Browns fire Pettine and Farmer and who the hell is Sashi Brown?

I'm sure you know all about the firings of Mike Pettine and Ray Farmer by now and I hope that you have listened to my podcast from yesterday that involved me discussing the Browns' decisions on this and other issues.

Now that I have had a little time to go over things, here are my thoughts on the flotsam and jetsam that is the Cleveland Browns.
As I said yesterday-I'm as down as I have been in a long time.
I see little reason to feel confident in a management structure that flows through a person (Sashi Brown) that will have the final say on the roster, yet has never been involved on the football side of the organization with an NFL team and was part of the failed management structure that was somewhat cleaned out.

Give me one reason-ONE that makes any sense for ANYONE keeping their job, let alone getting a PROMOTION!
Hold on, I'll wait. Enjoy a musical interlude.



SO the Cleveland Browns now are being run by a lawyer that was involved in running the salary cap and negotiating contracts.

BREAKING NEWS-I started this earlier in the day and the Browns have made even more moves-considering a podcast tonight...

I just don't understand why a non-football person is suddenly in charge of personnel.

As far as Farmer goes, his abysmal record in drafting (Justin Gilbert and Johnny Manziel) and free agency (Dwayne Bowe) makes me fine with not bringing him back.
I want him nowhere near the draft or anything else.
As far as Pettine-I wouldn't have whined about him staying despite his awful 2015 when you consider the flotsam and jetsam that populated the roster-I don't know of anyone that could have won with this team.
Pettine's petulant attitude towards Johnny Manziel (not that he didn't deserve it) cost the team valuable evaluation time and he reminded you of the fast food boss that bullied you around because he could -not because of a real reason.
Combined with that and his devotion to his pal and defensive coordinator Jim O'Neill on the terrible defense and you could make an easy case for the firing of Pettine too.

All I know is this-After Jimmy Haslam's news conference,I felt as bad as I had for the Cleveland Browns in a long time.
And that is a lot of bad...

Football notes-pre-game!

A few football notes with the rumor mill running wild before the Browns expected loss to the Steelers.

The Browns are now being reported to be firing both Mike Pettine and Ray Farmer following the Steelers game.
This comes a few days after the same reports had Farmer going,but Pettine staying.
This has legs though and the two names getting play are the just fired Chip Kelly from the Eagles and Bears offensive coordinator Adam Gase.

Gase is interesting because he is offensively oriented and the Browns haven't hired a guy with that background (other than Rob Chudzinski's 1 year cameo) since Chris Palmer in 1999.
However,he's never been a head coach and being young (37) could be overwhelmed with such a huge job ahead....

Chip Kelly clearly doesn't know personnel and would need a strong GM ahead of him to rein in his demands,but as an on the field coach-I might buy in.
A motivated Kelly that learned from his mistakes in Philly could be quite a force,but did he take enough time away from the game to fully learn this lesson?

Hiring Gase would show me that the Browns are serious in trying to lure Peyton Manning to run things when his career is over with "his" guy installed as head coach instead having a coach forced on him.
Hiring Kelly looks like another forced coach/GM pairing as once again the coach would be hired first rather than the traditional other way around.

I'm open to either on the surface,but I'd also like to see the bigger picture....

Also with three teams trying to move to L.A. here is a scenario for how to make me a fan if one of the 3 moves there-the Rams.

The Rams would give me my longed for NFC West Coast team to watch every week after the Browns and have several players that I really like in Todd Gurley and James Laurinatis.
Keep Jeff Fisher as head coach (long time favorite) and change the colors back to the blue and yellow and the Los Angeles Rams just might have a new fan...

An indictment of another bad draft-Terrence West Traded

The Cleveland Browns were ready to move on from second year running back Terrence West,apparently so ready that they were ready to release West,if they couldn't find a trading partner.

