DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Mary Kay Cabot's Jimmy Haslam Interview

I disagree with Pluto...talk SEC all you want.....talk winning, championship football every day, every time.


I'd love for the Browns to be the SEC of the NFL, and as much as some might not like to say it, so would they.



Get over it.

I thought Pluto's article came across as pretty whinny. I mean it was that time of the month type whinny.

I'd just like to say that I'm a younger guy in my mid 20's and I love the Brownie! It's not just the older guys. He's just got that confident yet mischievous look in his eyes!

I don't care what Haslam does about the uniforms, as long as he keeps the colors and helmets the same. I was never a fan of the orange jerseys (maybe if the jersey's orange actually matched the helmet), but with Jim being a Vols fan, I can definitely see them coming back in the future. I actually liked the white jerseys and orange pants best of all.

He talks big. Really reminds me of Jerry Jones..

That scares me. I want him to be involved, but not like that. He hurts his team more than helps IMHO.

Training camp daily: Jim donovan interviewing Haslem. Haslem was talking about having a conversation with his dad and he told his dad Thursday night, I am having dinner with Mike Holmgren and then friday morning we are going to watch training camp and he asked his dad if he would like to join him to watch training camp.

His dad responded with Hell NO!! I want to have dinner with Mike Holmgren.

That story gave me a lot of confidence that maybe we have an owner that will give this a shot before trying to tear it up.

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I actually liked the white jerseys and orange pants best of all.

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Me too.

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His dad responded with Hell NO!! I want to have dinner with Mike Holmgren.

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mourg...I like that, especially coming from the elderly Haslam.

Maybe the claims of Holmgren's head rolling at the hands of Haslam and Joe Banner have been greatly exaggerated by a hate filled Cleveland media, forever looking for someone to blame.

I agree..

He seems like he has a ton of respect for Holmgren too. He mentioned him several times during his presser, which makes me think along the same lines as you.

His role may change, but he will probably still be a part of this organization... that is if he wants to. Remember some have questioned Holmgren's passion to be here.

My biggest concern though is with Heckert and the coaches.. I want them to all stay in place.. Holmgren I really don't care.

Just saw the presser. Dayumm, he's the antiLerner.

I like having Holmgren as a buffer between the football side and the financial side. Heckert wants this to be a place to keep your own and build that long term continuity. He believes it isn't about accumulating the most talent but building the best team and it is why certain key players like Rogers and Hillis were allowed to walk and why he goes out of his way to secure players that he sees as core types.

Now Banner is the penny pincher and if there was any conflict between he and Heckert that is where it would have come from. Players in Philly hated the way they had to go to war with Banner to get a new contract. Banner is one of the guys that helped write up the new CBA. He is all business.

Holmgren's strength has always been building a cohesive unit on the field and within his coaching staff. He put that same effort and mentality into building the scouting department. He can help hold it together and he may have been integral in holding the team together last year when the offense was playing the worst football I have seen since maybe the Bucs of the early 80s.

The marketing and all the business end could use banner as the Browns are wide open now for change in all areas of marketing and he is really good at bringing in every dollar he can.

With Banner coming in, he will be really busy selling advertising space all over CBS and selling naming rights to the stadium. Hell by the time joe Banner is done, our new logo may be a Jack Daniels lable lol.

My first thought is too chuckle a bit and recall how a good number of us pilloried Lerner for his ineptitude or at the very least his lackadaisical attitude now we won't have that anymore . . . we'll have to remember these days with fondness.

My overriding thought is this may be the start of some really good things. I am intrigued about this guy and the more I read about him the more I like. Such as he is the brother to Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam. He comes from a pretty successful family and I think that speaks volumes in and of itself.

His best friend and college roommate is Sen. Bob Corker. He's made it a habit of being around the right people.

As I said before, I doubt much changes this year. Haslam isn't the type of person to come in and make changes without a clear understanding of what needs to be changed and forming a plan on how it will be changed. He can't do that in a few short meetings.

Lerner was pretty good at bringing in quality people himself, so who knows, much of the front office may remain the same. Things may operate differently, but the people don't have to change as long as they can go with the flow.

My guess is Weidmeyer is going to have to sell his position to Haslam, and I would guess the legal guys are probably going to change. Those are two areas i see changing.

