When bad teams come to mind the Browns top the charts. While the franchise itself has an overall winning record and 8 NFL championships, the past 18 seasons since returning to Cleveland in 1999 have been less than desirable. Actually, they have been abysmal. The team has just had 2 winning seasons since then and only one playoff appearance. So the question remains, how do we fix the Browns? Here is a blueprint for how to fix the browns as well as signs this may be already in the works.
How We Got Here?
If there is one recurring theme to the browns it is turnovers. Turnovers not only on the field but in the front office. The Browns have fired 8 head coaches and 8 general managers since their renaissance. By comparison, the Ravens have had the same general manager (Ozzie Newsome was the Browns GM in 1995 before the team moved to Baltimore) and 3 head coaches in the same timeframe. There has been only one coach to last for more than 3 seasons in this time frame as all others were quickly dismissed for one reason or another. Who is to blame with all these different individuals cycling in and out of an organization? The only people who haven’t been fired, the owners. Randy Lerner and Jimmy Haslam have failed the city of Cleveland, a city that has been through enough hard times both inside and outside the sporting world.
The owners are to blame for 2 reasons:
1. Getting in the way of progress
2. The refusal to commit
Getting in the way:
The Browns owners have far too often decided to step in and force actions that the front office was supposedly hired to carry out. From convincing executives to draft players (Johnny Manziel) or pressuring executives to carry out stupid trades (Corey Williams) and acquiring overpriced and ineffective free agents (Kenny Britt), Browns ownership has repeatedly over-stepped the boundary between upper management and middle management. This is a recipe for disaster. The managers are never truly allowed to make their own decisions, and thereby claim they aren’t responsible and are left feeling cheated after they are fired because they never got a chance to own those decisions. The job for which they were hired is being done by people with little to no football experience. Imagine Jimmy Haslam trying to cook the food in one of his pilot restaurants instead of letting the cooks handle the food orders. Not only is this unnecessary, it is downright stupid.
Refusing to Commit:
On top of not letting their employees do their job while employed, Browns ownership has refused to allow its front office and coaching staff enough time to make the Browns relevant. The Browns are on their 9th GM and 9th coach in 18 years. That is a 2 year average for each rebuild. Imagine only being able to watch a Scorsese film for the first 30 minutes. Walk into a restaurant that is on its 4th shift manager in as many months and order a burger. Browns fans have watched the same 30 minutes over and over and have waited in line without getting their burger for the past 18 years.
This type of organization not only prevents anything good from developing, it also undermines the credibility and leads to worse and worse hires as it drives away potential talent from seeking to be part of the browns. Some things take time and Browns ownership has refused to heed the old English saying: “Good things come to those who wait.”
With time the Browns would really find out who can coach, and who has an eye for talent and who can get the better end of a trade. Instead, the Browns owners and front office upon pressure from ownership have repeatedly rebooted instead of taking the time to run a virus scan and fix the deeper problem. Well, 1 virus found: Ownership.
While the owners must eat the lion’s share of the blame since they have been the one constant variable in this equation of sadness, the general managers and coaches have followed suit and gotten progressively worse over time. We started out with football guys and have ended up with “Moneyball” wannabes. From botching trades and signing aging veterans to drafting flashy and risky players to releasing promising talent, the Browns general managers have refused to do the sane sustainable things that can produce wins on the field. The ineptitude has spread and festered over time and has permeated the entire organization from top to bottom.
The coaches in the meantime have put too much weight on the shoulders of rookies and have called bone-headed plays in clutch moments. Fearing their jobs, they appease the general managers (who are also fearing their jobs) and are distracted from managing the team. In bad organizations, the lowest bird on the branch gets rained on the most (it isn’t rain by the way).
The Browns have a talent for putting their players at a disadvantage and disparaging those who are committed to the success of the franchise. Who wants to stay at a company where the leadership isn’t on the same page and managers are constantly being hired and fired or leaving and taking talent with them. It is no wonder that players get better upon leaving, because they no longer have the distraction of the drama and they aren’t constantly being introduced to new coaches. Cleveland deserves better than this joke of a franchise.
Cleveland is a city that has loved and cherished its sports teams like a loving parent hoping that its rebellious and lazy children would change their ways and head down the path of success. One of Cleveland’s children did just that when the Cavaliers climbed out of the mire and into the history books with its first championship in franchise history in 2016. It’s time for the Browns to head down the path to recovery, and now that we have admitted we have a problem we can begin to fix it.
How Do We Fix it?
These 3 things need to happen in order to exercise the football demons that have imprisoned this franchise.
