Johnny AWOL; Manziel doesn’t show, Browns reportedly done with him
January 3, 2016Will Mark Shapiro haunt the Indians?
January 4, 2016Happy 2016, WFNY. It’s a new year, which means we get to turn those 5s in to 6s as we scribble dates on documents for at least the next few weeks. It also means we have a few job openings in Cleveland as the Browns have once again decided to part ways with two individuals who still had time on their respective contracts.
A new wrinkle this time around: The team has already promoted from within to help guide the ship. In a very Indians-like move, Sashi Brown has been given a new title that takes him from Salary Cap Guy to In Charge Of Talent Acquisition Guy. A bit of a weird move given the circumstances that have taken place, but it firms up two things:
- Alec Scheiner isn’t going anywhere. If anything, this gives him even more power as Brown becomes the face of that side of the ledger. And…
- Jimmy Haslam seems to be telling himself that his tenure has been doomed from the beginning as he was handed Joe Banner and Mike Lombardi and it was these two who hired and fired Rob Chudizinski and then hired Mike Pettine before getting ousted themselves.
If I’m a Browns fan looking for a glimmer of hope, it’s this: The first refresh wasn’t really a refresh as much as it was a slight reconfiguration. Haslam let your soon-to-be fired front office completely destroy a coaching search, brought on the ninth guy he interviewed, and then promoted an internal candidate to GM just so he wouldn’t take a gig elsewhere. Of all of the regime changes—going back to Mike Holmgren keeping Eric Mangini for another year before pulling in Pat Shurmur—this one feels (feels, as perception is key here) like the most top-down dismantling in a while.
The obvious difference here: Hiring a head coach before a GM. While sandwiching a GM between two individuals with seemingly more power would appear to be a backwards way of looking at things, the other way—having the GM pick the players and the coach simply work with what’s provided—definitely did not work. Selling a head coach on having some input into who’s acquired makes an otherwise unattractive job somewhat more, well, attractive. Having a head coach with some say in who is acquired from a skill set standpoint seems to make sense. Having Sashi there for checks and balances may be the biggest silver lining of this entire fiasco.
There’s no telling if it’ll bear fruit. If we’re being honest with ourselves, the odds are pretty much stacked against it doing so. Second pick? Sure. But no quarterback, no play-making receivers, a defense that was among the worst in the league in every measure, and a slew of guys who are about to walk which will only create more holes. Any GM and head coach tandem that walks into Berea as the next attempt at relevance will jump in to a race that’s already underway, 31 other cars zooming by, and they’re in the pit with a few car parts and a wrench.
Get your tickets now!
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I’d discuss Johnny, but man… Do that over here. I still maintain that the manhunt for this kid’s whereabouts have reached an all-time creepy level.
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I’m a big fan of Pitchfork and the work they put out every year. Their 2015 “Year in Rap” was a must-read for me. If you’re a hip-hop guy or gal, you’ll dig it too.
Behind Aubrey Graham, a large-screen projection taunted with the fast food emporium’s tweet. It was like watching a soccer match decided by a penalty kick from a drunk CFO whose corporation had won naming rights to the stadium.
Flanked by fake explosions, Drake rapped “Back 2 Back”, a diss primarily remarkable for its marketing and method of delivery. His PowerPoint also featured an image of Meek Mill sticking a fork into an electric socket, multiple “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” reaction shots, along with memes based on “The Simpsons”, Friday, and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”. Another picture depicted pallbearers carrying a coffin with the caption: “Meek Mill checked out of his hotel this morning.” The most galling (and corny) showed Meek in a white wedding dress alongside a tuxedoed Nicki Minaj. With this endless scroll of meme propaganda, Drake intended to shock and awe New York radio trolls, sixth grade cyber-bullies, and the type of rap fan that responds in the Genius comment section with GIFs from “The Office”.
It worked perfectly. Such online ephemera flattered the vanity of Twitter users by appropriating their vernacular. Drake received credit for being #relevant enough to understand the basic fundamentals of how the Internet works. But really, he just crowdsourced his comeback—a similar violation to what led Meek Mill to test him in the first place.
The Social Media days of hip-hop are one part bizzare and one part captivating. Like Drake raps in “Back to Back,” Trigger fingers have turned to Twitter fingers. Could be argued that guys like Tupac and Biggie are rolling over in their grave regarding today’s beef. Could also be argued that they’d be alive if memes were the worst thing that were thrown at them.
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Each additional year brings us better iterations of #ActualSportswriting. While we have no idea what’s in store for 2016, it’s good to see that many of the game’s best picked up right where we left off.
“Before you look down on LeBron James’ response to the Tamir Rice case, look within” by Chris Haynes (NEOMG): “I was taken into custody, forced to take a mug shot and wasn’t released until after 3 a.m. I felt degraded, humiliated, embarrassed. I knew I had to tell my employer the following day, but I was petrified of the reaction. I felt guilty even though I had done nothing wrong. Would they believe I was innocent? Would they stand by me? I had a year left on my contract. I didn’t want this situation to jeopardize my future.”1
“Why are the playoff semifinals on New Year’s Eve again?” by Dan Wetzel (Yahoo! Sports): “Conference commissioners are like that desperate guy in every Cialis commercial, blithely going for boring hikes through the foliage or freezing while holding hands in his and her tubs overlooking a valley (‘You want me to take a bath in the damn woods?’). It’s all in the pitiful hope that their favorite bowl executive will give them that look that says the time is right.”2
“The fate of daily fantasy is all about these bros” by Mina Kimes (ESPN The Magazine): “In November 2014, the Gomes brothers, who share an apartment in South Boston, won $1 million playing daily fantasy football on DraftKings.com. The company used the footage from their victory party, which took place at this restaurant, in a series of advertisements. So far this year, they have appeared on television more than 32,000 times, often during the commercial breaks of football games. As the brothers became ubiquitous, they attained meme status — a few people dressed up as them on Halloween, according to Rob, 26 — and incurred the wrath of social media.”3
“Phil Jackson, Pat Summitt, Mary Karr and a special triangular connection” by Sally Jenkins (Washington Post): “There is a lot of bad poetry in the world, and sports poetry is wincingly bad. You wish more people would take the advice of Noel Coward, who said, ‘If you must write poetry, you probably shouldn’t.’ But I wanted a poem, a basketball poem, for my friend Pat Summitt. That’s how I came across Mary Karr’s poem ‘Loony Bin Basketball,’ which, strangely, is dedicated to Phil Jackson. Strangely because it’s not about the glorious elevations of the game, but about broken-sharded souls playing a pickup game in a mental ward, and it wasn’t what I wanted, I thought at first.”4
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And finally…A preview of today’s Winners and Losers.
https://vine.co/v/ibd01h3jXY3
Buckle up, kids. It’s going to be a fun January.
- Typically, we end this section with commentary, but given the entire Cleveland connection here, I couldn’t not lead with it. Your first reminder of 2016 that commentary can be actual sportswriting. Kudos to Chris for sharing. [↩]
- I love when people intelligently skewer the NCAA and Wetzel is among the best. [↩]
- If there’s any big picture sports related items worth watching in 2016, the DFS craze would be it. It’s not going away any time soon, but neither are the lawsuits. [↩]
- Been a while since I linked to a Sally Jenkins piece, but any time I stumble across one, it’s tough to pass up. Introspective, interesting, and comes from the expansive volume of Sally’s life experiences. [↩]
201 Comments
right on. Im not so much negative (it could always work out, I have no ability to see the future), but this just seems completely bassackwards, and theyve done the bassackwards thing a few times, and its never worked out. Just once Id like to see normal, boring and predictable. So crazy it just might work