Browns get rid of Lombardi; promote Ray Farmer to GM

[RunKC]

Per Schefter's tweet. Sorry on my phone.

Good to see Cleveland fans get rid of their Pioli

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by PGM

Haslem is a joke. You are in the wrong field moron.

Why is Haslam a joke? It took him one year to do what Clark Hunt took 3 years to do. He made a mistake hiring Banner and Lombardi. But he owned up to it. I don't think anybody can say Banner and Lombardi didn't deserve to get fired.

[Baby Lee]

Browns holding CEO position open for Peytie-pie.

No shit, Cleveland local media reported this.

Cleveland Plain-Dealer writer Mary Kay Cabot, who is a veteran on the Browns beat, thinks the team is saving the CEO job for Peyton Manning.

— Tom James (@TribStarTJames) February 11, 2014

[Mav]

This was a great move. Got rid of the trash. Got a real football guy in FARMER. Love this move.

[Eleazar]

JoePo posted a funny send-up of the Browns and their owner this morning.

[Radar Chief]

Originally Posted by Simply Red

Is this the guy that was so magnified in Hard Knocks, 'Have to go see Ray in his office' bit...?

Well I mean - good for him I guess.

Yes, “Go see Ray Farmer and take your playbook” was asking if they wanted a blindfold and cigarette.

[BlackHelicopters]

Originally Posted by Cochise

JoePo posted a funny send-up of the Browns and their owner this morning.

Link?

[RealSNR]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Browns holding CEO position open for Peytie-pie.

No shit, Cleveland local media reported this.

Cleveland Plain-Dealer writer Mary Kay Cabot, who is a veteran on the Browns beat, thinks the team is saving the CEO job for Peyton Manning.

— Tom James (@TribStarTJames) February 11, 2014

It took them awhile to hire Pettine because they were saving the head coaching job for the re-animated corpse of Vince Lombardi

[Simply Red]

Originally Posted by Radar Chief

Yes, “Go see Ray Farmer and take your playbook” was asking if they wanted a blindfold and cigarette.

[Simply Red]

well I wish him the best - from what I remember on Hard knocks - this guy was fairly solid - at least his persona was...

[Eleazar]

HASLAM WREAKING HAVOC IN CLEVELAND

Jimmy Haslam, like all dreadful owners, has no idea what a winning organization looks like.

Joe Posnanski
NBCSports.com



So, let’s see if we can follow the path. On December 31, 2012 -- 13 months ago -- the Cleveland Browns fired football coach Pat Shurmur and general manager Tom Heckert Jr.

Shurmur had been the coach for a little less than two full years -- he apparently was fired because nobody seemed entirely sure how he got hired in the first place. Nobody had really heard of him before he got hired, and nobody really understood him while he was coached. Maybe it was like Kramer from Seinfeld and he never actually WAS hired. I wonder if the exit interview went something like the Kramer one:

“There’s just no way we can keep you on,” the owner says.

“But I don’t even work here,” Kramer/Shurmur replies.

“That’s what makes this so difficult,” the owner says.

Heckert, meanwhile, had been GM quietly for almost three years. He had come to be general manager while Mike Holmgren was president, which is a bit like being hired to be Richard Sherman’s spokesman. So when Holmgren was shoved out the door, you almost get the sense the Browns forgot Heckert was still there. When they tried to give away his office, he was in it, so they fired him.

This was 13 months ago. The Browns had gone 5-11. They had some promising young talent. It did seem like a beginning.

They hired Rob Chudzinski last January to be coach. The thing about Chud was that he was an Ohio guy, a lifelong Cleveland Browns fan. That, of course, didn’t mean that he could coach. But this was truly his dream job, and he had banged around for a decade or so as an assistant coach (twice for the Browns) and he was someone to root for.

The Browns had already hired a CEO named Joe Banner, who then hired his decision-maker, Michael Lombardi. He was not someone Cleveland was eager to root for. He was a longtime football guy, already had a long history with Cleveland. He had been GM of the Browns just before the team moved from town. He also had been a television analyst who made a point of utterly blasting the Browns' 2012 draft that featured running back Trent Richardson.

It was no surprise when, just after the season began, the Browns traded Trent Richardson.

But, hey, this was the direction. When you are a fan of a team, you don’t get any say. You just follow along and hope for the best. The Browns’ season was quirky and lousy, not necessarily in that order. The Richardson trade had signaled that the Browns were throwing in the towel on the season. Then they improbably won three games in a row. Then they predictably lost their last seven, which included a loss to New England that Mozart could write operas about. There were a few bright spots, many more dark spots and the season mercifully ended.

OK, well, what did you expect? When you go into rebuilding mode, you then need to rebuild. That’s implicit in the phrase “rebuilding mode.” It was a lousy season, but with a first-year coach and a first-year GM, what you need is patience and calmness and equilibrium and ...

