

The truth is and has been that the systems are completely broken and need to be eradicated and replaced.  This franchise doesn’t need a reboot, it needs a complete change.  Haslam promised that when he stepped into Randy Lerner’s ill-fitting shoes and simply hasn’t delivered.   What he has delivered is warmed over misfits like Banner and Lombardi who collectively have botched almost every decision they’ve faced since they were hired.

This franchise will not be fixed with a new head coach.  It won’t be fixed with another mediocre draft.  It won’t be fixed with a few free agent signings.  It won’t be fixed until someone finally gets fed up and puts an end to the circus. 

What we learned this Sunday are two things.  First, don’t count on Banner or Lombardi to save this franchise.  They’ve more than proven that their interests are purely parochial.    Survival first, last and always.

Second, we learned today how much in common Browns fans really do have with the trucking companies suing Pilot Flying J.  At the roots of each group’s frustration is that they put their faith in Jimmy Haslam and walked away feeling as if their pockets were just picked clean.

Lingering Items--Questionable Characters Edition

The Cleveland Browns’ Josh Gordon has all the attributes that define the modern day wide receiver. His work ethic is questionable, his decision making is awful and he has a massive ego that stretches well beyond his modest achievements.

Maybe general manager Mike Lombardi was right all along. Gordon was a waste of a second round pick. In doing that former general manager Tom Heckert was just continuing a well established core competency of the Browns and wasted second round picks. But that's another story for another day.

What surprises about the Gordon story though is how thin of a thread he's hanging from considering it's only his second year in the league. Already he's run afoul of the league's substance abuse policy several times and now must sit out the first two games of the season. For that kind of production the Browns could have kept Brian Robiskie.

Gordon's latest transgression involves, by his account, a positive test for codeine that he didn't know was contained in a prescription cough syrup. To this point no one locally has challenged Gordon's story and thus fans are under the misimpression that Gordon was just an unwitting victim. Doubtful.

Had anyone in the local media bothered to check, the NFL's drug policy does have a "therapeutic use" exemption. In other words, testing positive for a banned substance contained in a prescription doesn't trigger a violation of league policy. There is one huge caveat and that is undoubtedly what tripped up Gordon.  For the exemption to apply the player has to report the prescription to the league's medical advisor in advance. A player can't wait to see if he passes the test and then having failed claim he was under a prescription.

Taking Gordon's word that he tested positive for codeine it's also clear that either he had no legitimate prescription in the first place or he tried to get one after the fact. He certainly didn't report it in advance. In other words, Gordon's story is just that, a story.

What's more likely, though we won't know for sure unless Gordon fesses up, is that he was drinking "purple drank" or whatever else the mixture of cough syrup and soda is referred to locally. It's a cheap high and very common. Given his several run ins with marijuana, the image or Gordon finding another way to get high while a avoiding his prior drug of choice seems a far more plausible version of how he got tripped up than the rather generic excuse he’s using now. My guess, though purely a guess, is that Gordon was partaking in his version of “purple drank” and simply didn't know that the cough syrup he used to make it contained codeine.  That wouldn’t make him an unwitting victim.  More like a deliberate fool.  At least Joe Haden didn't claim he didn't know Adderall was a banned substance.

Young players, like young people, do dumb things. But Gordon has more of a history. When the Browns drafted him he had already failed three drug tests because of his marijuana use. That's not a guy that's simply dumb. That's a guy with a problem. Add in the recent failed test for another drug intended to induce a high and the pattern is more than established.

To this point in his young life Gordon has demonstrated that getting high trumps his obligations to the Browns and the league and he may find himself out of football soon serving that higher master.  Meanwhile Gordon repays the dwindling faith the team has in him by essentially dogging it at practice. He's claiming an injury but in terms of football injuries tendinitis is among the mildest. If nothing else, Gordon is a guy that needs practice.

Gordon's days in the NFL are numbered and at the moment he seems to be the only one that hasn't noticed. He deserves to have his career dangle like a rain drop from a downspout. If the Browns aren't making other plans, they should be. Fortunately Gordon won't be hard to replace. Terrell Owens and Chad Johnson are looking for work.

