DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Browns' Mess Starts with Haslem

I can appreciate his passion and wanting to win, but he seriously just needs to back the hell off and let Farmer and Pettine do their jobs. I'm so utterly sick of week after week reading about negative things happening in Cleveland. This franchise is such a joke right now.

Could be worse, bugs! I'm a Maple Leaf fan...

Ahh, it was Texas, not No Logo LOL got that wrong..

I think a lot of people on this board are happy today.

A lot of people feel vindicated. I guess when the Browns don't give you much to feel good about, you'll take it wherever you can get it.

I hope the new guys - whether this year or next - will be to your liking.

For their sake, I hope by some magic, there is a QB here when they get here.

A lot of this, if not all, has been said before. Rehashing old stuff, aah the off season.

He's not a very good writer. The article went all over the place and he had inconsistencies (see example below), Pettine seems to be an issue with the FO (example also below), which is news, and it is awful "woe is me", you'd think he was a fan.

First:
The coach's handpicked quarterback, Johnny Manziel,

Then:
It became clear that the front office wanted Manziel -- the owner's boy

Then:
Pettine was largely a non-factor in the quarterback-drafting decision


And it seems Pettine is a problem if all of our leadership doesn't get along with him:

First: with friction growing between Farmer and rookie head coach Mike Pettine

Then: There's tension between Alec and Pettine

Face of the Franchise is . . . ?

"Hello? Rehab center? I'm consistently making myself look like a 'jackass', can you help?"

I can't speak for anyone else but I had a feeling our troubles ran deeper than "Shanny just didn't want to be here". I'm certainly not happy about that. As long as dysfunction exists, no Browns fan will truly be happy. Only seeing this team having success can make any of us happy.



I don't really care about all of that. As long as they function well as a unit and are successful building a team here, I will like them just fine.

Just like with the current group, they really didn't have a resume' with which to draw an opinion on. So I let their work and resume' build an opinion. I base my opinion on what they have done while they're here.

As such, I watched a strong draft class last year and both 1st round picks being blown. Now people can say what they will, but you can't look at the very best and top rated talent in the draft and blow those picks.

I've watched this regime talk tough about accountability while hanging onto a player that's been suspended for three seasons in a row. I've seen the GM now being investigated because he either doesn't know the rules or purposefully broke the rules. Neither of which is flattering.

I see our first round QB pick in rehab. Now if you honestly believe any of that makes me happy, you are most certainly 100% wrong about that.



I hope for their sake when they decide to commit to a QB, they do their homework and don't choose to invest in a head case with a huge learning curve. It's not like they didn't have legitimate choices, they just chose foolishly.

This is a huge mess we're in right now. I guess I could blame the fan base for it, but I would find that slightly misguided.

No it wasn't.... muight want to get your facts straight

Yup that's what happens when a rookie owner hires rookies.

I found that to be a major concern as well. Not that you can't have a rookie in the coaching staff or FO. It's when you depend on so many of them to become great at their respective jobs at the same time your odds go downhill quickly.

Just like on the team itself, you need veteran leadership on the field. Of course you can play rookies and younger players, but you have to have that veteran presence on the field as well.

I saw that very lacking in the upper management and coaching staff with the exception of Shanahan. And even he was a young man.

Going into next season, it seems like much the same story here.

The only problem I see is that Farmer is Pettines boss, not the other way around.

I don't know Tab, I saw a lot of people who believed it was the story of how some underlings were texting each other rather than Farmer texting the sidelines. Now all of a sudden they had a good idea all along. Seems like a change of heart to me.

Alec Scheiner, the team president who grew in power and influence a year ago after Banner and Lombardi were shown the door after just one season together, has become a divisive figure in the organization as well, gaining an increasing voice in personnel matters, well beyond just analytics. At 6 a.m. every Monday, Pettine is joined by Farmer and Scheiner to watch film, with the division between ownership and day-to-day coaching decisions becoming increasingly blurred.

