DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum A case for Ray Farmer

I've not seen enough to suggest that they don't get along but if that's true, or more importantly they can't figure out a way to work together then I agree with you 100%.

I think that's the advanced class for this lot.

I can't listen to a case for Farmer...

Toss Manziel aside, because he's slowly getting better, but what about everything else?

Now you can turn around and say that maybe Pettine isn't doing a good enough job with the talent that Farmer has picked, but I don't think coaching is Cam Erving's problem... I don't think it's Pettine's fault that Gilbert is a cancer who also doesn't do anything on the field. Mike Pettine can't force Dwayne Bowe to work.

The negatives outweigh the positives for Farmer. The case against Farmer somewhat makes one for Pettine, although they have to do something about the scheme, and start getting guys to tackle better. And not jump offsides. And not have defenders getting flagged every time a ball is thrown to their guy.

Who do you put tackling on at that level? Should that be a given for the player since he's a paid professional, or is this something that stems from these country club training camps? That makes up a huge chunk of the pie chart of the problems with this defense. It's unacceptable.

Gee, I wonder why you are always blaming Pet for Farmer's failures?

At about the quarter pole of the season I said I thought that Farmer would stay and Pettine would go because Haslam would give Ray one last chance with a HC of his won choosing.

Now I can't see any reason to keep either one. Farmer can't pick a decent roster to save his own life. A pick here or there, sure, but an entire draft with even a decent grade....Nope, don't see it ever happening.

Pettine....I wish he was better or even showed that he was trending that way. But I just don't see him improving enough (if at all) from last year to even imagine what he'd do with another year at the helm. Sure, he doesn't have a Super Bowl caliber Defense but New England hardly ever does either yet somehow they seem to win a lot more games than they lose each year. Granted the Offense is full of midget WR's and a rookie O lineman that spends more time on his ass than I do on Sundays but if he'd played JFF all year and committed to the run in more than one game every two months, hell, we might have a few more wins. It damn sure would have been more entertaining.

Fire 'em both, don't listen to the media and don't look back. JMHO

Spergon, I agree with much of what you said. I just have a different conclusion. I do blame Pettine for Bowe, Erving, Gilbert, Manziel, etc... As a team, we are looking forward to perhaps having Flash Gordon coming back next season. You add to that Manziel, Gilbert, and Bowe with their "reported" issues. We are facing worse times ahead. I think my real point is that I believe Pettine has lost the locker room and the players. It is not possible for Pettine to regain it. The question I have concerning Farmer is more about has the dysfunction in the locker room poisoned the players versus the front office. If so, then I feel Farmer is doomed.

Voleur

Change DC and Farmer. Scouting needs addressed. We need to create a new position, something like Coordinator for Football Judgment and Decisions. We cannot miss like we have, and we can't win with what we have. We are not deep enough to sit the ones who need Vitamin Pine. Screw up tackles, miss blocks, flags, other failures, you might sit the player.

We would have about eight left. Mental toughness and better judge of horseflesh seems mandatory and logical.

To say that Pettine has lost the locker room, that it's dysfunctional, and that he can't possibly gain it back is a pretty bold statement to make. In light of that I respectfully challenge you to qualify that opinion

To your initial points in regards to Manziel and Gilbert maybe being better if they had simply been named the starter last season:

-First, it would have flown in the face of (at least) last years mantra of earning playing time regardless of your draft or veteran status, a mantra that revealed some at minimum quality players in guys like K'Waun, Gabriel, and the Crow.

-Second, the fact is last season Manziel didn't care a lick about playing in the NFL. It's a HUUUGE stretch to say that had he been given the #1 job day one for no other reason than draft status that he'd have "gotten it". I think the same can be said for Gilbert too. The report no him is that he simply doesn't give a damn about playing football. I don't think you can force a guy to care by giving him a job he doesn't work for. I think that putting him at KR was an attempt to spark something in the kid. No idea if it worked or not. Maybe we'll see this weekend.

Now as to my opinion on keeping Farmer...

I guess my biggest question is based upon an accurate assessment of the overall quality of our roster. Some Dawgs keep telling us how much it sucks and that it's trash, yet even Farmer's biggest critics really only roast him for not getting impact players, not for being unable to bring ANY talent here.

Part of being an IMPACT player is being a guy who elevates the play of the guys around him right?

If we have an impact player at QB, our offense functions better.

If we get an impact WR (Say 2014 Gordon, or at least 80% of him that year), our "trash" WR group easily becomes Top 5 in the league.

If we get an impact DE/OLB the rest of those areas will increase production.

