Runaway Train…
March 5, 200803/06 Morning Minute: Now Pinch Hitting…
March 6, 2008Cleveland Browns Owner Proving Success In Cleveland Is No Fluke
When it was announced that Al Lerner would be the principal owner of the returning Cleveland Browns franchise in 1999, there was a definite mixed reaction around Cleveland. Many fans were suspicious of Lerner’s role in moving the franchise from Cleveland to Baltimore in the middle of the night in 1995. In fact, the deal to move to Baltimore was finalized on Lerner’s private jet. For his part, Al always claimed he was merely supporting a friend in loaning him the use of his jet, and that the decision wasn’t his and he had no real part in it. For all the questions, though, Al was a great man both in the sports world and in his personal life. Perhaps his greatest gift to the city, though, other than the return of the Browns, was his son Randy who took over owenership of the franchise upon his father’s passing in 2002.
Under Randy Lerner’s watch, the Browns began with a rocky start under his tenure as owner, but have blossomed into one of the real up and coming franchises in the AFC. For Lerner, it’s been trial by fire, as lessons had to be learned by trial and error. Inheriting a team lead by head coach Butch Davis, Lerner had to watch as Butch went from a 9-7 season and a trip to the playoffs in 2002 to a 3-8 record in 2004 before resigning in December of that year. More important than watching the failures on the field though, were the failures Lerner had to watch off the field in the front office. Under Butch Davis, power and paranoia ran rampant throughout the front office. It was unclear at times who was responsible for which duties in the front office. The only thing that seemed to be 100% certain was that Butch Davis had all the ultimate power, and the team was going to be run as he saw fit. Poor draft after poor draft, along with questionable at best free agent signings, including a propensity for drafting and signing players he had once recruited at the U, ultimately led to disarray on the field, as players who weren’t Butch Davis Miami guys were fearful for their jobs and were always questioning their roles and looking over their shoulders. It also led to disarray off the field as arguments were held over the wisdom of the team’s drafting patterns.
When Davis ultimately stepped down from his throne in 2002, Randy Lerner had some tough decisions to make. There was no front office infrastructure in place, as the front office roles had been decimated by Davis and his friends. Lerner vowed to not repeat the same mistakes, and in a move similar to the United States distributing power amongst three branches of government in reaction to England’s tyranny, Lerner established three branches of government within the Browns nation….the coach, the GM, and the team president. For the team president, Lerner hired a business man-John Collins, a friend Lerner knew from working for NFL Corporate. For the GM, Lerner hired a football man-Phil Savage, a longtime NFL scout who had shown his abilities to breakdown talent in his support of Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome in some of their more successful drafts. For the coach, Lerner hired long respected Bill Belichick and Bill Parcells disciple Romeo Crennel.
After a shaky start to the 3 headed front office campaign, waves started breaking already. After just one year, reports started pouring in that Phil Savage was going to be fired. As it turns out, what was really going on was a power struggle between Collins and Savage. Lerner was stuck in the middle, and when it became apparent that the relationship between Savage and Collins was beyond repair, Lerner had to make a decision. In what was arguably his wisest decision yet as owner, Lerner backed the football man over the business man. Savage was assured his job was safe, and it was John Collins who had to sheepishly resign from his post as team President. The controversy was one of the most embarrassing situations in Browns history, as it made the entire organization look foolish and clueless. Lerner, however, was able to chalk it up to just another learning experience.
Perhaps the biggest lesson Randy Lerner learned from his first few years as owner was the importance of major decisions being made by football people. Clear thinking, bright football people. Lerner was never a highly visible owner, but after the John Collins fallout, Lerner completely gave full control of all football decisions to his football people, primarily Phil Savage and Romeo Crennel. With no more confusion and desperate ploys for power to get in the way, and with a clear distribution of power, Savage and Crennel have formed a strong partnership and have guided the team in the right direction toward the ultimate goal of becoming a winning franchise that can compete for Cleveland’s first championship in over 40 years.
So what’s the point of all this? Well, as the Browns are going through another seemingly successful offseason, the team appears to be further along than ever in terms of reaching the first phase of their success. So the question is whether this recent success is a fluke, or has Randy Lerner figured out what exactly it takes be a successful owner of a major sports franchise?
