DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Jimmy Haslam: Browns ‘directionally correct’ with Hue Jackson, reorganized front office

Last year around this time Haslam said that Farmer and Pettine would not be fired.

Link Please?

I'm not going looking for a link, but early on he did say that he was not going to make changes last year.

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Last year around this time Haslam said that Farmer and Pettine would not be fired.

What does that have to do with anything?

It's a good thing Haslam is open to changing his position if the first position isn't working out.

Last year around this time Haslam said that Farmer and Pettine would not be fired.

And he could change his mind again. You aren't saying he couldn't, are you?

Yes he could and no I'm not.

Ahhhh, there ya go. You just figured out why cfrs made that comment.

See, reading comprehension isn't so hard.

What does that have to do with anything?

It's a good thing Haslam is open to changing his position if the first position isn't working out.

[color:#FFCC33]... positive expectation posters have crossed to the dark side.color]

Thanks for shutting him up. LOL

Link Please?

Solid FOOTBALL post thanks so much for contributing!

lol!


ok, guys... lets try to keep it about Football in Pure Football.
Thanks.

I am positive that I like some of the young players that we have added to the team.

However, I am also positive that it is going to take time, and also that not every young player is going to work out.

I am positive that 4 wins will be a real accomplishment this year, and I am OK with that. I can think of nothing better than having the top 2 picks in next year's draft to help rebuild this team.

Murphy's law is an adage or epigram that is typically stated as: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

There will be math. Browns vice president of football operations Sashi Brown knows what everyone is saying. And he’ll agree that the club’s new structure is a departure from the norm, saying, “My background is not a typical background if we want to think of me as a GM, and we don’t even have a GM in title. And (chief strategy officer) Paul (DePodesta) is a guy who has a position that most teams don’t employ.” But where Brown will stop you is when you say the model is, as many of us on the outside assume, driven to rely on analytics in making decisions. As he sees it, this isn’t dumping an old model for a new one, so much as it is making an effort to pull every lever, new and old, to get to the right answers. And Brown also is willing to concede that, at this point, the Browns don’t even know how effective football analytics are, because they simply haven’t been around long enough. “Our structure really isn’t about analytics, it’s about trying to bring people together who have a common goal, low ego, good ideas, understand how to get the right information, put people in the right places,” he said. “My job isn’t to say who’s the best right guard in the draft. My job is to make sure we have a system that gets to the best possible answer. And by the way, we’re gonna be wrong a lot.” The best proof is that he convinced a coach with options, Hue Jackson, to choose to come to Cleveland. Jackson’s an innovator on the field but has an old-school football mentality. In the end, he was convinced the new model—in place before his hire—would work. “It’s the people,” Jackson says. “And I think it’s a collaborative effort. I know we talk about analytics, but analytics doesn’t drive everything we do. … We’re all in this together, and I think we believe in each other’s experiences, and I think we all know what we bring to the table. We’re just finding other processes to do things better. And that’s it.”

Don't laugh: Browns won't be disaster this season
Charles Robinson,Charles Robinson Sun, Aug 7 8:29 AM PDT


BEREA, Ohio – In many NFL management turnovers, there is a concerted effort by new staffs to put distance between a team and a previous malaise of failure. Coaching staffs are gutted. Front offices are burned to the ground. Rosters are torn open at the seams. Some franchises even redraw the lines in the parking lot, a sort of desperate Feng shui to instigate change in every last inch of real estate.

The Cleveland Browns have been there. Repeatedly. And if they’re inclined to listen, someone will remind them every day.

“People are going to say a lot of things,” Browns head coach Hue Jackson said. “I tell my coaches and players, be careful what you let go into your ears. Because that doesn’t mean that’s what you’re going to be. This is going to be whatever you decide it’s going to be.”

So what is this going to be? The Browns are still figuring that out. But Jackson has part of the answer right now, starting with the lowest of bars. This won’t be a disaster. It won’t be the train wreck that some have predicted, suggesting this roster and coaching staff and front office are destined for another merciless season. At the very least, Jackson is standing up against the cruelest kind of punditry.


“I’ve heard all the different things said, that maybe we’ll only win one game or maybe we’ll win no games,” Jackson said. “I hate when that’s said, because that says that Joe Thomas is not a good player. It says Joe Haden’s not a good player. It says [Gary] Barnidge is not a good player. … There are some good players here. The cupboard’s not bare. It’s probably not full, but there are players here.”

There is a lot of this season wrapped up in the belief that there are some players on the Browns’ roster. Even in the most optimistic quarters, it would be a stretch to imagine this being a franchise that flips a one-season switch and suddenly becomes playoff-worthy. But there are still other victories to be had, and Jackson and the Browns’ brain trust are already sensing them within their grasp.