SO which is it? Do we have a roster missing only a few key impact players? Or is our roster mostly garbage and NEEDS overhauled?

If you feel the roster is utter garbage, he has to go.

But if you think its missing a few key players... eh, I think he might have to stay because inspite of his misteps, he does get credit for bringing in the talent that helped solidify the base of the roster.

Having said that, I would be 100% ok with getting a new GM and DC, keep the rest.

You are welcome for reading a useless post

This isn’t a case for Farmer but rather a look at his whole body of work regarding personnel in two years. The more and more I hear/read things and try to digest this information the more I believe that the following will happen, in this order:

Both Farmer and Pettine are fired
Farmer stays, Pettine goes
Farmer goes, Pettine stays
Both Stay (although this is the scenario I lean towards wanting, admittedly)

The gap between (1) and (2) is rather significant but I think a few things are in play…Farmer’s acquisition of talent isn’t as bad a people say and Pettine’s desire to have players he wanted is being overlooked significantly. However, the lack of Farmer’s ability to separate others adequately from personnel decisions will ultimately be his undoing, particularly when it comes to the draft.

First let’s look at his more notable FA acquisitions in 2014 and 2015.

2014
Karlos Dansby
Donte Whitner
Alex Mack
Andrew Hawkins
Ben Tate

2015
Dwayne Bowe
Tramon Williams
Randy Starks
Brian Hartline
Josh McCown

IMO, The Good
Cutting D’qwell and getting Dansby. A clear upgrade in our scheme, IMO. D’qwell struggled in the 34 prior to going to a 43 in 2011 and went back to hurting in it under Ray Horton.

Transition tagging Alex Mack. Why? Because it was all Ray Farmer could do after being on the job as GM for less than two months. You’d think Banner and Co. would have tried to lock him up heading into his final year in Cleveland, but for whatever reason, chose not to do so. If we franchise tagged him, he probably wouldn’t be here this year, and transition tagging him meant there was a chance we could have kept him longer considering, at the time, we had more cap space than just about anyone to match a deal…and we did.

Going with McCown over Hoyer. Perhaps an unpopular one but McCown proved to be a good signing after it was bashed mightily. He’s been the ultimate mentor to someone like Johnny and perhaps even seen as another QB coach in the film room. Him coming back next year in some capacity is a no brainer to me.

IMO, The Bad
Dwayne Bowe. This could go down as one of the worst FA acquisitions since the Browns came back in 1999. Probably worse than Andre Rison? The guy is soaking up millions of dollars and is becoming a healthy scratch almost weekly. The team is even signing guys to play WR with all the injuries over playing Bowe. Epic fail.

Signing Ben Tate. I think from the beginning, we began to see how big of a selfish player Tate was and how jealous he got when he saw West and Crowell’s success in the offense. Even though his contract was very advantageous to the Browns, and Shanahan probably had a voice in signing him from his time in Houston, this was a bad move.

Choosing Whitner over Ward. Not that big of a deal but Ward is the superior player of the two. It was nice to have the Cleveland ties and Whitner is seemingly a leader in the locker room (which is perhaps what Farmer was going after) but all the hype hasn’t really been delivered in two seasons.

So-So
Tramon Williams. If I had done this half way through the season, I would have put the Williams signing in ‘The Good’ portion, but he’s struggled in the second half of the season. I think he is forced to cover WRs not originally intended and his weaknesses are showing.

The Miami Dolphins signings— Starks and Hartline. Both have been productive but not the difference makers a team needs. Not sure if Starks will be around next year.


The Drafts

I’m just going to put good/bad next to each after the first few rounds, because (1) I’m tired of writing and (2) grading players after the 4th round seems somewhat dumb considering so many never make a substantive impact. However, if they exceed expectations, I think that should be noted. Also, I firmly believe there have been influences by other people in draft selections, namely Gilbert & Manziel to name a couple. This is THE BIGGEST indictment I have on Farmer by not taking control of personnel matters in situations like the draft and owning the acquisition of personnel rather than conceding decision making to others on pics. This has happened soooo many time to our FO (B.Davis, E. Mangini, M. Holmgren, J. Banner) that it’s very discouraging and a reason not having a GM with testicular fortitude is a losing battle. Anyways, here it is.

2014
Justin Gilbert- Bad
Johnny Manziel- Trending bad
Joel Bitonio- Good
Christian Kirksey- Good
Terrence West- Bad

2015*
Danny Shelton- Trending Good
Cam Erving- Trending Bad
Nate Orchard- Unknown
D. Johnson- Trending Good
Cooper- Unknown

I think it's really difficult to determine the success/failure of 2015 at this point…that's why I put either trending or unknown.