For further evidence, perhaps we should look at Lerner’s other sports club he owns….the Aston Villa Football Club of the English Premier League. In September 2006 Lerner successfully completed his takeover of the historic football (soccer) club. Lerner was able to lean on past experience instantly when he was able to bring in revered manager Martin O’Neill to take over. The promise of Lerner’s open wallet plus the addition of O’Neill lead to Villa fans rejoicing at the takeover, which was in stark contrast to the reaction of other clubs to the threat of American ownership. As David Conn wrote for The Guardian,
“When the North American billionaire Randy Lerner bought Aston Villa in the summer of 2006, the Villa fans’ reception made a startling, sunny contrast to the one meted out to the Glazer family, who had blazed the US takeover trail at Manchester United. While Old Trafford had seethed with protest marches, hostile chants and “not for sale” graffiti, the Holte End rocked with optimism, star-spangled banners and celebratory chants of “USA! USA!”
There were several reasons, besides the most obvious one that Doug Ellis, the outgoing chairman who made £20.15m from selling out to Lerner, had been irretrievably unpopular with a vocal section of fans for more than two decades. Another was Martin O’Neill’s arrival as the manager, as sources close to Lerner made it clear that O’Neill had come because he was assured there would be a change of ownership. There were promises of real investment in players, Villa Park and the Bodymoor Heath training ground, and, importantly, an instant thawing in relations with supporters. Lerner’s right-hand man, the Purple Heart-winning, handshake-crunching General Charles Krulak, who became a Villa director, was soon chatting on fans’ websites to engage with longstanding complaints. His and Lerner’s promises to honour the club’s distinguished heritage, promises which have felt empty elsewhere, seemed from the beginning to carry a genuine ring.”
Lerner instantly won the approval of O’Neill by opening his check book and letting O’Neill do his thing. To that point, SkySports wrote,
“O’Neill has done enough since taking over the managerial post to convince Lerner that he is the right man for the job and the man that can establish Villa as a major force again.
“He has big plans and I realise that if I do well I can realise those ambitions here. Some may call his interest quaint but he wants to bring Villa right up,” said O’Neill.
“He’s here for the long haul and he’s enthusiastic now and he was when he came here.
“We’re improving at a rate of knots and he recognises that, I haven’t put any reckless demands on him because I don’t want to put the club in financial difficulty and I think he appreciates that.
“But he’s hoping to be here on a more permanent basis in the not too distant future.
“This is not a play thing to him – he’s as enthusiastic as the day he took over.”
O’Neill, who was quiet in the January transfer window, says he is not scared to spend vast amounts of money if it is made available to him.”
What this shows is that Lerner is replicating a similar model with Aston Villa as he has with the Browns. He has surrounded himself with football people that he trusts completely, and has then shown a willingness to spend on the team, not just on the field, but off it as well as he has routinely spared no expense in making sure his teams have nothing but the best ammenities. The formula is proving successful on the pitch in England in much the same way it has on the field in America. This season, Aston Villa finds itself currently in 6th place in the Premiership Table. This means they are in position to fight for entry into the Champions League and at worst a spot in the UEFA Cup. Villa’s last major trophy was the League Cup in 1996. Prior to this season, Villa had finished 11th (06-07), 16th (05-06), and 10th (04-05) in the Premiership. The instant turnaround has had Villa supporters in a frenzy, as they have often been heard in stands at matches singing, “There’s only one Randy Lerner!”
EDIT: Thanks to commenter jacquesderrida for sharing this video of the Villa fans chanting for Lerner:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyIWKR2FjgE[/youtube]
Another major factor that sets Lerner apart from many of his peers is that he gets it. He understands the importance of sports to the community and what it means to its fans. Randy grew up as Carmen Policy once famously stated “a fan … who grew up wearing Cleveland Browns pajamas . . . whose room was a shrine to the Browns.” He understands that sports ownership shouldn’t be seen as purely a business venture, for the sake of making a quick buck. Phil Shaw wrote about this side of Lerner for The Independent, saying,
“Randy Lerner, the American multi-millionaire who owns Aston Villa, has urged potential US buyers to view Premiership clubs as a chance to buy into the English game’s sporting and “spiritual” heritage rather than to make a fast buck.
Lerner, braving the blizzards to face the media for the first time since taking control of Villa for £62.2m last summer, had been pressed about the takeover of Liverpool by George Gillett Jnr and Tom Hicks. He knew them to be “serious people” but added that buying a club had to be more than “just a business deal”.