Bleep that. The Browns canned Chudzinski the first minute they could. Man was that a stupid thing to do. Look, I have no idea if Chudzinski can be a successful NFL coach. He had a rough first year. But that’s the point. It was his FIRST YEAR. Bill Belichick went 5-11 his first year in New England after four losing seasons out of five in Cleveland. Pete Carroll had losing records his first two years. Jimmy Johnson’s first Cowboys team went 1-15. I mean, you have to give the guy a chance.

Well, actually, no, you don’t HAVE to give him a chance. And they didn’t. That’s what bad organizations do.

But, credit where credit is due, while I and some others disagreed with the Chudzinski firing, we do have to give the Browns their due when it came to a thorough and intensive plan for bringing in a new coach which ... no, I’m sorry, I can’t even keep a straight face through that much sarcasm. The coaching search that followed was, best I can tell, the same plot as “Grown Ups 2.” So many people turned down the Browns that in Bizarro World, the Bleveland Crowns have more coaches than Luxembourg has people.

And, yes, I did strain my neck a little making that last crack.

The Browns finally hired Bills defensive coordinator Mike Pettine, who did coordinate the 20th ranked defense by points for the third year in a row. But, hey, at that point -- what difference did that make? He got hired. He was in. Mike Pettine? Fine. Just hire somebody, anybody, and stop being a laughingstock.

You know that feeling you have after you make a major move? You sit in your new place, exhausted, irritated, surrounded by boxes, and you think: “I am never, ever moving again.” That’s what it’s like rooting for the Browns. Only the boxes never get unpacked. And the instant you begin to feel just slightly at ease, you have to move again.

So now, it’s Mike Pettine, maybe he will be a good coach, maybe he will be a train-wreck, but either way just keep things the same for a little while and see what happens. A little stability. Just a little stability ...

Right. Tuesday, the Browns announced that Lombardi and Banner were leaving the team. Of course they are. Banner, in one of the greatest ever misuses of a word, called his departure, “bittersweet.” This would suggest that his departure was a little bit bitter and a little bit sweet. You tell me, what was sweet about taking the job, firing the old coach, hiring a new coach, trading a player many regarded as the team’s future star, losing a lot of games, firing the new coach, hiring a new-new coach and then getting shoved out the door? What was sweet about that? The food? The company car? What?

The new, new, new Browns GM is Ray Farmer, who I knew a little bit in Kansas City and who is, best I can tell, a fine guy and a fine football guy. But what difference does that make? At this point, he’s only even odds to make it through Valentine’s Day.

The Browns owner JImmy Haslam is the man behind this fiasco. He explained Tuesday that this latest bit of lunacy, like all the other bits of lunacy, was meant to “provide our fans with the winning organization they have long deserved.” And this is the point. Jimmy Haslam, like all dreadful owners, has no earthly idea what a winning organization looks like. He just knows what one doesn’t look like.

Joe Posnanski is the national columnist for NBC Sports. Follow him on twitter @JPosnanski

[Easy 6]

They should've BEGGED either Norv or Horton to stay, now they've got this noob head coach.

Farmer and Kuharich really have their work cut out for them.

[Titty Meat]

Shitty article by Posnanski

[DaWolf]

Funny thing is, if they draft the right QB, all this goes away...

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Why is Haslam a joke? It took him one year to do what Clark Hunt took 3 years to do. He made a mistake hiring Banner and Lombardi. But he owned up to it. I don't think anybody can say Banner and Lombardi didn't deserve to get fired.

Well he hired those abortions

[DaWolf]

The Cleveland Browns interviewed Ken Whisenhunt for their head-coaching job in each of the past two Januaries, first after he was fired as Arizona’s head coach, and last month when he was employed as San Diego’s offensive coordinator. When Whisenhunt entered the room this year for the interview, he was one of the hottest commodities on the head-coaching market, and the Browns were very interested in him.

Whisenhunt said, “Why didn’t you guys hire me last year?’’

The Browns’ CEO who was in both interviews, Joe Banner, told Whisenhunt he didn’t think the staff he was putting together at the time was “a championship coaching staff.”

Whisenhunt, one NFL source said, was peeved that a man who had never coached and who’d been involved in football mainly on the business side would sit in judgment of his potential coaches.

“Who are you to tell me what makes up a championship coaching staff?” Whisenhunt said, with an edge in his voice.

That scene, another source told The MMQB, illustrated a big reason why owner Jimmy Haslam made the bombshell announcement he made Tuesday, firing Banner and general manager Mike Lombardi after their first full seasons on the job. Haslam became dubious about Banner’s football acumen and during the coach-search process following the firing of rookie coach Rob Chudzinski saw what a potential roadblock to success Banner would be. Add in Banner’s brusque and sometimes confrontational style that rubbed many around the NFL the wrong way, and you’ve got a good read on why Haslam stunned the NFL with the late-morning announcement.

http://mmqb.si.com/2014/02/12/clevel...es-joe-banner/

I found that interesting. Good on Andy Reid for surviving as long as he did with this guy around. No wonder there was a power struggle for control in Philly...