**
Speaking of Lombardi, he is becoming chattier lately, buoyed undoubtedly by the heap of praise that club president Joe Banner heaped on him recently.

I'm glad he's talking. I'm not sure it's a good idea. But what he does say provides interesting insight if you bother to follow the dots.

Speaking about the aforementioned Gordon, Lombardi went out of his way to praise his progress even as Gordon sat with an injury that was anything but. Lombardi told the media the other day (as reported in what passes as The Plain Dealer these days) that Gordon showed a great attitude in the offseason and wants to be a great player and that he (Lombardi) is excited to be a part of that.

Given Gordon's fourth failed drug test (at least) and the fact that the most recent was in the off season, one wonders what Lombardi would say if Gordon had actually done his team and teammates a real favor and stayed clean and worked hard, you know like Gordon said he would when it was discovered that he initially lied about not testing positive for marijuana at Utah where he went after flaming out at Baylor.

Meanwhile, when it comes to quarterback Brandon Weeden, Lombardi had trouble expressing anything other than his lackluster support for the team's putative starter.

Try to find the compliment in this quote from Lombardi: "I think (Weeden) clearly has proven in the off-season that he's gotten better at everything they've asked him to do. So, every day is about getting better and I think that's what a lot of players are doing.'' It's tantamount to saying that your teenager is getting better at the things you ask him to do, like taking out the trash. Now instead of having to ask him four times to do it he now takes it out after the second request.

Lombardi was a bit more complimentary of the two quarterbacks on the roster he had a hand in acquiring, Brian Hoyer and Jason Campbell, but the stronger impression that Lombardi left was that quarterback is still an unsettled position. On the Richter scale that runs from wasted second round picks to wasted quarterback picks, this revelation hardly moves the needle even a fraction.

But let's be fair to Lombardi and not assume that his indifferent attitude toward Weeden is just a case of "he's not my guy"ism. Weeden was an ill advised pick because drafting a 29 year old rookie only works in a Disney film.

I'd expect Weeden to be better this year than last when he was one of the worst quarterbacks in the league. There's nowhere else to go but up. But the up has to be significant and soon or he'll just be another Derek Anderson, except without the one good year.

Quarterback is the hardest position to play in sports and patience makes sense, except in the case of 30-year old sophomores. The Browns simply don't have four years to spend hoping that Weeden figures out the game. And even if they did by then it would be time to groom his replacement anyway.

**

Another intriguing statement from Lombardi emanated from a discussion about rookie defensive end Barkevious Mingo.  Lombardi said he's unconcerned that Mingo may not crack the starting lineup. After all, he said, it's not who gets introduced as the starter (though he allowed that this is important in and of itself) but how much playing time a player gets. How true.

Lombardi then allowed that he wouldn't be disappointed if no rookie cracks the starting lineup because, again, it's ultimately about playing time.

That too is as true as far as it goes but let’s face it. If none of Lombardi's draft choices start then that will be a problem. Not to put too fine a point on it but last season's team was awful.  It's the reason a new regime is in place again. It had three, maybe four solid starters, guys who could start for any team. Two of them were let go in free agency. Another is at left tackle. Another at linebacker. In other words this wasn't a playoff team filled with established incumbents. If no rookie starts then how or why can fans expect anything more than another frustrating season?

For now I'll give Lombardi the benefit of the doubt that he's just being cautious and diplomatic and not hedging his bets, though that's exactly what it sounded like.

I'm not in the camp that thinks Lombardi is the devil because he was here once before with Bill Belichick and they did some unpopular things. Banner is a good executive with a good track record and his judgment on Lombardi deserves to be respected. That's why I'm unconcerned at the moment. Banner is also a brutal bottom line guy. If Lombardi's draft class is a washout fans won't need to worry about running him out of town. Banner will do it for them.

**
At the moment the Browns kicking situation is one of the most unsettled areas of the team and yet is getting little notice at the moment. This week's question to ponder:  What's the over and under in minutes in the first preseason game when Banner and Lombardi slap their palms to their head and wonder what they were thinking when they didn't try to re-sign Phil Dawson?