“In today’s world, I don’t know why you would buy a team and think it’s going to be a great financial move,” said the 44-year-old credit-card tycoon, who also owns the American football club the Cleveland Browns.
“Clubs play on a weekend, families come and it’s unique to the daily life of people in this country. It’s something special that creates long walks between parents and kids. Friends get together from school to go to the football. It creates memories and has a very spiritual component. You’re involving yourself in a compact with the communities.””
It’s this side of Lerner that endears him so much to the fans of his teams. He doesn’t limit this approach just to European football (soccer), but to American football as well. When Lerner’s father passed away, Len Pasquarelli wrote a great piece about Randy and the Lerner family as a whole, and he touched on this sense of duty in ownership that Randy Lerner seems to hold so dear,
“[Al] Lerner’s vigilance in planning for the future will greatly benefit the Browns. The era of free agency, after all, has extended beyond just the players over the past several years.
Over the past decade, 10 franchises have been sold, the venerable Art Modell is contractually bound to deal the rest of the Baltimore Ravens to Steve Bisciotti in two more years and Red McCombs is trying to peddle the Minnesota Vikings. No matter the financial pedigree of the new owners, that is not the kind of stability upon which the NFL was constructed, nor on which it wants to continue into the millennium.
But when he spent $530 million in 1998 for the rights to a new incarnation of one of the NFL’s most legendary franchises, Al Lerner didn’t view the move as just another investment. The chief executive of credit card holdings company MBNA Corp., the elder Lerner was as familiar with a playbook as a profit and loss ledger.
It would be naïve to suggest there are current NFL owners who aren’t in the business for the bucks or the profile. Lerner was not a perfect man, and some Cleveland residents never forgave him for aiding Modell in relocating the Browns franchise to Baltimore, but he was a good man. And he was a fan, a man who wanted a Super Bowl title, a guy who loved the game.
And so Al Lerner structured the team to go into a family trust when he died. His heirs, wife Norma, son Randy and daughter Nancy Beck, essentially control 90 percent of the stock.”
For a city that is so starved for a Championship, this is about as close to a golden era of sports as it gets. The Cavaliers made a great run to the NBA Finals last year and look once again like a team that will contend in the Eastern Conference. The Indians were one game away from another trip to the World Series. The Browns just missed the playoffs last season despite finishing 10-6, and with the improvements to the team Lerner allowed Phil Savage to make this offseason, the Browns should be contending for a divisional crown and a playoff spot again this year.
But beyond these successful campaigns, perhaps fans don’t realize just how important the steady leadership of an owner like Randy Lerner is to building a culture of success. It seems unlikely that the turnarounds both the Cleveland Browns and the Aston Villa FC have experienced is coincidental or a fluke. Lerner was forced to learn some tough lessons early on, but he has turned those lessons into a fortune of experience and has spent that fortune on building a formula that works. Perhaps this is best summed up by David Conn,
“Lerner, who inherited the Cleveland Browns NFL franchise and his stake in the MBNA credit card company from his father Alfred, sold his MBNA shares for $2.5bn in 2006. He is said to be an anglophile, having studied here and worked as the chairman of MBNA’s European headquarters in Chester between 1999-2002. His embrace of Villa’s heritage extended last year to refurbishing the Holte pub, a Villa landmark since 1897, which had stood derelict for years at the gateway to the ground.
It remains to be seen if a club like Villa, in a stadium with 43,300 seats, can compete at the very top with the money-making machines of Manchester United and Arsenal, and oligarch-backed Chelsea. Lerner’s era has brought real investment, not debt-laden cleverness, but in steady portions. The lesson so far appears to be that if English football’s great clubs have to be up for sale in this richest ever boom-time, they seem better off in the hands of men who mean what they say about honouring their heritage and respecting the fans, and do not arrive with their arms full of debt.”
Similar to Villa’s small market status, so too do the Browns have to contend with the fact that this is not New York, Chicago, or Dallas. Yes, the NFL’s salary cap definitely helps level the field, but perhaps the best way to compete in this climate is indeed to follow the guidance of a steady handed owner who is in this for one reason and only one….to win.
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31 Comments
By the way, thanks to Rick for helping me with some of the research for this post.
I am now a Fan of Soccer. Aston Villa.
Never before this post have I ever watched more than three minutes of soccer. (Beckhams debut) Though, I will now pay more attention if possible. Thank you for the great article.