1. Stabilize the franchise.
The Browns have been in free-fall since 1999. The two winning seasons aside, the trajectory of the franchise has been trending downward since Y2K and it has culminated in a 0-16 season. The Browns are at an all-time low right now and need to take the time to self-assess. Are they just one coach or front office or QB away from a playoff team? No, they are not. You can’t make one change and expect to fix 20 years of bad luck and organizational inertia. It takes consistent, sustainable change that is arduous and not glamorous. Fans will hate this, and Cleveland is hungry for a winner but there is no substitution for doing things the right way. The type of quick turnarounds you hear about only happen with franchises (see the Rams of ’16-17 and the dolphins of ‘15-16) that have an established roster (including a QB), an established front office and a coach that is holding the team back. The Browns don’t have any of that stability. They have the 2nd youngest roster in the league, a brand new GM, and a coach entering his 3rd year in his first role as head coach. Firing anyone at this point will be more of the same. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Browns fans, the hard truth is that if you expect firing Hue Jackson to do any good at this point you are feeding into what got us to this point.
Maybe Hue Jackson isn’t the answer, but we need to give him ample time to see if he can turn this team around. If after his 5th season we haven’t gotten a 6 win season (yes that is where the bar should be for this franchise), then we can let John Dorsey pick his successor, but not until after we unplug the coaching carousel that Cleveland has been and develop some continuity. We also need to allow one general manager enough time to make a difference (at least 5 years before we fire one) and take a couple of swings at finding a long-term head coach and QB. Also, What better way to punish a coach that has gone 0-16 but to make him clean up his mess? At the worst, Browns players know who is going to be coaching the team next year (Browns players really like hue and while execution was an issue, effort in all except the Bears game wasn’t) and at best Hue can become the only coach in league history to turn around a 0-16 football team that he coached to that record. If you want to break the pattern of losing, you first have to break the pattern of instability that started the losing and create a culture based on accountability and winning. I don’t believe firing is holding someone accountable in Football, it actually frees them from having to deal with the situation.
2. Create a culture of winning
Everyone has been part of a team, organization or other groups that have just not measured up to the bar that has been set for them. Good organizations and its leaders accept blame and honestly seek to correct those errors and elevate the team. Bad organizations blame shift and hide from responsibility or flee from the organization entirely. The Browns need a standard that they stick to at all costs. The Patriots have one, all good companies have one. The Browns need to set a standard and be willing to hold people to that standard. Integrity is difficult. It means benching players who have been acting negatively or irresponsibly. It means enduring acute pain with a view to avoiding chronic pain (losing). The Browns need their culture to be based around the team and not their egos, sacrifice and not personal achievement. They need 11 guys who will lay their careers and their bodies on the line for their teammates, coaches, and city. They need to be a family that doesn’t talk trash about each other and who look to pick each other up.
While it is easy to maintain a culture of winning while winning, the Browns must make decisions based on how it will affect the culture regardless of the number in the win column. This is what Bill Belichik has done in New England and was starting to do in Cleveland before Art Modell canned him. The Browns need a healthy culture where executives, coaches, and players look to support one-another instead of back-stabbing and airing dirty laundry to the media. This culture, like organizational stability, is worth investing in. As the Browns stabilize the front office and create a winning culture of winning, they need a leader to ride into battle and command the troops from the front lines. They need a quarterback.
3. Find a franchise QB
The most important position in sports has been ignored by the Browns for far too long. Some might say the Browns should focus on their defense and worry about the QB later, but these are not mutually exclusive. The Browns can continue to fortify their defense with draft picks, take a QB later in the draft, and bring in a QB via free agency (ala Kirk Cousins) to address the position now. While free agents have been signed and players have been drafted, the Browns have never truly invested the resources into finding a quarterback that the position merits or provided the offensive line that the position needs. At the very least they have taken unnecessary risks in finding a QB and assumed they have fixed the position with one draft pick or free agent. Picking one player in a draft won’t cut it. The Browns need to focus on free agency for an experienced signal caller and take low-risk quarterbacks with high upside. Think early 2nd round QBs or later.
Addressing this position is something that Browns GM John Dorsey has vowed to be his first order of business. He has also stated that he “doesn’t believe in rookie QBs”, meaning he will seek to find a QB that can already play while searching for the home-grown star to replace an established veteran once that rookie has developed. I am not sure who that free agent veteran will or should be (Kirk Cousins), and I am not sure which of this year’s draft’s quarterbacks is the best fit in the long run (quite frankly you might be better off taking two QBs in later rounds rather than take one at the top of the draft and potentially miss out on much-needed playmakers), but once the Browns pull the trigger in free agency and the draft they must protect their investment with solid lineman and skill positions to take the pressure off of the quarterback.
Aside from having a QB, having an offensive line is paramount. Just ask the Indianapolis Colts how they have enjoyed Andrew Luck’s rehab and you will see that once a QB is identified, you better protect him. Along with investing heavily in the line, play calling for the newly found field general will need to play to their strengths and allow them to throw the ball quickly to avoid contact. Tom Brady’s career wouldn’t be what it is without his ability to get rid of the football quickly in an offense that is focused on running short and intermediate routes with an occasional long ball thrown in. And once you get your guy you need to push him, or he needs to push himself so that each year he gets better and better. And lastly, when you have an established QB, keep looking for the next franchise guy because if you don’t prepare for the future your present will eventually suck.
Is there hope to fix the browns?
