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How to fix the Cleveland Browns in 10 easy steps

Jonathan Knight, author of several books including Sundays in the Pound and Kardiac Kids, spoke Wednesday evening at the Hudson Library and Historical Society.

During an entertaining hour-long presentation, Knight, who started a newsletter about the Cleveland Browns when he was 8 years old, pointed out that while the Browns are very good at reminding everyone that they were once a winning franchise, team officials don’t look to the past when building the current team, resulting in the poor product that fans witness week after week and year after year.

“This presentation is going to be like The DaVinci Code,” Knight said. “If you look into the nooks and crannies of Browns history, we can find clues that tell us what the team is doing wrong and why they are failing.”

Knight then laid out his 10 (mostly) tongue-in-cheek steps to fix the Browns (everything in quote marks is from Knight):

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On the Browns and final roster control

The Cleveland Browns finally ended their latest coaching search, one that was both lengthy and, at times, laborious, with the hiring Mike Pettine on Thursday.

Throughout the entire process there was much discussion, debate and hand-wringing over the current state of the team and the direction the franchise is heading. One topic that we heard repeatedly was the notion that no coach would want to work for the Browns because they would have to “give up” control of the roster to CEO Joe Banner and General Manager Mike Lombardi.

Pettine was asked about having final say over the roster during his introductory news conference and his non-answer that the details are “still being worked out” only helped to stoke the fire over who’s in control in Berea.

When Banner was first hired by the Browns, this is what he told The Plain Dealer when asked about who will have final say on the team’s 53-man roster:

“We’ll determine that officially when we see who’s in those roles. My bias is for the coach to make those decisions. Now, we may end up with somebody in personnel who’s so good that I tweak that, but going in, my bias is that the coach will have the most say on the 53-man roster and the 45 who dress for games.”

That sounds to us like Banner would like to have the coach be the main voice when it comes to the final roster, but he’s not comfortable allowing that to happen until the head coach earns his trust. (Of course, firing your coach every year contributes heavily to any trust issues, so …)

So that got us to thinking about whether this whole issue about final say over the roster is a big deal or, as it happens too often in Cleveland, much ado about nothing? How do other teams in the NFL do this, especially the successful ones?

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Searching for answers in the latest Browns coaching search

The Cleveland Browns have now gone – gasp! – 24 days and counting without a head coach.

In the that time, the playoffs have gone along and we are now down to two teams. The college bowl season wrapped up and … that’s about it, really.

The Browns haven’t won or lost a game, haven’t drafted a player or signed one in free agency; basically they have been operating like every other team that is not in the playoffs. They are just currently doing it without a coaching staff, which, apparently, means the world is coming to an end in Berea. (Or at least more so than usual.)

We commented on Twitter earlier today that Cleveland is the only place where being methodical is seen as a sign of incompetence and weakness. When the team fired head coach Rob Chudzinski after the season-ending loss to Pittsburgh, owner Jimmy Haslam and CEO Joe Banner promised fans that they would take their time on this search and, so far, they have been true to their word. Yet people are freaking out left and right because the Browns haven’t hired anyone.

It’s time to take a stiff drink, Browns fans, calm down, and let’s see if we can try to figure out where the Browns are right now and just how panicked everyone should really be.

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Browns coaching search has everyone terribly vexed

The Cleveland Browns coaching search is two weeks old now and the team has not made a decision yet on who will replace the fired Rob Chudzinski.

Whether or not owner Jimmy Haslam and CEO Joe Banner are any closer to finding Chudzinksi’s replacement is still unclear and while the situation is less than ideal, it may not be as dire as many are making it out to be.

But there is little doubt that the past two weeks have certainly left everyone so terribly, terribly vexed.

There are things that are known about the coaching search, while there are probably just as many things that people assume to know. While what we know is a pretty straight forward question to answer; what it all means may prove to be a bit trickier of a question.

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