Any more articles on our our fellow team across the pond would be appriciated.
I find it disturbing that more “sports fans” don’t get into soccer. It’s great to watch, it’s tougher than most sports that we know, the fans are amazing, and it’s the most popular sport in the WORLD! I guess we’re kind of backwards in America, case in point, the Metric System. Great article though, what made you write it?
I agree with you completely Coyle. I understand people not getting into the MLS, because the passion and culture just isn’t there. But the European leagues are some of the most entertaining sporting events in the world. My dream is to someday be able to go watch a Newcastle match from St James Park.
As far as why I wrote this article….I don’t know, it just kinda came together on its own. I was thinking about how successful Villa has been this season, and then I started comparing it to the Browns success and from there I started to think about the lessons Lerner picked up early in his post as owner, and the next thing I knew, I had an idea for a full profile on Lerner. 12 hours and a lot of research later, it was done.
Thanks for the comments. That goes for both Jeremy’s.
I like watching Newcastle, but I’m more of a Liverpool fan. I think mostly because of the city, hear it’s a lot like Cleveland or Pittsburgh. I also have every intention of going to the World Cup in 2010 to South Africa.
I love watching Newcastle because they’re a lot like your basic Cleveland team. They bring in good players, and every year you think this is the year they’re going to make a difference and break the title drought. And the season starts promisingly. But then one thing goes bad, and the whole thing derails, and then there’s nothing but turmoil. And then we’re Waiting For Next Year.
Also, I definitely prefer Liverpool over any of the other “Big 4”.
don’t be fooled into thinking that lerner was a “genius” when he decided to stay with Savage instead of collins. With the way the fans were screaming for savage to stay i don’t think he had much of a choice
While Cleveland is usually considered a small market team for other sports, the Browns revenue is slightly under the Bears but actually greater than the Giants and the Jets, though they do split NY between the 2. It’s the 9th most valuable team in the NFL and had the 9th highest revenue, too.
Just sayin’.
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/30/biz_07nfl_NFL-Team-Valuations_Rank.html?boxes=custom
FANTASTIC article.
Very interesting, well-written article.
Being English – and living in England! – I can attest to the positive coverage Randy Lerner has received on these shores, not just from the Villa fans.
You’re right about the passion in European football. Although I am a Manchester Untied fan, I can appreciate the amazing atmosphere generated at Anfield and St James’ Park.
Interestingly, I only became interested in American football last March, just in time for draft, in fact. Don’t tell anyone: it was because I was picked up in Madden 07 as the new QB for the Browns that I started to take an interest in the city and the team.
Fast forward to late September and I found myself sitting at CBS, enjoying the warm sun and cold beer, while watching the Browns beat the Ratbirds. It was the most wonderful experience and to have to watch the rest of the season from 5000 miles away was tough! I’ll be back later this year, though, depending on the schedule. I’m hoping the Cowboys or the Colts will be at CBS in late September again with the Jags the week after. If that happens to be the case, my masterplan will come into play: fly to Cleveland on the Friday, catch the first game, make my way down to Orlando for some touristy bits, and then catch the second game – fingers crossed the schedule falls my way!
Anyway, I’m rambling now, but just wanted to return some of the passion in the original article and in the follow-up replies.
Great post and really one of the better articles I have read about “Randy Jammies”. Browns fans in general have been waiting for a management team like this to lead them in the right direction. With folks like Randy Lerner and GM Phil Savage running the show, the sky seems to be the limit for the (formerly hapless) Browns.
Good article. I’ve been a Randy fan for a while, when I heard he bought Aston Villa, I immediately bought a AV hat- I now have a soccer team to root for!
Great story nobloodyname. If you make your pilgrimage when the Browns are in Jacksonville, Fla., (about 1.5 hour from Orlando), I’m planning on being there, you can have a beer on me.
pseudoezra@hotmail.com
Good article. I’m an Aston Villa fan from ‘over the pond’. Firstly, may I urge you all to catch a few Villa games, we’re fast becoming a very exciting and promising young team, a good team for neutrals (with a view to becoming part of the Aston Villa family).
Randy’s input into the footballing side of Aston Villa has been non-existant, just how it should be. Like the article states, he’s trusted O’Neill and his team with pretty much everything on that side, and its already paying dividends. Attendences are up about 4,000 on average on last year and we’re competing with the best teams around and I have a feeling we’ll be interesting some top quality players in the summer.