It should be noted that we’ve been able to procure decent talent in the UDFA ranks including Crowell, K. Williams that allowed us to release Ben Tate and not pay Buster Skrine. We also lost Willie Snead who was an UDFA. We also passed up drafting Carr, Bridgewater, Beckham for whatever reasons or influence.

Have at it!

It's simple really give the talent you do have time together and they will get and be better. The gap in talent is a myth, the gap in time playing together is the key.

It's NOT continuity in the form of the FO or the coaching staff its the roster flip that happens every time you reboot.

If Text had good sense and could set aside his ego we would be worlds ahead at this time.

Look no further the Chip Kelly for proof. he takes on a team that is 4-12 the season before he arrived and in the next year goes 10-6 and does the same the following year. Then he flips the roster heading into year 3 and he is on the verge of a 6-10 season.

There is your answer folks, continue to ignore what is right in front of your faces. The answer you seek is there you just have to put it together.

Talent wise this team stacks up OK, not perfect but OK where we lag behind and regress is a by product of wholesale changes made by management in the off season.

Its not this player is better this player is worse its player continuity time together in becoming a team of players familiar with each other and playing together for each other. That's the key..

Text has changed out players for players with similar or equal skill sets the regression we witness is a by product of the loss of time together.

I keep telling you all what the answer is but outside of a small handful of people you can't seem to connect the dots.

I confess it something I struggled with and finally I KNOW what it is. We haven't had and don't have this huge talent gap or we haven't hired all these bad coaches our problem is roster flipping not FO flipping. You think about our roster and look at the changes that have been made year in and year out and in most instances the changes were b players for b players we didn't get better we got worse, not because of some talent gap but we lose the time together war.

Our changes this off season were wholesale especially so on defense and I said it and its true will be better at the end of the season then we were at the beginning because we are beginning to have the most valuable thing a team can have and that is time playing together..

In typical fashion will blow up half the defense and set ourselves back again. The KEY is time together regardless of scheme...

Sorry I don't mean to offend when you THINK about what I have said and go back over in your mind how things have been done and what has been done more so then anything the roster has been flipped year in and year out. Its about adding to the talent not changing talent out for similar talent...

I really hope you all take the time to really think this through.

I take no great pride in being right, it was just so obvious to me that we weren't building on what success we did have in 2014, and the changes that were made seemed to be change for changes sake. I blame it on Text's ego, and his burning desire to look at the team on the field and say I did that.

I don't doubt his intentions to make it better and in same small way he may have if we stick with what is here in terms of talent and BUILD on that talent add to it improve it when and where we can that's the key and he failed because he wanted (I believe) to have his stamp on the entire roster.

He failed to resign players and that continues. Simple sign up your talented guys before they reach FA add to those players and stop changing out B players for B players for no other reason then to be able to say I built this roster.

Tab I love ya man, your one of the most passionate people I have ever known, I applaud that because if your NOT passionate about what you believe in, your family, your life, your work then who are you?

I wish you and your family a very Happy New Year as I do all Browns Fans everywhere. Lets pray we finally get that Lombardi.

All I can see in "your case for keeping him", is trying to justify his mistakes by comparing them to big boards from people who are completely unqualified and not hired to be NFL GM's. You can try to use the talking heads big boards as some kind of cheap excuse, but none of those people are making seven figures in the NFL to make those decisions.

There are only 32 NFL GM jobs. You either do well at it or you don't. Farmer doesn't.

Sorry, gotta borrow this one tab.

You can't site the big boards of BOZOS to excuse Farmers poor decisions.

(Report: Cleveland Browns expect to keep Mike Pettine and fire Ray Farmer)

-I think this is what they are planning on doing also. There is no reason to keep Farmer. Too many bad draft picks, obviously. 'You make your bed you lie in it.' Enough is enough. Bye-bye.

I really enjoyed reading this post.

And I can't argue with a single point made.


Nice job.
For real.

Assuming that this is true - and I would not doubt it given the insane egos we've already seen shuffle through Berea - how dumb does a person have to be to do this?

Don't they realize that choosing to keep a good player - even if they were initially brought here by someone else - IS putting your stamp on them.

That's not exactly how everything played out.

Farmer's biggest crime was caving into Pettine's wishes. Pettine had a lot of input on FAs and draft picks, and Farmer is taking the fall for it.