That's a very blurred line that varies from organization to organization.

In successful organizations, they tend to be on the same page and working in unison, so matters of rank aren't really applied.

What cracks me up is that if we had won 10 instead of seven all the same could have happened and it would be like "The Browns front office has pulled together despite great adversity and really turned the franchise around!"... How close were we in so many games that we lost?

These guys are all in OJT and I think Haslam is going to the school of hard knocks right now. If he keeps the staff together I still think we're headed the right direction.

The dysfunction of our organization isn't narrated by the bouncing ball of victory or defeat.

In today's modern NFL, it doesn't take long for garbage to stink.

Even when the Redskins were winning and RG3 was tearing it up, people were talking about how dysfunctional the organization was.

There's a luck that involves the narrative of a team's success or failure, but there's a lot less luck when it comes to organized and focused teams with good management being consistently successful, and dysfunctional ones that get a lucky spell before the wheels come off.

I honestly believe this year was a window of luck that was squandered. I expect regression.

Sadly I am about there too.

Still I hope for a couple other "R's" Realization, Response and Resolution.

Though I do have a tendency to be singularly focused and my loyalty is at times misgiven because of it., (a nice way to say I'm hardheaded)

Interesting reading.

I just love all the people who have been defending the FO create new excuses for them.

Whatever guys..........

We will be great under this regime. All you gotta do is think positively.

Last year, all I read on here was the outrage about The Three Stooges. YTown even had it in his sig. Now, this year..........those same people are strangely quiet.........and this mess is WAY FREAKING WORSE!

I talked to him last week on the phone. He's doing good, taking a break from the board for a while. He'll be back.

In the Browns organization, they are parallel positions, with each reporting directly to the owner.

Yep, I did have that in my signature. Just because this group has had problems of their own does not make the last guys any better.

I am waiting to see how this mess washes out.

Are you sincerely trying to argue that there isn't a widespread and vocal denouncement of the current regime on this board?

Can we dig up Al Davis and have him run the team? I think he can give us the stability we need.

What will it take for fans to Quit spending their money. Millions BTW, going to games, jersey sales etc. The last Jersey I bought was a Tim Couch. I'm still waiting like everyone else but I am waiting for this team to put a decent product on the field. Sheesh this fan base is sooo starved that they thought Hoyer was a savior. Give me a break. He played well until defenses figured him out & he got fatigued. Watch another team guys & see what a pro team is suppose to look like before you accept mediocrity for great. Now the FO is imploding again, we shall see, but so far I have not been impressed for over 10 years now. Hopeful. But not impressed. Not spending my money on it either.

At this point I'll take the ghost of Art Modell possessing Haslam.

My apologies, I was mistaken when I thought it was you, it really was NO Logo.. Anyway, what I was saying was not about the first to belittle the Browns, it was about the La Confora/Lombardi thing..

Thanks

Clearly you feel vindicated. but the truth is, nothing that is in the news today is changing my feeling about how things went down last year. I still think that Haslam, Banner and Lombardi acted like the three stooges last year. Nothing has happened to make me change my mind on that.

that's not to say that the new and improved version of that is any better.

Haslam is still in place but with Alec Schiener (sp) and Ray Famer in the roles formerly occupied by Banner and Lombardi.

It appears that the problems seem to stem either from Haslam or Schiener or Farmer. (not sure you read the La Confora article where Schiener is in the cross hairs as well)

At least we have one piece in place that I have faith in, thats Pettine.

You can't fire the owner.. that's a fact. There is Nothing that complaining about Haslam will do except make you feel better inside.. Have at it.

As for Farmer and Schiener, I just don't know what's going to happen with them.

If and when the total truth comes out (and it may have already) then well see.

If Farmer really did the texting he's accused of, I really hope that he gets taken to task either by the league or the owner. either one is fine with me. Just don't let him get away with it.