That wasn't needed as the Browns were able to get a conditional seventh round pick from the Tennessee Titans for the former third rounder.
As exciting of a return as that is,the Browns took the lowest thing that you could receive and had to have a condition slapped on it for a player that just one year ago was not only worth a third round pick,but was valued as being worth trading an additional fourth and sixth round selection for.

I wasn't a Terrence West fan-he danced behind the offensive line far too often for my tastes and he didn't exactly run hard between the tackles either.
West wasn't a pass catching threat and I liked Isaiah Crowell better last season anyway,so this isn't really about losing Terrence West,although with Duke Johnson dealing with concussion issues,one could argue mildly about the timing.

What this does do is raise even more questions about the current Browns regime.
Take away the silly ( and easier to laugh at) "Play like a Brown" stuff and take away the reported "maturity issues" with West alone and look at the 2014 draft.
Many have said that you cannot tag Ray Farmer with the draft because he wasn't on the job long enough to truly sink his teeth in the minutiae of knowing players background.
The Browns have now dealt with these issues with three players from that draft-two number ones and a number three and yet it isn't Ray Farmer's fault?
If Farmer is supposed to be given a pass for not knowing these things with Justin Gilbert,Johnny Manziel and Terrence West,answer me this-Why are you trading up for guys that you don't know everything about?
Why were these things not caught by scouts or crosscheckers,employees that total job was to catch those types of potential issues?
Joel Bitonio has been a standout in round two,Christian Kirksey will start and Pierre Desir looks like a surprise in the 4th,but not only missing on early,but trading assets to miss is simply a disaster.

The only saving grace has been the signings of undrafted free agents Isaiah Crowell and Ka'Waun Williams at two of those positions and some argue that those signings offset the Gilbert and West disaster by "look at Crowell and Williams as the high picks and Gilbert/West as the free agents".
Simply put,that is a cop-out.
If you thought that was the truth,why not take them high and not take the risk of losing them?
Or maybe take other players and make the team even stronger?

I'm not ready to say Ray Farmer needs to go,but the body of work shown thus far is not good.
Once again,the Browns have shown severe front office issues as once again,the team has placed higher priority on saving money and gambling on an unknown quantity rather than on a proven winner in the front office.
And no,I don't count Mike Holmgren as a proven winner in the front office as his general manager reign in Seattle was unsuccessful as only when he became a coach only did the Seahawks turn things around.

I'll have a Browns preview up later this week.
I don't think it will be pretty....

Bye Bye Banner and Lombardi!!

Out of the clear (?) sky Tuesday morning, I saw it flash across Twitter.
Joe Banner and Mike Lombardi were relieved of duties by the Cleveland Browns!

Now look, I'm not saying that former Eagle linebacker Ray Farmer will be a whiz at GM or that Alec Scheiner will be great as President (which I don't really care about bean-counting), but I will say this- Knowing little about Ray Farmer as an executive beats knowing what Mike Lombardi brings to the table.
Or as I said in a discussion with another Browns fan-Farmer is unknown, so that's a risk, Lombardi is a known quantity as a poor executive, so I'll take my chances with Farmer.

None of this is to say that I'm thrilled with Farmer, who assisted with last year's less-than-strong draft, but did not have the final say and therefore doesn't deserve to have that hung around his neck.
Farmer also doesn't come with a huge resume' other than being the director of player personnel with the Chiefs just before Scott Pioli ran the Chiefs into the number one pick and his one year with the Browns.
I am open-minded though as Farmer will have his own say for the first time and will get his chances to succeed.

The losses of Banner and Lombardi actually made me leap and do a little softshoe at the world headquarters, so no matter how poorly Ray Farmer could do, I still wouldn't miss these two.
Joe Banner may have been a tough man to bargain with at the table and good with the finances, but he wanted to be on the football end and he just wasn't equipped for that part of the job.
Banner could have been very helpful to the organization had he been able to concentrate on what he did best.
However, it appears that his ego simply could not handle that and therefore he deserved to go.