Forget Newcastle, Villa thumped them 4-1 the other week. As for Liverpool, well we drew them at their place too. Chelsea, no problem. Man Utd, well we havnt cracked them yet, but soon!
Forget Newcastle? What kind of fan would I be if turned my back on my team just because they’re an embarrassing failure……Hmm, when I put it that way………
In all seriousness, thanks for the feedback. I’ve watched plenty of Villa games this year and you’re right they really are a fun team to watch. The Arsenal match the other week was one of the more crushing draws I’ve seen this year. As a fan of Randy Lerner’s, I wish nothing but the best for Villa. But I will not be turning my back on Newcastle. I live and die with the Magpies.
Great piece, sir. For any nascent Villa fan, delving into the club’s sparkling history is highly recommended:
“If there is a club in the country which deserves to be dubbed the greatest (and the matter is one of some delicacy) few will deny the right of Aston Villa to share the highest niche of fame with even the most historic of other aspirants. For brilliance and, at the same time, for consistency of achievement, for activity in philanthropic enterprise, for astuteness of management and for general alertness, the superiors of Aston Villa cannot be found.”
William McGregor (founder of the world’s first football league), 1897
it is excellent from both teams point of view
as a villa fan from Birmingham I can justify just how well received Randy was when compared to Ellis our previous owner
and because the football people take the descions it means Martin O’Neil is in full charge of his and the teams own destiny, we all knwo that and that is why we are successful.
all successful teams are that because the owners do not interfer.
Good times ahead for all and hope this time the Brown’s can make it, the similarties between yours and our season is frighetning !!
That’s cool, RK…
I’m a Villa fan in New England and while Randy’s takeover has moved the Browns into a tie with the Eagles as my second team, I’m not switching my allegiance from the Patriots.
Pats, Browns, Eagles: I have triple the reasons to hate that cesspool that is Pittsburgh…
If you fancy hearing Villa Park (in particular, the iconic Holte End of the stadium) singing for Randy, visit here!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyIWKR2FjgE
(No matter how many times I watch it, this clip still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up!)
That video is great! Thanks for sharing.
Great article RockKing, I am a fan of Aston Villa and for the last year Browns too, when they are playing if I cannot watch I have the live score ticker going on the computer to see how “we” are doing.
I truly believe Villa and the Browns are very close indeed to big things, all thanks you Randy Lerner and the Lerner Family, of course loads of others too, but the point is they would not be there without Randy.
I have included a link for General Krulak’s thread where he answers our Villa questions, maybe you might say hello, as it all gets back to Randy.
I am sure they would enjoy hearing that Villa fans and Brown’s fans are getting to know each other!
Great Article and written. As a Villa fan in Birmingam it’s good to see that both us and the browns are heading in the right direction. What i love about Randy is that he is a traditionilst and our heratige is safe in his hands. Never before have the fans felt so close to the club since the General came on our forums. I have included a link to a piece that one of the national papers did on Randy last week. P.S Did you know Randy has a scarf with vill on one side and the browns on the other?:-)
As an Aston Villa fan from Ireland I am incredibly impressed with what I see and hear about Randy Lerner – his father, I am sure, would be incredibly proud of him because he seems to have reared a man of rare integrity. For this reason alone you have yourselves a new Browns fan here!
I believe Randy is currently consulting with HOK Sports with the view to expanding the historic Villa Park stadium. I was wondering how you Browns fans have experienced moving into a new stadium … does CBS, for all its “newness”, still feel historic? I feel very sure that Randy will oversee the construction of something very special at Villa.
Best wishes for the future!
As a Villa fan from Birmingham, UK. It’s probably worth pointing out to anyone from US shores thinking of rooting for our glorious club, that we are a re-awakening giant of English football (soccer).
Our honours list includes:
7 League Titles
(1 lge & cup double)
7 FA Cups
5 League Cups
European Championship (only achieved by 4 English clubs)
UEFA Super Cup
UEFA Intertoto Cup
It’s probably worth mentioning also, that back in the dark dark days of the old 3rd division, managing attendances of 48,000 is surely worth gasping at.
