DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum cont...The Browns Front Office...ready for prime time?...

It was EGO that killed the deal.

Many seem to believe that Ray Farmer and Sashi Brown had the power to negotiate contracts with our free agents, but I'm not so sure.

I do believe Sashi and Farmer had the power to "negotiate" contracts, but the final say on those contracts came from above, imo.

So, who holds the purse strings for the Browns? ....Jimmy Haslam and Dee Haslam ..

I believe Sashi intended to resign one or two of our free agents with Schwartz being the #1 priority. At the Combine, Sashi was asked about retaining our free agents, his reply:

(How important to retain your potential free agents): "We’ve identified the guys that we feel like really can help us and fit within the schemes that we’ll be running. And so it is important for us to keep our own, I think it says something to the locker room when you reward guys that do it the right way and make sure that they understand that being here in Cleveland we want to build through the draft certainly but we also need to retain our guys when we get to free agency. And it’s been tough to do that, largely because there’s been so much transition. So we talked to them about the continuity moving forward that we’re aiming for. Hue’s been a big benefit, because a lot of players want to play for Hue, so he’s been a tremendous asset to us being able to reignite some of those conversations."
link

I believe ownership decided to not re-sign any of our free agents, leaving Sashi to look like a fool and to continue to take the heat for not resigning any of our free agents. Both Farmer and Sashi are taking heat for the way they conducted business, but IMO, those who are ultimately responsible for those decisions is "ownership".

The question that is not being asked is why would ownership overrule their own management team and refuse to sign any of our free agents.

perhaps an example from real life?

My company is looking hire a production manager for the plant I oversee

After several candidates we decide on a particular individual to make an offer. That decision was made by myself, my boss and the HR director.

The HR director is given the task to negotiate the salary but he is under the constraints of my company's pay structure, say $60 being the top of the range.

He offers $45K, rejected, $50 rejected , $60 rejected. Given his parameters, he can offer no more and the candidate walks.

Yes he negotiated but he did not have carte blanche to offer $100K so he could land the person.

So it seems here, my boss and I (Farmer) operates under given constraints ( salary cap considerations), and relays that limit to The HR Director ( Sashi) who can only offer up to what he can offer based on that paradigm.

So yes Sashi negotiated but did so under the limits imposed upon him by circumstances

you can only put 5 gallons in a 5 gallon bucket

No, I'm not saying that. Read my statement you quoted. No way in hell can you infer what you are asking from what I said. Nobody but you, in a last grasp to be right, could possibly get that from my words.

A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent.

NOW, THIS IS WHAT I'M SAYING: I'm so tired of this whole topic that I'm through with it, more specifically I'm through debating it with you. It's done, it's over. I may be right, you may be right, nobody will ever know. But Skrine ain't coming back. Neither are any of the guys we lost this year.

just wondering. where did you come up with farmer was browns boss? isnt it more like farmer went to brown with a list of players and brown had a list of what he was willing to spend on the position and if the players wanted more he let them walk?

from everything i have read this is most like of what happen.....

Just as MS and his agent "ASSUMED" MS was worth more than the Browns offer...WRONG!

That's the problem none of us can be sure without ALL the information which we never will have.

Okay. If that is not what you are saying, then one can Sashi did a poor job of retaining his own free agents.

Glad we got that cleared up.

Probably because that is about as far from reality as possible.

I take it that, "anyone" permits me to respond...

The Browns are 25th in franchise valuation.
link

"The question that is not being asked is why would ownership overrule their own management team and refuse to sign any of our free agents."

I'm glad you are certain of the inner workings of the FO.
I don't much like Haslam but I just don't pull things out of thin air and proclaim them as fact.

I just woke from a hard nap so maybe I'm confused about your question so I ask: What does operating income have to do with not signing FAs?

Every team has the same cap and with the recent rule change every team has to spend a large portion of it on the roster. The team having the most operating income has no more money to spend on their roster than the team with the least amount of operating income. Wouldn't the amount a team is over or under the cap have everything to do with signing FAs or not? After all, saving money by not signing FA will eventually still have to be spent on the roster only. The owner can't put any of that "under the cap" money in his pocket.

Or do I misunderstand what operating income is or do I misunderstand your question.

I'm not sure what you are saying Mac. I mean, operating revenue and operating profit as it correlates to resigning our own free agents?

I guess I don't understand.

There is plenty of money there. That really isn't in question. But are you just trying to lay blame on Haslam for not signing guys? I mean, sure, he's the top dog so if he says don't sign someone, they probably wont' get signed.

But do you really think he did that?

If Haslam were riding herd on the purse strings that closely then we never would have made the offer we did. Unless...you're saying that we made the offer knowing he wouldn't sign it and that we could then pull it later! Eureka! That must be it!

