Around the NFL: New Hall of Famer Wolf reflects on Browns fiasco
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ASSOCIATED PRESSCleveland Browns President Mike Holmgren (right)
watches the Browns practice alongside former Green Bay Packers
general manager Ron Wolf at NFL football training camp in Berea
during August 2011.
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Steve Doerschuk
CantonRep.com sports writer
Posted Jul. 4, 2015 at 9:07 PM
Randy Lerner’s greatest frustration as owner of the Browns was
thinking he had tried everything and everyone.
The only thing left was to sell the team to Jimmy Haslam.
Pro Football Hall of Famer-elect Ron Wolf played a fascinating
cameo in the story. It ties to Butch Davis’ fateful 2004 decision
not to draft Ben Roethlisberger. It speaks to a wrong turn that
steered the franchise off a cliff.
Lerner worked through the initial shock, at age 40, of inheriting
the Browns from his father, who died during the 2002 season. The
Browns went on to reach the ’02 playoffs but collapsed in 2003.
Davis had been recruited by Al Lerner in 2001, agreeing to terms
that basically made him head coach and general manager. Davis’
first three first-round picks, Gerard Warren in 2001, William
Green in 2002, and Jeff Faine in 2003, did the franchise little
good.
Carmen Policy had been Al’s man, not Randy’s. Randy began to
question whether he could work with Policy as fans clamored for
something to happen. Policy’s wheels got to turning as he entered
his sixth year as president of the expansion Browns.
In 1999, Policy tried to hire coach Mike Holmgren away from Green
Bay, where Wolf was the general manager. Wolf, who had hired
Holmgren in 1992, joined the Browns in 2004, three years after
retiring from the Packers.
“I had a hell of a deal,” Wolf says now. “I would come in and
spend a certain amount of time and that was it.”
That was 11 years ago, when Wolf still was fully engaged in a
scouting mindset. Even now, according to Ron’s son Eliot (player
personnel director of the current Packers), it annoys Ron that he
no longer knows something about every player in the league.
For the sake of Browns fans who still are waiting for a playoff
season 11 years later, it is too bad nothing came of Wolf’s
expertise.
It began with a lot of happy talk.
“Ron Wolf’s vast experiences and numerable accomplishments have
resulted in a sterling reputation that has few equals in the
NFL,” Policy said at the time. “He was the architect of some
outstanding Packer teams and was the one most responsible for
returning that storied franchise to greatness.
“Butch Davis and Ron have had a professional relationship for
quite some time, and Randy Lerner and I are thrilled this
relationship now continues with the Browns.”
In a Jan. 29, 2004, statement introducing Wolf as a “personnel
specialist,” Wolf said:
“I am really excited to be able to work with the Cleveland
Browns. I have a lot of respect for Carmen Policy and Butch
Davis.
Page 2 of 4 - “Although I shall not be at their facility on a
regular basis, I am confident that I can assist them in the ways
they ask. I have always admired the Browns organization from afar
and have considered the Browns to be a storied franchise in much
the same way as the Green Bay Packers.
“I believe they have a bright future, and I am ready to get
started in this new role.”
Davis appeared to approve the move, saying, “I have known Ron for
many years and have a healthy respect for his knowledge and
football insight. I have invited Ron to visit us several times
over the past three seasons, and every conversation with him is
both enlightening and informative. We look forward to Ron’s input
and opinions.”
Wolf barely made it through the 2004 Combine before his time with
the Browns ended.
“I was there maybe 21⁄2 weeks,” Wolf says now. “Butch Davis got a
bee up wherever one gets a bee up. He wasn’t too happy with me
being there ... so I left.”
Wolf saw himself as an independent consultant who would
investigate and report on his own terms.
“Pretty soon it mushroomed,” he says now. “Butch is asking,
‘Well, did you check with me?’ And that wasn’t the deal.
“And Butch just said, ‘The heck with this,’ and I could see it,
because he’s there 24-7, and I was going to be there 20 days a
year.”
Wolf was with the Browns long enough to write a scouting report
on 2004 draft prospect Ben Roethlisberger.
“The only thing that disappointed me about Roethlisberger was
that he didn’t have a very good game against Iowa,” Wolf recalls.
“But that was the first game of (Miami of Ohio’s) 2003 season. He
did some good work in other games.”
Wolf declined to share his final conclusion on the Roethlisberger
of 2004. Wolf had been out of the Browns’ 2004 picture for more
than two weeks when Davis brought in ex-49er Jeff Garcia as a
free agent.
In April, Roethlisberger’s college coaches were convinced the
Browns would take Roethisberger at No. 7 overall. Instead, Davis
traded up from No. 7 to No. 6 so he could have Miami of Florida
tight end Kellen Winslow Jr.
Winslow suffered a season-ending injury Sept. 19 at Dallas.