Thanks for the comment Mick. To answer your question about the new stadium, I guess it’s kinda tricky for me. I wasn’t even close to being born yet the last time the Browns won a Championship, so to me, the old Municipal Stadium never held a lot of history to me. It was a gigantic structure, but it was ugly, run down, damp place to watch football. I never really enjoyed games there. The new stadium, on the other hand, is absolutely stunning. It’s a beautiful facility, comfortable seats, great views of the field from pretty much everywhere, clean, and on and on and on. I really love the new stadium and am very proud of it, and I just hope that the Browns can begin to write some history of their own in the new stadium.
But as far as feeling historic, it doesn’t feel historic at all, but then again, in some ways, this franchise lost that a bit when Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore in 1995. Yes, we got the team name back, the colors, the historic records….everything….but deep down, there will always be a little hole that can never quite be whole again….at least not until the Browns win a Championship. Until then, all us Browns fans will be dealing with the part of our heart that was ripped out by Art Modell.
Excellent Article. Never have I been more proud to be a Villa fan. Well not since we were last crowned champions of Europe. Historically AVFC are the forth ranked team in England in terms of trophies won. This season the sleeping giant awoke and the rest of England and soon Europe will know it.
‘One Randy Lerner, theres only one Randy Lerner’ Holte End Legend already. Please take the time to read up on the ‘Famous Villans’ and the history surrounding the oldest premier league club, you won’t be sorry and go Browns.
found your site via yaysports.com. ive been skimming through the posts for the past half hour and i like what i see, especially this post. well written, good citation, and pleasant reassurance for a browns fan that for the first time in a long time, the team is in good hands.
this really could be a new age for cleveland sports.
nice job.
Mr Lerner, I am a very loyal browns fan born & raised in Pittsburgh & share all of the past years of heartache of browns football. When I was six in PA, Leroy Kelly & Hickerson, Warfield, Walter Johnson & Sipes & Bernie were all over my bedroom walls. My brother is a Real Estate Broker in the Hamptons & one of his kids is in school w / one of your kids & I am hoping that some day I will have the honor of crossing paths w / you & thank you for the hope that I have today to be @ the top w / the browns. My brother JR is a terrible towel stooler fan & mentioned of his time w / you in the Hamptons. Your professionalism of ending this season is very impressive & I didn’t expect anything different of a person of your status. Please continue your consideration of our Cleveland tradition & if you ever have a free half a minute, say hello. Thanx for your loyality, Mark Siwicki
Are you kidding me with this glowing testimonial of Randy Lerner. This is an absentee Cleveland Browns owner who “doesn’t get it”. When you have had enough of the Lerner Kool-Aid, you will realize Daddy’s inheritance did not translate into a thimble full of brains. Just as he showed no propensity to run the giant credit card company, MBNA, he has, likewise, shown the same incompetence in his approach to building a successful Cleveland Browns NFL franchise. Succinctly, until this inept owner sells, Browns fans are in for more of the same…abysmal year after abysmal year under Lerner’s watch. This storied franchise deserves better. Sell, Randy, Sell!!!
I.ve live in the Cleveland area for over twenty years and I’ve tried to be a browns fan, lost quite a bit of money from back to the Cardiac Kids, and I,ve witnessed that no matter what the management of the Cleveland teams do they can not produce a winning team in that city. Its as if there is some sort of spell over that city, when the Browns left and went to B’more and came back, they left the best team in B’more, you can barely count the number of players that have left the browns and now are sporting championship rings. I don’t believe this is Lerners fault, if I were him I would SELL and get out of Cleveland, let the city and anyone else that wants it have it, go to another city and buy a team, whats happening in Cleveland is, that area (not just the city) is not condusive to LIFE, and there are entities in the area (not just Cleveland) that thrive on preventing a championship from coming to that area , its as if it is more profitable to have controversity than a winner and it gives the local news something to print. As a business man I’m sure if Mr. lerner was made a reasonable offer hewould entertain it but I really don,t fell that ANYONE is interested in buying the Browns or coming to Cleveland.
So good luck with the petition becaus if he does sell, it would take Cohunas the size of church bells to purchase that team
The way the Cavs played last year was very Impressive and I had big hope for them. Now they have aquired the most domanant big man in the NBA along with Lebron, by stats the should be the premier team in the East,,,,but they are in Cleveland, and as I said there must be a spell over the City, so lets see if the Cav’s can brack it.
[…] and gives coaches full reign over footballing decisions. Look at what he’s done with the Browns: Lerner was never a highly visible owner, but after the John Collins fallout, Lerner completely […]