CLEVELAND: Sunday’s firings of coach Mike Pettine and General Manager Ray Farmer won’t be enough.
For the Browns to regain legitimacy and eliminate the toxic atmosphere inside Berea headquarters, owner Jimmy Haslam needs to make changes at the upper levels of his organization. And the structure he settled on is the most convoluted in team history.
“I don’t think structure is quite as important as right people and right place and everybody understanding their roles and working well together,” Haslam said.
On the matter of right people and right place, to coin a phrase Pettine uttered hours earlier, you’re 0-for-2.
The road Haslam is going down by promoting from within isn’t the answer. Shuffling people around on the second floor isn’t going to develop a winning culture. It’s not going to find the quarterback of the future or encourage credible candidates to replace Farmer and Pettine to line up at the Browns’ doorstep.
Haslam said executive vice president/general counsel Sashi Brown took over immediately as executive vice president of football operations and will have final control of the 53-man roster. Brown, whose duties included player contract negotiations and managing the salary cap, is a big believer in analytics. A lawyer and numbers cruncher isn’t going to help the Browns change the culture or restock a roster in a rebuilding process that Haslam admitted could take years.
The Browns will first hire a coach, then the general manager, using executive search firm Korn/Ferry. It’s headed by Jed Hughes, a former Steelers assistant who also coached the Browns secondary in 1989. On the committee to pick both the coach and GM will be Hughes, Brown, Haslam and his wife, Dee.
Even more mind-boggling, Haslam said the coach will report to him, the general manager to Brown.
Brown might be smart enough to look at former CEO Joe Banner’s study that told the Browns to draft Teddy Bridgewater in 2013 and follow its recommendation. But where is the football man? Where is the NFL personnel veteran who is going to interview everyone who knows Cal’s Jared Goff and Memphis’ Paxton Lynch, two quarterbacks the Browns might have to choose between in the April 28-30 NFL Draft?
Apparently that’s going to fall to Farmer’s successor, who will be in charge of talent acquisition, organizing the scouting staff and putting together the draft board.
But the man making the decision on whether it’s Goff, Lynch or someone else on draft night will be Brown.
“I think that’s final say with a lot of input from a lot of very qualified people, whether they be our quarterback coach, our offensive coordinator, our head coach, our general manager,” Haslam said of Brown’s power on draft choices. “So it won’t be just one person making that decision in a vacuum.”
During the Haslam regime that officially began in the fall of 2012, there have been too many people in the building who have been unable to stay in their lane, who want more to do with the football side than their job description dictates. Since Haslam’s responsibilities at Pilot Flying J keep him from being in Berea full-time, he needs more from his director of football operations than numbers. He needs a people person, one who cares about everyone in the building and treats them as equals as they try to revive the historic franchise.
Analytics experts won’t foster the feeling that everyone is pulling together, that the coaches’ or players’ failings are everyone’s failings. Reportedly members of the front office weren’t even speaking to the coaching staff last week.
Haslam moved swiftly Sunday, relieving Farmer of his duties before a 28-12 home loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, according to NFL Network. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Haslam and Pettine met at 7 p.m., the news release confirming the firing of both was emailed at 7:02 p.m.
But the Browns’ problems go much deeper than Pettine’s and Farmer’s differences over playing wide receiver Dwayne Bowe, signed to a $9 million guaranteed contract, or even the struggles of Farmer’s four first-round draft choices in the past two years.
The organization, the most poorly run in the league, is the bigger issue.
If there are eight job openings in the NFL this week, the Browns will end up with the eighth-best candidate as coach, just as they did with Pettine. Considering Haslam’s quick trigger — he’s already fired three coaches, three general managers, a president and a CEO since taking over — the Browns will probably end up with another unknown coordinator.
Anyone with multiple coaching inquiries will immediately discount the Browns, whose poor drafts have left them with too many holes to fill and more vacancies on the horizon if players like center Alex Mack, right tackle Mitchell Schwartz and safety Tashaun Gipson depart in free agency.
Even a coach with a big ego hungry for power and money probably won’t want to step into the Browns’ dysfunctional environment, although just-fired Eagles coach Chip Kelly might have the nerve to do it. A Kelly hiring might be the bombshell that prompts Browns veterans to ask to be traded.
Farmer, whom I endorsed before he was promoted, was not ready. The drop-off from Tom Heckert to Mike Lombardi to Farmer has been stark, a step back with every hire. Arguably the Browns would have been better off with Heckert and president Mike Holmgren than Farmer/Pettine. Holmgren/Heckert whiffed on quarterback Brandon Weeden, but Holmgren might have seen the flaws in Johnny Manziel.
Those looking for hope must hope for luck instead. Luck that the Browns will find the next Mike Tomlin. Luck they will hire a GM who thinks wide receivers can make an impact in a passing league. Luck that they will find a franchise quarterback with the second overall pick.
Considering the obstacles Haslam faces with his next moves, those tasked with straightening out the Browns’ mess will need a keen eye for talent and fate to finally point in the downtrodden team’s direction.