Holmgren...we'll see...I'd say he probably retires. Heck and Shurmer, Haslam referred to results are the bottom line. I think both of those guys can stick if we have a decent season that shows promise. If we stumble to 4-5 wins and lose the last 4, both of those guys are gone, and they should be. We can say we like the direction, but as Haslam said, it's a bottom line business. At what point do you start showing signs of improving rather than simply spinning your wheels??

Browns fans should be 'fired up to the max' for Jimmy Haslam, the right man for the job
By Will Brinson

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/blog/eye-on...-for-the-job#sf




Good luck finding a city that's been more cursed when it comes to professional sports recently than Cleveland. It's been 48 years since Cleveland's last professional sports championship and even that trophy (from the 1964 NFL Championship Game) relocated to Baltimore with the original Browns. Fortunately for fans in the area, new Browns owner Jimmy Haslam is here to save the day, and if he walks the walk the same way he talks the talk, he might actually be able to turn around one of the world's most moribund franchises.

Haslam, born and raised in Knoxville, is a slick-talking Southerner with a clear-cut acumen for business and a good sense of humor who wowed the assembled media in Cleveland and made for (at least in the preseason) must-watch TV. Right off the bat, Haslam promised not to move the Browns and said he was "fired up to the max" to be a part of Cleveland's NFL franchise.

"I know there's some people who think maybe we might want to move the team out of Cleveland and I can assure you there is zero chance of that happening. Just a little history: we've had a relationship with that other team down the road that wears black-and-gold that we used to be 1000 percent for but aren't anymore," Haslam joked about his involvement as an owner of the Steelers. "And when we got involved with that other team, we let the owners of that other team know, and we let the league know, that if we ever had a chance to become the majority owners of another team we would have interest. They called us in May and they said it looks like a team may become available. And in late June when they told us it was the Cleveland Browns, we were fired up to the max because we've had the opportunity to see how important football is to this community and how great and how passionate these fans are."


That's a big old pile of words off the bat, and it wasn't even an answer to a question, that's just how he came out firing. And though he's a high-energy guy who's clearly going to make some big changes -- many of them which CBSSports.com's Jason La Canfora discussed recently -- in order to try and turn the franchise around, he's also savvy enough kicking a hornet's nest as he transitions into his ownership role.

It's believed that the other NFL owners will vote to approve Haslam's purchase in October and there will be plenty of questions about whether or not Mike Holmgren and Tom Heckert will keep their jobs past 2012. But Haslam made it clear he wouldn't answer those questions now and did it in a polite, firm and genuine manner. He also made it clear that he'd be "involved" with football decisions, but that he was going to take a slow approach to getting really hands-on, but that his primary goal would be promoting his new investment.

"Someone at lunch asked me about being hands-on because we run our main business pretty hands-on and I looked over at Mike [Holmgren] and said, 'Mike probably doesn't really want us to be hands-on.' But I think our style is going to be involved," Haslam said. "I think you'll find that we're open and transparent. Having a brother and a very close friend that high rolls in politics, rightly or wrongly we're use to the scrutiny of the public eye and I think you'll find us to be pretty available and transparent people.

"I'll be honest, we're going to be out there selling the Cleveland Browns all the time."

This is precisely what Cleveland needs. Dan Gilbert's done good things with the Cavaliers, but in terms of the way he's handled some things (like, oh, the departure of LeBron James to Miami) has been disastrous. It's clear that Haslam won't be tripping over his own feet en route to trying to bring the Browns back, even if he's trying to make some bigger changes to the franchise.

New uniforms and other cosmetic changes weren't ruled out by Haslam at his press conference, and maybe that's something that could scare Browns fans who are entrenched in the Browns current overall design. It shouldn't. Change is scary, but change can be good, especially when the status quo is so depressing. Besides, Haslam correctly pointed out that "culture" isn't defined by a logo, mascot, uniform or any other material item that's associated with a football team.

"I would maybe define 'culture' a little different than that," Haslam said when asked about a facelift for the team. "Culture is a little different than uniforms and naming rights. Culture is about how you come to work every day and conduct yourselves.

"We changed our logo and our designs of our stores multiple times over the years. But the basic culture and core beliefs stay the same."