It's easy to point the finger at Farmer. But if we are playing the blame game, it's at a minimum 50/50 and likely worse towards Pettine, IMO.

But Farmer is not as bad as people think and Pettine is not the victim of Farmer's incompetence. That's fairy tale stuff.

What will likely do Farmer in is his lack of backbone in those situations and his bizarre treatment toward our own players. His smartest man in the room syndrome for the latter is appalling.

But Pettine isn't a victim and isn't some innocent bystander. His presser ...or should I say interview for his next job was pretty revealing.

If it wasn't for Manziel, I think we would have already been leaked the story that both Farmer and Pettine are gone on Monday. It's interesting that has not been reported yet. I think Haslam is still holding out hope he can still bring someone in who wants him. Finding those people is going to be tough.

When we lose on Sunday, and if the Titans win, you almost have to start over at QB though. I think if we end up with number one overall, it's a complete blowout...GM, HC, QB.

Yes it does make you wonder what the thought process is doesn't it. That's what a good post does, it should make you open your mind put things together THINK your way thru what you have witnessed.

BTW thanks Clem

My theory is that FO/Coaching staff continuity is bunk, what matters is roster stability. And like all things in this world there are times when roster stability is meaningless.

But when you take a look at the Browns and how my theory applies one need look no further then our own defense and do a bit of thinking.

Last season our defense was horrible to start but by the end of the season they were really bringing it. Then the off season happens and Skrine is gone along with 75% of the defensive line. They told us that we needed to win the battle in the trenches, yada, yada, yada.

What we witnessed though was a full retreat we regressed at a record pace, so why?

You look at Chip Kelly and how he took a 10-6 football team on the up swing and turned them into a 6-10 team and it all comes back to huge changes to the roster. There is continuity of scheme in the FO and on the coaching staff. That narrows things down quite a bit doesn't it?

But you can look back over the years here and every single time we hit the re set the roster experienced large turnover and that is the KEY its just that obvious.

I think Text has done a huge disserves to the Browns and us, the long suffering. The NEXT GM and I hope there is a next GM has to build. And what I mean by that is make what's here better. Don't just change it.

Ask yourself is Starks better the Rube, or Winn or Kitchen? That doesn't mean over time Starks won't be better the benefit of keeping Rube or Winn or Kitchen is they are familiar with their team mates, scheme, coaches and they have the on field continuity that we should be striving for.

Kelly turned a 4-12 football team into a 10-6 team because the players were pretty much the same group in other words they had played together they were familiar with one another they were a team and the changes were minimal and that's the key. We MUST make incremental changes and avoid the wholesale variety that's what sets you back. That's what you see when you fail to retain talent and replace it with similar talent. And that's what we have done repeatedly.

We should have built on what we did last year we were close to turning the corner with what we had we needed improvement in areas of the team but instead we made wholesale change and regressed.

And worse yet IMO we have set the table to do the very same thing again this year, and will continue to suffer as a result would be my bet.

Bottom line glad Clem and Prple thought about what I said hope more of you try to understand what is killing us.

If I had to guess, both Farmer and Pettine are being judged pretty harshly by Haslam.

Listen to Pettine's presser from yesterday. It was obvious he had talked to Haslam and was likely asked some pretty tough questions. It was the first time he actually threw his boy O'Neil under the bus. That means that after his talk with Haslam, he was feeling that ceiling caving in on him.

I'm sure Farmer is in the same boat. My point is these guys at a mimimum have been equally bad. But I don't think fans have a good grasp on exactly how the incompetence played out. For example, IMO, had Pettine had zero input in the draft room, I think we might have seen different picks the last two years. Just my own personal speculation...

I think Haslam wants to desparately get things right.

I don't know what point you are trying to make. Yes, Haslam, Farmer, and Pettine are all inexperienced in their roles. But Haslam isn't going anywhere. Take comfort in knowing that he wants to get it right.

I believe that they ALL desperately want to get things right.

Also, I tell BTTB that you are intelligent and then you go and blame Farmer's issues on Pettine. I yi yi yi......

I also am not really buying into Farmer's problems being due to his ego. Most successful men in meaningful positions have large egos. I ain't buying the drama. I think it's as simple as this:

Farmer does a terrible job of evaluating talent.

I agree. I think the Jerry Jones comparison is overdone. They both have white hair and speak with a southern accent, and of course are rich, but I think the likeness stops there. I think there have been times when Jimmy interferred, but nowhere near the degree of Jerry. Heck, Haslam is only even in town for gamedays, from what I've read, so you could hardly call him a micro-manager. If anything, I think he should have been more out in front this season.

i see people are once again clinging to pettine, a trash HC.

they both suck. get over it. both of them need to be gone.