Many times before Browns fans have stated that next year is the year, and many times there has been more of the same. But this next year is the year. Just kidding. Signs point to the fact that the Browns are building for the long-term and are making calculated moves. We all hoped the Browns would get a win the week Dorsey was hired but the truth is that his presence has brought a fresh air to the team as the Browns return to a football-focused approach.
So why is this different and not just another rinse and repeat iteration of the hire-lose-fire game the Browns have been playing? Maybe going 0-16 has finally appeased whatever force in the universe has jinxed the browns. Maybe the bar is so low they have to have some success (one win will be an improvement). Maybe there are real signs that the blueprint outlined above is actually taking place.
The Browns have done the unthinkable and retained a 1-31 football coach. At face value, this is idiotic and can’t work, but at a deeper level retaining Hue Jackson instead of firing him sends a message that is worth the criticism. That message is that the Browns are committed to the long-term. Haslam admitted that the analytics approach was incorrect (or at least poorly executed) but was able to salvage part of the Sashi Brown rebuild that actually showed some promise, the players and their relationship with Hue.
If you talk to the players they respect Hue, and future Hall of Famer Joe Thomas (just listen to him talk about football and it is obvious he knows the game) loves Hue Jackson and is happy he is back. Having the players respect is significant and part of the reason he wasn’t fired. Unlike Jeff Fisher with the Rams and Ben McAdoo with the Giants, he hasn’t lost the locker room’s respect. Allow me to repeat. He got a team to buy in despite losing 15 games last year and when the team was on the cusp of going 0-16 they played one of their best games all season and never gave up. Hue is now allowed another offseason to build continuity with these young players and actually start seeing returns on investments in players like Njoku and Peppers as well as allowing Myles Garret to grow during a full offseason.
Another piece of the analytics investment was also retained and refined when the Browns moved Paul Deposta into an analytics position with the team. He will be in charge of presenting the numbers to the football guys so they can make the football decisions. This is a wise move by Dorsey as analytics is a valuable asset to have, and while it isn’t the definitive factor in what players to acquire, it is still a tool that needs to be used for the Browns to have success. While the best parts of the last regime have been retained, Dorsey is moving to change the culture and address serious problems like he did in Kansas City.
Dorsey has a proven track record. He played the game and has been a part of multiple winning franchises at all different levels of the front office. He was the director of college scouting for the Packers when they decided to draft Aaron Rodgers even while Favre was still playing well (albeit retirement talks were looming). He helped take a 2-14 Chiefs team from the bottom of the AFC West to the playoffs the next year. He knows good players also. Just look at the players the Chiefs have drafted while Dorsey was in charge:
- Patrick Mahomes (QB)
- Kareem Hunt (RB)
- Tyreek Hill (WR)
- Eric Fisher (OT)
- Travis Kelce (TE)
- Marcus Peters (CB)
- Randall Cobb (WR)
- Bryan Bulaga (OT)
- Clay Matthews (OLB)
- Jordy Nelson (WR)
- Greg Jennings (WR)
- Aaron Rodgers (QB)
That is an impressive list of talent, but what is even more important for the browns is the structure in the front office and coaching staff that Dorsey is creating. This structure is giving Hue what he needs for success (probably with the idea that if he can’t get some wins within the next couple of years he can’t say he didn’t have the resources).
Dorsey knows what successful coaching staffs look like and he knows that coaching and calling plays is a difficult balance for a head coach to manage. Enter Todd Haley, a man who has had success with calling plays and who Hue Jackson is willing to let run his offense. Hiring Haley also provides some insight into how the Steelers like to do things and can give defensive coordinator Gregg Williams some insight into stopping their “Killer B’s”.
Along with Haley, Dorsey has addressed two main issues with the Browns by hiring quarterbacks coach Ken Zampese (Zampese and Jackson combined to give Andy Dalton a career season) and special teams coach Amos Jones. The quarterback and special teams play single-handedly lost the Browns four games (give or take) and Dorsey knows that those areas can’t go ignored if the Browns are going to win.
With stability in the Front Office and coaching staff, the Browns are ready to use a huge amount of cap space (over $100 million) and 12 total draft picks (4 in the top 35) to add more talent to a young but promising roster. The options are limitless on how to attach free agency and the draft but I expect the Browns to go after a QB in free agency and then address skill positions, defense and the O-line in the draft. If the Browns decide to draft a QB in the draft this is the year to do it with one of the deepest QB drafts in recent memory and getting a free agent will allow the Browns to wait till later or even take multiple QBs over the course of the draft. The defensive talent in this year’s draft is also extremely deep and getting more playmakers to compliment, Joe Shoebert, Myles Garret, and Emmanuel Ogbah will go a long way in getting wins.
No matter what happens in the draft, free agency or the rest of the offseason, one thing is for sure. It is impossible for the Browns to have a worse season than they had in 2017.
Remember Browns fans, never give up hope.
“Hope is a good thing, maybe even the best of things and good things never die.” – Andy Dufresne upon escaping from Shashank State Prison.