Garcia got the Browns to 3-3 before things fell apart. A 58-48
loss at Cincinnati, with Kelly Holcomb at quarterback, sank the
Browns to 3-8, on the way to 4-12.
The Garcia experiment was over and Holcomb was hurt when Davis
resigned with five games left in the season. Rookie Luke McCown —
Josh McCown’s little brother — took over at quarterback
Page 3 of 4 - Lerner still had a franchise to run. He seemed
sincere about doing all he could to honor the memory of his
father by giving Cleveland a winner.
Lerner hired Romeo Crennel, who posted records of 6-10, 4-12 and
4-12. Lerner threw up his hands. Crennel had won three Super
Bowls in four years as a defensive coordinator. Who was he
supposed to have hired? Nick Saban, maybe? Saban (Dolphins), Mike
Nolan (49ers) and Crennel had been the only head coaching hires
in 2005.
Lerner went big-name hunting. He flew to New York to talk Bill
Cowher into coaching the Browns in 2009. He received a firm no.
He went with Plan B, Eric Mangini, who made the call on a new
general manager, George Kokinis. After a 1-7 start,
Lerner threw up his arms again, firing Kokinis, putting Mangini
on notice, and resuming the big-name hunt.
In a 2010 conversation with The Repository, Lerner explained what
led him to hiring Mike Holmgren as president of the Browns:
“The most-impactful conversation that I had was with Ron Wolf.
There were others,
certainly. There were people in football, some writers that I
spoke to, one in particular. But the one I would probably
identify would be the Ron Wolf visit in Green Bay.
“He looked me right in the eye and said, ‘Randy, listen, the best
guy to come in and deal with the Cleveland Browns, lead the
Cleveland Browns, turn the Cleveland Browns around, is Mike
Holmgren ... if you can get him.’ ”
In a 2015 conversation with The Repository at the Hall of Fame,
Wolf confirmed that he advised Lerner to chase Holmgren.
In the 2010 interview, Lerner went on to say:
“(Wolf’s recommendation) led to a series of visits. One was with
Mike and his wife in his home in Arizona. After let’s say an hour
and a half listening ... I understood very quickly that I was not
interviewing Mike Holmgren. I was recruiting Mike Holmgren.
“It was very clear in my mind that he was coveted by some other
organizations, and that I needed to put the best foot forward
that I could for Cleveland, for the Browns. I felt very strongly
that I could at least try to persuade him that the Browns
represented a team that is in a city that in some ways could
resemble, for
example, Green Bay, and that it is a city that would embrace him,
take to his style, and would give him what he needs.”
Lerner courted Holmgren as the 2009 season ended and officially
hired him Jan. 5, 2010.
The Browns went 5-11 in a second year under Mangini and 4-12
under Holmgren’s next head coach, Pat Shurmur. Haslam bought the
team in the summer of 2012, and Holmgren cleaned out his office
before Shurmur got through his second season at 5-11.
Page 4 of 4 - Haslam then fired Shurmur and successor Rob
Chudzinski in less than one calendar year.
Why did the Holmgren hire, at first universally lauded, backfire?
“It didn’t work,” Wolf told The Repository. “I don’t know the
reason why it didn’t.
“They tried to bring a quarterback in. They brought (Colt) McCoy
in, and it didn’t work. They brought (Brandon) Weeden in, and it
didn’t work.”
Wolf hired Holmgren as head coach in Green Bay in 1992, and with
Brett Favre at quarterback enjoyed an 84-42 run. It included six
trips to the playoffs before Holmgren left for Seattle in 1999.
McCoy was a mere Round 3 pick in 2010, but Weeden cost a Round 1
pick in 2012.
“I was shocked when they brought Weeden in,” Wolf said, “only
because, from being around Mike, his first thing about a
quarterback was feet.
“It was the first thing Mike talked about ... feet. That guy had
no feet.”
Wolf recalls bumping into broadcaster Chris Rose shortly after
Holmgren became president of the Browns. “Chris is a huge Browns
fan,” Wolf said. “He asked me, ‘Is Holmgren the guy?’ And I said,
‘You’d better believe it.’
“I talked to Chris a couple years later and told him, ‘Boy, I was
really wrong there. And I don’t know why.’ ”
Holmgren believed things were about to turn for the Browns the
year Haslam bought the team.
“I asked Jimmy, ‘Why don’t you let us stay?’ ” Holmgren said in a
2014 interview with a Seattle radio station.
Holmgren’s appetite and ability to remain ended as Haslam
embraced and eventually hired Joe Banner. Might Holmgren have
been right about making it work if he had been able to talk
things through with Haslam?
“That’s a very interesting question,” Wolf said. “I don’t know.”
Of this Wolf is certain:
“To me, the No. 1 tenet in the game is, you’ve got to have a
quarterback. If you don’t have a quarterback, then you can’t
play.
“They didn’t get that guy.”
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