Why should he have been more "out front this season?"

Man, you guys..........

I see people stating opinions as fact. The same people who have been wrong w/almost every single football evaluation they have made over the years.

like you?

you haven't been right on a lot of things either.

that's why we're fans, not professionals.

our record is 3-13. we aren't gonna be the steelers.

our defensive minded HC, with the highest paid defense in the league, can't get our defense to sniff average.

then you act like pettine didn't have a say so in the players that farmer brought it.

which is why i'm confused a lot on this board. you people say one thing, the FO/staff does it, then y'all get mad about it.

y'all been saying for years that a GM will go out and get the players that the HC wants.

well Farmer did that. pettine wanted leadership, so what did Farmer do? he shipped out younger guys for older vets with "leadership".

i highly doubt Farmer or pettine wanted manziel. that was Haslam, straight up. y'all can blame farmer for that all you want, but for a first year GM, when the owner tells you to do something, you do it.

like i said, i think Farmer is trash. but you wanna deflect all the blame off pettine to farmer for whatever reason.

they either both need to go, or both need to stay and see what they can do in the third season.

but we've seen this story already. the gm is gonna go, you guys are gonna think "now we're back on track".

except the same HC is gonna still be trash the following season.

I haven't?

Okay, Swish. Go back to the Tailgate and cry about how unfair things are.

you mean EE.

and if you can't debate football talk, go to insults.

i see why Tab has been getting frustrated lately.

1st your obviously addressing this to me in a round about way as Prp was more or less agreeing with me.

Text is the GM and Pet is the coach, bad personal decisions belong to Text bag coaching decisions belong to Pet. I'm not dismissing your idea but that's my kick off point until proven otherwise.

What you are oh so focused on is who to blame, that's a mistake IMO.

What I have attempted to give as a message is how you improve from year to year. How poor choices have been made and how they continue to be made, but more importantly IMO how roster flipping negatively impacts a football team.

I sighted examples and non are better then Chip Kelly and the Eagles. And that's not to say that had Kelly not been given more time the changes he made may very well have born fruit.

What I'm saying is that when you turn over large portions of your roster you set your team back, regardless of scheme, and regardless of staff. Stability and continuity is born on the field and NOT in the FO or from the coaching staff.

The theory is that the longer a group of players play together the better they will play. The reason the Eagles stand out so much is that Kelly took almost the exact same team Reid had and made them into a 10-6 win team and the FO structure changed as well as the coaching staff and scheme what didn't change was the guys on the field and that WAS the key.

In the case of Text and Pet I don't even try to fix blame per se I'm trying to demonstrate why we are where we are.

I think Texts drafts have been so bad and his personal decisions have been so bad that you have to move on from him. But I don't dismiss Pet having a roll and if true that is easily correctable. Text on the other hand is the guy that is directed to build the roster so he gets the blame for poor drafts and poor roster decisions that is his so called field of expertise and he has failed IMO.

It's also MO that he has to take responsibility for that and be held accountable. Pet has made a fair amount of mistakes, but I put his mistakes down as just that mistakes, Text I put down as being so bad and so lacking in sound judgement that you just can't correct them nor continue with him in the position he holds.

I will say this I won't shed a tear if they are both let go, my complaints will be with the new guy or guys coming in here and saying we need to re build that's my key if the new guys come in and say we need to build on what we have retain the talent we have (even if its not ideal) then we will have found our guy or guys.

Rebuild is code for wholesale roster moves that lead to right where we are NOW. That cannot happen again like it has so many times before, that has been and continues to be what sets us back, to bad you don't seem to grasp what I'm trying to say.

Classic.

I just think Haslam should have been more public, given that his GM was serving a 4 game suspension, which left only Pettine to answer questions from the media that were not in his purview as HC. I also think Haslam should have been more vocal in his support of Pettine's benching of Manziel, since we were told it was a consensus decision that he took part in and consented to.

What's with the "Man, you guys ..." thing? I'm only saying what I think. Its cool if you disagree, but I don't get what's so exasperating.

I apologize.

Reading many of these posts is exasperating. I read yours after I was already exasperated and just assumed yours was as dumb as the others. Once again........I'm sorry.

No biggy. Sooner or later, the Browns are going to get it right and it'll be all "peace-love-doves" around here, ya think? ...... NAH!

Really when all here were talking PO and more and voicing their approval of Text and Pet I stood nearly solo and said 2-14 and you put that down as dumb luck. Otta