Come on man, you're trying to hard. We made an offer, told him that it would be valid until the negotiating period opened up and the market set the number. He decided to wait and lost. Then tried to come back and make us pay more than the market. It doesn't have to be that complicated, generally the simplest answer is the right one.

Scheiner was in charge of the cap? i thought brown was..... well learn something new everyday....

No, that is not true.

I thought Scheiner was in charge of business operations, Farmer the roster and Pettine the on the field product and they all reported directly to Haslam.



http://www.cantonrep.com/article/20140211/SPORTS/140219867/?Start=2

That last part really hurts...

Mac, that's just foolish talk. Come on.

You mean like the information you've provided? You're basing this on pure speculation and conjecture with nothing else to back it up. I don't see why you feel you have the right to expect more from others than you provide yourself.

More foolishness.

Look, the team is required to spend a certain amount of money on salaries. Isn't that right?

His personal income doesn't come into play.

Have YOU looked into his personal finances? If not, your insinuations are, well, really, just dumb.

That is not even remotely a legitimate concern.

• Haslam's personal worth is in the BILLIONS, and in no way afffects any of that.
• Pilot Flying J is a $31 BILLION revenue per year mega-company.
• The Cleveland Browns, like ALL NFL franchises, is a license to print money. By virtue of the CBA, they are structured in a way that you effectively cannot lose money on player salaries. Period. Ever.
• That $93 million fine is to be paid by Pilot, not Haslam. It also likely was structured to allow Pilot to pay it in installments over a number of years. So, only small chunks of that will be paid each year and it will be coming out of a pot that is over $30 billion in size.

So...you're saying it's unlikely Haslam will move the team in the dead of night to pay off his debts?

Purp',

If my information is correct, the fine (goes to the Feds in order to avoid prosecution) is $92 million. Additionally, Pilot has to return $85 million to their customers. What Mac is getting at - do we know whether or not there is any way that Browns profits can be transferred to Pilot, or is there a procedure in place that prevents this?

They are separate corporate entities. Although Haslam is the principle owner of both, it's not like he can move money from one to the other like they are bank accounts. Likewise, should the government choose to freeze Haslam's assets, it wouldn't affect the Browns other than Haslam would be unable to sell or liquidate assets for personal purposes.

this topic has gone sideways...again...

Correct.
The things are so completely unrelated and individually protected and isolated from each other that there is literally zero reason to worry.

Additionally, those sums that were mentioned for the fine and what must be refunded.... those are petty cash. Less than $200 million for a company with $31 Billion in revenue.... and it is a privately held company. There are no public shareholders to answer to. If they wanted, they could easily absorb the entire hit in one year and not blink an eye moving forward.

While it's true that each team is obligated to spend a portion of the cap, where mac's scenario would be meaningful is that the team has to have cash on-hand to put into an escrow account for any guaranteed money (unless I'm crossing up my sports here.) that's not true of non-guaranteed salaries and bonuses.

I was of the opinion that it would have to go to the Player's Union...

j/c:

mac might be on to something here. Some are calling him dumb and others are scoffing at his opinions, but I'm not so sure the attackers are correct.

A couple of things popped into my mind when mac made his post and others replied to it:

--to believe that teams don't write their other business expenses off on their sport's franchises is incredibly naive. One of the baseball labor standoffs was settled when the courts ruled that the owners had to open up their books so they could be checked for the same practices. Writing off business losses on the sport's franchise was a common practice. Steinbrenner was highlighted w/his shipping companies and the Yankees. The owners were guilty and a deal was quickly reached.

--Haslam's company paid over $150 million in fines. Ask yourself why? Were they not guilty of the charges? If he cheats like that, why wouldn't he cheat again?

--Look at the proposed TC move to Columbus. Haslam worked w/politicians to have the tax payers pay for the move so he could make more money. That money would be significantly less than what mac is proposing. A thief is a thief and a crook is a crook. They don't just pick and choose. They rip off people every time they can.

--Haslam's tenure reeks of marketing moves. Improvements to the stadium. New uniforms. Letters to season ticket holders. Losing key free agents. Signing young, cheap alternatives. Moving TC to attract more fans. Etc, etc, etc.

--Firing people because of negative public and media perception. Talking about new plans and how the latest is a multi-year plan. Don't fret fans, this will take time and please keep spending your money while we go through the new plan. I promise to stick w/this plan. Keep feeding me.

Haslam might be a descendant of P.T. Barnum, the circus king, who once said that "there is an ass for every seat in the house."

He still has to pay their salaries. I would say that Haslam firing people so often shows that he is willing to spend money. How many head coaches, assistant coaches, and front office people is he paying to not work for him?

You are correct w/that statement. Nice job. An actual fact rather than just the personality butchering that so many resort to.

On the other hand, you do have to admit---well, you don't have to---that I raised some valid points.