DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Mr. James Arthur Haslam the Third

Well, you are probably right. I will tell you this...........there have been discussions.

swear theres been a thread about saban atleast every other year.

Here is what I know of the situation in Miami.

He was promised a lot of say in the roster. That did not transpire. Saban was emphatic about the Dolphins obtaining a top-flight qb. Brees became available and Saban wanted him in the worst way. Management did not live up to their promise of him having a huge say in the roster, they passed on Brees and the Drew went to New Orleans instead. Saban was disgusted and left the team because he knew they would never win w/out a franchise qb. I would say the Dolphins should have listened to him.

I guess the bottom line for me is that " Mr. James Arthur Haslam the Third " is responsible for this Mess !

Haslam is responsible for firing Banner and hiring Farmer. I can't forgive him for that one.

Haslam is responsible for firing Banner and hiring Farmer. I can't forgive him for that one.

Banner hired Farmer as our GM? I didn't know that. I thought Banner hired him for a position he was more qualified for, you know, like the one he had in KC.

Do you have a link for Banner hiring Farmer as our GM? It doesn't even seem possible. But, if I am wrong..........I apologize.

I would rather have Banner than Farmer. Is that clear enough?

Because it's rumored that he wants full control of a franchise and would like to succeed in the NFL, especially after the Miami fiasco.

I believe there's a huge difference in "making this team a winner" and expecting people to build talent and show competency.

1) Peyton's presence looms. Most believe Peyton Manning will hang 'em up after this season. Well, there's also a widely held assumption in NFL circles that -- with all the turnover expected to come across the league in January -- Manning could well re-emerge as a leading executive in 2016. The most bandied about landing spots are Cleveland (because of Manning's relationship with Browns owner/University of Tennessee booster Jimmy Haslam) and Tennessee (because of Manning's connections to the university, and his wife's presence as part owner of the Memphis Grizzlies), with Indianapolis (his longtime home) and New Orleans (his native soil) not to be completely discounted. The larger question here is how effective an ex-player can be moving quickly into a powerful decision-making role. It has worked in the NBA and MLB, but there's not as much history with it in football. In fact, the place where it's worked best might be where Manning is now: Denver. And so I dug back into my notes and through a conversation I had with Broncos president Joe Ellis shortly after John Elway was hired as executive vice president of football operations back in 2011. "I think the biggest thing that needed to be fixed was football leadership," Ellis told me then. "We had a void in that area. We needed someone who had the right competitive fire, who could draw respect, and come in and oversee all of football for Pat Bowlen. You can have a strong head coach, or a strong general manager, and have them report directly to the owner. That can be successful. But this is the way we're going." Elway, for his part, wasn't as inexperienced as Manning would be. The Bronco legend ran Denver's Arena Football League franchise for a time, served as a consultant to Bowlen in the five years leading up to his hire, and brought business experience from his chain of car dealerships. But it does seem that some of the things that the Broncos wanted in Elway -- see: football leadership -- Manning might be able to bring. One key for Manning, of course, would be an ability to "know what you don't know," something Elway showed in learning the scouting side of the business. But it's easy to figure someone with Manning's football acumen would be able to figure things out on the fly, so long as the right structure existed around him. And it's equally simple to see why, like Elway was for Denver, Manning might be an enticing risk for someone.

2) Brown out? In a lot of NFL markets, the trade deadline was just another tease -- with the logistics of the sport tearing down any wishes of splashy player movement. In Cleveland, it was another chance to shine a light on the trouble with its city's football operation. It was made clear to other clubs ahead of the deadline that the Browns were open for business. Some of their pieces drew serious interest (Joe Thomas, Paul Kruger). Other pieces didn't (Barkevious Mingo). But the common thread was what one rival executive referred to as a "very Cleveland" process. Most notable, in the eyes of other clubs, was the trouble in figuring out who was carrying the hammer. For example, one club called general manager Ray Farmer trying to gauge what it would take to wrest away a prominent player, and Farmer said he had to check in with others in the building. And when things got serious on any player, the price tags wound up being prohibitively high. Add it up, and you'll see a picture of a club with reason to blow it up and stockpile picks, carrying attractive chips to pull that off -- yet acting far too indecisively when the heat was turned up. For their part, internally, the Browns don't see chain of command having been much of an issue over the last few months, and believe the failure to pull off deals was simply a matter of compensation not matching the value of the players in question. But any such issues with the current structure could be a motivation for Haslam to seek an Elway-like figure after the season. He tried that when he tabbed Joe Banner in 2012, but the toxicity between GM Mike Lombardi and Banner, and Lombardi and coach Rob Chudzinski sent that regime off the rails before it could really get started. In hiring first-timers Farmer and Mike Pettine in 2014, Haslam went the other way, establishing a system more based on checks-and-balances than one man's vision. What's next? It's Cleveland, so that's anyone's guess.