Changes to uniform that represent a Super Bowl-less franchises or additional revenue coming into the team, for future reinvestment, vis-a-vis a corporate name for the Browns stadium? These are all good things, Cleveland. There will be people who don't like what Haslam does. Those people are stubborn, obstinate and will probably miss a decent bandwagon rolling by them because their heads are stuck in the ground.

Haslam being a friendly guy with football ties and a clear ability to grow and manage a major business don't make him a sure thing. Nothing's a sure thing in the NFL, though.

"We're going to ask a lot of questions and learn it first and I'm a believer of collective wisdom and if you have five smart people sitting around the table it's better than four," "But we're going to take some time to get up to speed before we get real involved in football decisions. It probably comes quicker on the business side."

That's the takeaway from Haslam's presser: there's going to be change in Cleveland, but the guy making those changes isn't doing it for anything other than the express purpose of bringing quality football back to Cleveland. And if Haslam's to be believed, he'll take a prudent and patient approach, combine it with an energetic and "involved" business-like attitude and do everything in his power to end Cleveland's status as the laughingstock of the professional sports world.

Which should have Browns fans fired up to the max.

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That's the takeaway from Haslam's presser: there's going to be change in Cleveland, but the guy making those changes isn't doing it for anything other than the express purpose of bringing quality football back to Cleveland.

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How is changing a logo or uniform going to help bring quality football back to Cleveland?
Leave that tradition alone. Wins and losses come on the shoulders of talent. Not the jersey design.

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Good luck finding a city that's been more cursed when it comes to professional sports recently than Cleveland. It's been 48 years since Cleveland's last professional sports championship and even that trophy (from the 1964 NFL Championship Game) relocated to Baltimore with the original Browns.

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Is he sure about that. I thought all the colors and history were still right here in Cleveland. I'd like verification of that trophy being anywhere but here,

I will probably catch heat for this but I am glad Lerner is gone. He was part of the problem. The franchise was a complete disgraceful joke under his watch.

You won't catch heat from me. He was the only consistent piece to the puzzle over the years.

I would like the bulldog with a football in its mouth or how about an evil looking werewolf wearing a browns uniform. If only I had some artistic talent lol.

How about a portrait of Damanshot?

Brownies are much closer to being faries than elves.

That would explain thier record for the past 12 years.

The thing is merchandise sales is shared revenue. I don't think that is under team domain.



Well, kind of sort of...I found this in a article...I am not going to link a sentence.

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All of the revenue from sales on NFLShop.com is shared equally among the league's 32 teams, but the Saints do get to keep the revenue from merchandise sold in their own stores and online sites.

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Could be why the league was pushing for the sale to happen so quickly.

I thought it looked like Daman and Otis waiting for Barney to let them out of the cell.

I still can only think of 2 possibilities if they do go with a logo on the helmet ...... those being a "Browns" lettering logo, or a football player silhouette. I would think that the Browns name would be most likely. I am NOT saying that I want anything on the helmet, nor do I necessarily think that there will be ...... but if they do change the helmets, those are the possibilities I can see as realistic.

I do believe that we will see an "updated" and "modernized" uniform as part of the overall image of the Browns. Frankly though, I am past caring about any of this stuff. I don't care about cheerleaders either. I care about winning, and anything that helps get us there is good in my eyes.

I also do believe that there is a psychological aspect to changing uniforms, especially when you have a young up and coming team. It says "We're not that same team that was losing for over a decade. We're a new, successful, and exciting team." Anything that gives us an advantage is good by me.

I finally got to watch Haslam's presser this morning...As of now I liked what I heard...He's also doing his best to say what he needs to in order to keep things cool and calm..

It's obvious he doesn't want to cause any major distractions to the team..It was a quick deal between Randy and Jim..Which was good to get it done...and move on concentrating on the team to practice and learn to go out and win more games.

What his intentions are may not be revealed to quickly... Waiting for the league meeting in order to finalize the purchase of the team from Lerner.... Seems he will evaluate the team as the season progresses..Doesn't appear to be the type to make haste less decisions..

The last thing he knows he can't do is put this team..media..and fans in a state of panic...this early... Seems like a wise man and honest one.I look forward to moving on with this ownership..

As far as the talk of a helmet logo...I wouldn't mind seeing the Pee guy doing his thing on the logo's of the Squeelers..Ratbirds and Bungholes...