Cleveland Browns a fine Mess

Cleveland Browns – LOL.  The more things change the more they stay the same.   Everyone has heard that saying.  At least  a lot of people have.  This saying really applies to the Cleveland Browns.   Ever since they have come back from the grave.  They have been a mess.   I would equate what happened to the Cleveland Browns to what the NCAA did to SMU with the death penalty.   The Browns did not do anything wrong though.  They were just unfortunate enough to be stuck with Art Modell as an owner.  There were other factors that went into it.  The Cleveland Browns and the city of Cleveland did get the short end of the stick.  They have so far not been able to recover.

While I think that they handled the firing of Hue Jackson and Todd Haley pretty well.  They probably should not have been in this situation in the first place.    When they brought in a new GM after last season.  It was a strange choice to keep Hue Jackson as the coach.  He has just finished a two year campaign with a 1 – 31 record.   In two years he was able to coach the Cleveland Browns to one win.  One Win.  Not sure that any other coach would have kept his job with that record.   The other strange thing was bringing in Todd Haley.   He has always been a very vocal and very opinionated person.  There is nothing wrong with that.  The question was would he be able to work with Hue Jackson.    The answer was no.

The surprise in canning them both is that a lot of people thought that Haley was brought in to be the replacement for Jackson.  After a 10 month experiment with Haley they decided that they would show him the door as well.  I thought it was a strange hire anyway.  It really did not seem to fit.  I thought it was strange to keep Jackson after the record he had.  I know they were not really trying to win.  It was part of the plan. More it was the way that they lost.   It is really difficult to lose that many games in the NFL.  You can be bad.  You can easily only win three, four or five games.  To only win 1 game in two years is making you the worst of the worst of the worst.

On the bright side there is nothing to do but to get better.  The question is how much better can you get.   This year already has been better than the last two years combined.   The Browns have so great talent on the team.  They still have a good number of draft picks.  It looks like by hiring John Dorsey as the GM the Cleveland Browns are serious this time about trying to put together a winning team.  That is not to say they were not serious about it before.  This time they are not going to try some kind of trick.  They hired a previously successful football guy to do football things.

That is a good sign.  The next thing will be who they hire to be the head coach.   They really need to take their time and find the right person for the team.    A lot of people are saying they should go after Lincoln Riley.   That on the surface looks like a great choice.    Two things that could cause a problem.   Does he want to go to the Cleveland Browns and he has no NFL coaching experience.  This would not necessarily be a deal breaker but it does have to be a concern.

What ever they decide it will not be an instant success.   There is going to be growing pains.   The powers that be in Cleveland are going to have to have a time frame this time.  Another two year cycle will just continue with what has been going on in Cleveland since they came back from the dead.