And the things being said about Schiener makes me wonder if he isn't more of a problem then a benefit.

in the end, all the problems of today do not change what the Three stooges did last year.

Little did we realize the gift that Modell was giving us. The perfect opportunity to change allegiances without criticism. When the Browns became the Ravens we could have started rooting for any team in the league that we wanted. No feeling like we gave up on our team, no hearing you are front runner just wanting to cheer for the winner. We hadn't given up on our team they gave up on us.

A perfect opportunity to rid ourselves of the constant rain of torment this team is drowning us in.

I have been considering it anyway.

I wanna hear what Haslam has to say about the mess the team appears to be in.

The bottom line is this:

We should have kept Joe Banner here.

Lets rewind to 2006. We had a President by the name of John Collins who was appointed to the Browns by the NFL front office to help JR. After hiring Savage and Romeo, a few months later, Collins saw that Savage was not only not qualified to have that job, but an outright idiot who was going to waste cap money on nonsense.

So a big power struggle ensues between Savage and Collins, by Rights Collins being the President should have had rights to fire him right then and their, instead the fans side with "The football people" claiming "we can't have a suit runnign the show" So Collins is forced out.

the result...well they speak form themselves..Savage was a moron that had no business being a GM, Collins tried to save us from that nonsense, but we wouldn't listen to him.

Next, we Have Joe Banner, He brings in Chud and a very experienced Norv Turner, for the 1st time in this franchises history we have a coaching staff and coordinators the entire team has bought into. We have the 7th ranked D in league, our O did well with Hoyer before he went down. Turner has brought some presence of clear direction and organization to this team, something that don't always get reflected in the win-loos column.

Banner understood that with the current situation concerning our roster,and talent available, it was going to take time to fix things.We are the equvalent of the 80's Bucaneers or the terrible Seahawk teams of the past.

Banner started with the Eagles in 1996 and didn't reach the NFC Conference game until 2001.Sure the Eagles made the playoffs sooner, but they had much more talent on their roster at that time. The Eagles first season under Andy Reid they went a big 5-11. The seeds were planted however.

Again, we repeat the same mistakes of the past, this time we fire Banner instead of Collins,

Banner understood it was going to take time, but the presence of Turner, Chud, and Horton was part of a longer term plan. Say what you want, the reason Banner left is because he didn't want to fire Chud, Turner, and Horton..why would he? Did he fire Reid after 1 year? It makes no sense for him to fire those guys after one year as it would make him look worse then those he was firing. It would reflect poorly on him.

So we have come full circle, twice now the Browns and the fans have agreed and allowed the only two people in the organization that know what the hell their are doing (Collins and Banner) to be pushed out or fired....and we expect any change? we actually expect to win?

right now, the Browns have no one in the building that has even the foggiest idea of what the hell they are doing, and we fired the only guy who did (Banner)

Farmer's draft and the texting nonsense shows how much of an incompetent moron he is, Pettine was the benefactor of circumstance, give Chud Hoyer for 12+ games last year and he has a better record due to us having a much better coached Defense.

I don't even want Haslam to open his face, Truckstop Jimmy needs to go crawl back under whatever hole he came from. His moronic decisions have set this team back big time....Banner would have built a foundation here that was competitive year after year just like Philly, instead we will be forced to eat more of the same crap sandwich...hope folks are ready to take a big bite come next season...

If JH is interfering he's wrong but the bottom line is he is not just the owner but a fan like all of us and he wants to see this team win. I would give most anything to see my Browns win a super bowl.

j/c:

Haslamity continues to haunt the Cleveland Browns

Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports came out with a damning article about the Cleveland Browns and specifically the role of their owner, Jimmy Haslam (found here). Yes, the same Jimmy Haslam that the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell handpicked to be the owner of the Browns; the least mentioned of his massive failures (Thank you Commissioner). The news of Haslam’s meddling and incompetence since he has taken ownership of the team should not be news to fans of the Browns, but La Canfora’s article has managed to spark an outrage that has been overdue for quite a while, even if the article comes off as a bit extreme.

