Red Right 88

Thanks for the memories, Jimmy

Well that didn’t take long.

Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam is returning to his “first love” – Pilot Flying J – announcing on Monday that he will resume his role as the company’s CEO just six months after stepping down.

“This is about me realizing my first love is running Pilot Flying J and wanting to return to that job,” Haslam said in a statement announcing that he was taking over for John Compton, the former PepsiCo president that Haslam hired in September.

That’s certainly interesting. Especially for Browns fans, who’s first love is clearly the Browns and kind of believe that the owner of said team should feel the same way. The psyche of the average Cleveland fan is fragile enough without having the owner of the No. 1 team in town tell you that he just wants to be friends so he can spend more time with his true love.

As for the Browns, they say it will still be business as usual.

“It’s not going to have any impact on the operations of the Browns, nor is it going to affect his involvement with the team,” team spokesman Neal Gulkis said in response to the news.

And don’t worry about Compton. Haslam is holding on to him as a “strategic adviser” to Pilot Flying J, the Browns and the Haslam family.

Seriously, though, this is probably much ado about nothing. After all, former owner Randy Lerner’s first love was Aston Villa and that worked out for both the Browns and Villa.

Wait, Aston Villa is currently just one point out of the relegation zone and the fans are not exactly happy with Lerner?

OK, bad example.

It all worked out when former Browns general manager Phil Savage wanted to spend more time watching Division III football games in person rather than mind the store in Berea.

Oh, yeah. Moving on.

No worries, for real this time. We got Joe Banner and Mike Lombardi – the only talent evaluator in the NFL that comes with Jim Nantz’ personal seal of approval – running the show while Haslam is off in Tennessee.

Wait, are we sure this isn’t a bigger deal?

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In other Browns news, Jason La Canfora at CBSSports.com says that “many” in the Pittsburgh Steelers organization believe that wide receiver Mike Wallace will wind up with the Browns as the Steelers are $16 million over the salary cap.

A week after we wondered if the Browns should make a run at Baltimore’s Joe Flacco, Peter King at Sports Illustrated wondered the same thing in his Monday Morning QB column.

We didn’t realize Peter was a reader of our site!

Finally, good news out of Philadelphia with Michael Vick agreeing to a restructured contract that will keep him with the Eagles.

That saves us all a couple of months of nonsense about the Browns going after Vick.

(Photo by ClevelandBrowns.com)