More than anything, that’s what 2016 is about for this staff. Finding some cornerstones on a roster filled with youth. Instilling a sense of conviction and accountability that may not have been supported on previous staffs or in past football decisions. And maybe more than anything, getting the fan base to rebuy into the build with actions rather than promises or slogans.

“I wish we had the exact right answer,” head of football operations Sashi Brown said of his benchmarks for progress. “The first thing is accountability. I mean that a couple different ways. When we’re out here practicing, are we getting better every day? Are we competing every day? You’re seeing that. But until you see it on the field …”

Brown didn’t need to finish that sentence. Everyone who has pumped emotion into this franchise has the remainder of that thought seared into them.

That kind of wariness is fair. It has been constructed over several decades of failure. And in some ways, the reticence is invited. In truth, there is some conflict and risk within the early stages of this build. There are some leaps of trust. The Browns are preaching self-accountability and change, yet they brought in quarterback Robert Griffin, who was criticized (fairly or not) as being one of the least accountable players on the Washington Redskins’ roster in recent years. He was officially named the starting quarterback on Monday.

This regime also extended another chance to wideout Josh Gordon, who hasn’t played since 2014 – by virtue of suspensions that would seem to spell out a lack of personal accountability.

The Browns are expected to lean heavily on these two players in the rebuild, which says something about the fine line being walked in Cleveland. It straddles the concepts of total culture change and hopeful rehabilitation. Maybe no player epitomizes that more than Gordon, who has deep roots in the past failures of this team but who also can be a major part of the pivot point that leads to an ascent. From the outside looking in, the world sees suspensions and mistakes. Brown and the front office know this.

“And him hanging out with Johnny [Manziel], all that stuff, right?” Brown says. “You take it all into account. We had that discussion. I can’t just walk him back in [without that in mind].

“Part of [the decision to keep Gordon] was – it was the same way with Robert [Griffin]. From the outside, you looked at the Washington situation and why would you touch him? But you sit down and you talk to him. At the same time, is there risk? Absolutely. …

“We’ve got to be an environment we think [Gordon] can be successful in. He’s got to be a guy who we feel like can do it and is seriously committed to doing it. If you don’t feel that, he wouldn’t have been here. Is it necessarily the case yet? No. I think he’s realistic. He knows he’s got to prove it. We’re realistic about it. He’s not a knucklehead. He’s obviously extremely talented, too. I wouldn’t tell you we’d be doing this for the 90th guy on the roster.”


The talent matters in Gordon’s case. But he also has no shortage of allies in the locker room and upper reaches of the franchise, and that weighed heavily on the decision to retain a player who has come to represent a lot of past frustrations. Maybe even moreso than Manziel, Gordon is a player who has taken teammates to the end of their patience because they gravitate to his personality and loyalty. Oddly enough, nobody knows that better than Griffin, the former University of Baylor teammate who has been through his own brand of locker room turmoil.

“To be quite frank, if [Josh] was an [expletive], he wouldn’t be here,” Griffin said. “And he’s not. That’s not who he is. I for one pray that he can show people his real colors and who he really is. I think that’s what he’s out to do. He’s still going to go out and try to be the best football player he can, but I think he wants to show people he’s a good person, too.”

From all accounts, Gordon was a very long and detailed topic of discussion internally. So was Griffin. Indeed, the front office and coaching staff have done a significant amount of collaborative think-tanking on almost every consequential player on the roster. In a way, keeping any single veteran player was approached in a manner similar to drafting promising wideout Corey Coleman. With questions about long-term fit, short-term risk and reward and thought given to how the player would function in a changing culture.

Between Jackson and his staff and a front office that includes many weighing in – including Brown and chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta – the Browns have pushed to understand how each player fits on an individual basis. Some are written into the long-term plans. Others are not. The roster turnover the next two offseasons will reveal that. Still others, including guys like Gordon and Griffin, are in the midst of writing their roles going forward.

Jackson is right. The cupboard in Cleveland is not bare. It’s also not full. But it’s also not as bad as it has been made out to be. The focus now is finding pieces that can grow and be accentuated by a haul of 10 picks in the 2017 NFL draft. Not that Jackson is accepting the insults and predictions that 2016 is already destined to be a complete failure.

“I’m not going to tell you that kind of talk didn’t sting me,” Jackson said. “It did. But if anything, it motivates me to get it right. Moreso than anything. We don’t want to be the laughingstock of anything. We want to be the best at what we do. I didn’t come here to lose. I came here to win.”

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/dont-laugh-browns-wont-disaster-000000475.html