Many of the issues that La Canfora brings up, he has actually been occasionally trotting out for a while now; specifically the idea that then President Joe Banner and general manager Mike Lombardi had a deal in place to send Josh Gordon to the San Francisco 49ers a trade, which Haslam stopped and then the selection of quarterback Johnny Manziel. It almost does not matter if the various anecdotes of Haslam’s meddling and incompetence are 100% true, because they are completely and totally believable. There is literally nothing along these lines that I would not believe Haslam could do.

Since Haslam took over the team, he immediately embarrassed himself, the region of Northeast Ohio and the NFL with the federal investigation surrounding Pilot Flying J, which he basically weaseled out of at the expense of weak deals and sacrificing of various employees. I would be hard pressed to believe to believe Haslam would not be found guilty by the jury of public opinion, who managed to get out of it because of his wealth and connections.

I absolutely believe Haslam demanded the front office take Johnny Manziel. Ray Farmer did an admirable job trying to jump on that grenade but I don’t buy it. While there are plenty in the draft media, who are either excusing their belief in Manziel or are currently Chad Ford-ing their rankings to move Manziel down, I do not believe the NFL saw Manziel as a 1st round pick. His only chance was that an owner bought into the hype and picked him anyway. Jerry Jones flirted with the idea but the Billy Carter to his Jimmy Carter style owner Jimmy Haslam bought it hook, line and sinker. Derek Carr and Teddy Bridgewater were better quarterbacks, period.

Plenty in the draft media totally fell for Manziel, but the local media and fans were just as guilty (for the sake of fairness, here is my evaluation of Manziel). Multiple media members in Northeast Ohio openly hoped for Manziel to end up in Cleveland, most hoping with the fourth pick of the draft, and some of them even openly hoped Haslam would step in and make an executive decision, which is exactly what he did. Those same people will now demonize Haslam, but he did exactly what they wanted and it was a terrible idea.

Manziel’s questions about potential substance abuse issues were there at Texas A&M and his parents expressed their concern. Now that it has actually happened, so many that were willing to ignore these issues at the time are now saying the team should have known. Well, that is true, but they ignored it as much as the team did. Manziel was still a ‘midget’ as described by Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis and he was still not faster than anyone in the NFL. He also was a redshirt sophomore that had no chance of being ready to play as a rookie. So many of the people that demanded Manziel play in place of the woefully bad Brian Hoyer were somehow surprised the rookie was ill prepared for the NFL. Some managed to brain wash themselves into believing he would come out and play at a high level.

I am fully expecting Haslam will continue to meddle with the show moves; namely first round picks and the selection of quarterbacks. Nothing about Haslam suggests he’s the type that will learn his lesson and suddenly get out of his own way. In fact, if La Canfora’s article is to bebelieved, Haslam is trying to do exactly what I would expect him to do; double down on his incompetence. The decision to pick Manziel set the franchise back two years, so it would be totally Haslam to give up the farm to pick another quarterback that is not prepared to play as a rookie in Marcus Mariota.

Haslam’s meddling is a huge problem and will continue to plague the Browns until he stops, but I expect his interest wanes as the draft progresses. I think from the second round to the end of the draft, Farmer and his scouting department get their opportunity to shine. This past year, they cashed in with Joel Bitonio who was an absolute stud as a rookie followed by Chris Kirksey, Terrance West and Pierre Desir. All of these players have either shown promise or are believed to have a good amount of promise going forward. I cannot imagine Haslam had much of anything to do with these players. Add in the undrafted free agents that were able to help the Browns and despite the absolute nothing the Browns got from the first round, the draft still looks relatively successful as unbelievable as that seems.

Farmer’s apparent texting to the coaching staff down on the field suggests a man that is being pushed around by the owner and either at the owner’s behest or his own desperate attempt to show some strength, tried to either impact play calling or which players were on the field. It is unbelievably irresponsible on Farmer’s part and he needs to own up to it, which I fully expect he will. Rather than trying to push on the coaching staff, he needs to use that and push back against the incompetent owner to stop making decisions that are crippling the football team. I can understand that Farmer wants to stay employed but if the success or failure of the team is going to hang over him, regardless of the owner’s involvement, he might as well do it his way now.

The idea that President Alec Scheiner is in there watching tape in the early AM is difficult to believe. Has it happened? Probably. Is it a regular occurrence? This seems dubious at best, considering the wide range of responsibilities that Scheiner has including, most notably, overseeing the construction of improvements of the stadium. Scheiner is a business and analytics man that was celebrated as a hire for his efforts on the business side of the Dallas Cowboys under Haslam’s hero, Jerry Jones. Like with Haslam, I could see Scheiner taking an interesting in the show picks, but I have an impossible time believing he was really a force pushing personnel decisions.

Kyle Shanahan is an excellent offensive coordinator. He did a great job in his one season guiding the Cleveland Browns offense, when it came to play calling. Flip DeFillipo has a difficult act to follow in that respect. Shanahan also appears to be an incredibly ambitious man, who is not afraid to step on people as he climbs up the ladder in the NFL world. The way he left Cleveland was unprofessional and frankly despicable. As good as he may have been as a play caller, there has to be a bit of skepticism when it comes to what he says because he always has an axe to grind.

I am not inclined to believe that things are as bad on the business side of the Cleveland Browns as La Canfora has laid them out, but they are plenty bad enough. And the perception that they are worse is probably good as it has been successful in getting a reaction from the local media and fans.

All of this negative press for the Browns comes on the heels of an announcement to increase ticket prices 30% for the Browns’ season ticket holders next season with one of the hollowest justifications one can find. Scheiner came out and delivered the half-truth that the Browns were raising ticket prices because the secondary market was making a killing when it came to profits. This is true. What makes it a complete crock is the fact that the Browns could easily take control of the secondary market if they really wanted. The Cleveland Cavaliers, for example, have already done it.

The Browns are going to hide behind this because they can demonize the secondary market and continue to use it as an excuse to raise prices. Much like NFL teams using Los Angeles as a boogeyman to get public funding and a sweetheart deal on a state of the art stadium, the Browns are scapegoating the secondary market to jack up prices without actually doing anything to warrant the move. It’s nothing short of a scam.

The idea that fans should stop rooting for the Browns is silly and frankly stupid. If people want to go that route, more power to them; that is their right. However, that does not mean that fans who stick around should keep forking over money to an organization that is not doing anything to earn it. The Browns have long used fan loyalty to squeeze money out of people that deserve better. Haslam is a buffoon that has every right to ruin his billion dollar toy, but fans have every right to stop giving him money to do it.

The hope is that La Canfora’s article can spark something that creates a lasting change for the positive, which is the real value in what he presented.

http://www.footballsavages.com/haslamity-continues-haunt-cleveland-browns/

I think Kyle did an okay job. I am not saying he was terrible.

However, we did have the 2nd worst QB rating in the NFL, a poor rushing attack once Mack went down, and it's not like the games we were losing were high scoring battles (and the defense even helped score some of our points like in the Indy game).

I see a case for Kyle doing an okay job based on the hand dealt, but I don't see how anyone can give him such effusive praise especially considering the year that ended his tenure in DC.

#31 in QB rating
#27 in pts/game
#28 in yards per carry (rushing)

Excellent?

HEy Memphis, that is a pretty decent opinion piece. I think this was the crusher right here...

I'm sorry, nothing against you Memphis at all - but when I see the author being Jason LaCanfora, I don't even bother. The man has gotta be one of the most bs'ful writer in the industry!