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November 14, 2016Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Cleveland Browns are awful, and despite the understanding that things would be awful from the beginning, no one thought they’d be this awful and now a power-wielding Jimmy Haslam is getting antsy. Such is the story being told by CBS Sports’ Jason La Canfora who, according to multiple sources within the Browns organization, says there are already some bodies on the hot seat.
Here’s La Canfora:
Hue Jackson’s decision to bench rookie starting quarterback Cody Kessler in the second half of the Browns’ loss in Baltimore on Thursday night has heightened tension between the front office and coaching staff, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. With the team inching closer to an 0-16 season, more change seems inevitable.
At the very least, sources say defensive coordinator Ray Horton is facing a very uncertain future, with his unit allowing more than 30 points per game, and changes could be far more sweeping. Horton is a very unpopular pick in various quadrants of the organization to return as defensive coordinator but is supported staunchly by Jackson. Sources said owner Jimmy Haslam, along with his wife Dee, has become increasingly hands on, with many departments essentially reporting directly to his family. It was Haslam who ultimately decided to hire Jackson and sign off on Horton as coordinator, despite strong reservations expressed by others.
Say what you wish about La Canfora and his history of reporting on the Browns, but there is no denying the likelihood of anything written above. The Browns aren’t just losing—which had been expected—but they’re losing by immense margins and appear to be getting worse as the season rolls on.
The benching of rookie Cody Kessler may not have mattered in the grand scheme of wins or losses, but it would appear that the move irked some members of the front office, a group in dire need of seeing what, exactly, they have to work with heading into this offseason. That Horton is on the hot seat should shock no one as his defense has cost this team several games and lacks everything from skill to execution of basics fundamental to the game of football.
Also troubling is the report that as many as 10 departments report directly to Haslam, an owner with a history of having zero football decision-making skills. According to La Canfora, areas ranging from analytics to ticket sales report up to Jimmy and his wife, Dee. With this structure, one could ascertain that it would be Jimmy who is ultimately responsible for the 0-10 record, but to expect him to actually understand this and act accordingly would be asking a little too much.
Before their Week 13 bye—which seems entirely too late in the season for such a terribly young team—the Browns will face the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Giants, both of which are second place in their respective divisions. This team, meanwhile, has won just three games since Thanksgiving of 2014, and appear headed for history save for miracle within their final six games. Get those 2017 season tickets locked up while you can.
27 Comments
“Say what you wish about La Canfora and his history of reporting on the Browns…”
That’s the problem, his history and he’s the only one reporting this. There’s nothing to suggest he has inroads into this organization that no other national reporter has. He has repeatedly filed the-sky-is-falling type reports on the Browns that never gain much traction. Although the record and team are terrible and everything you speculate above could be happening it could just as easily all be made up in JLC’s mind and his seemingly endless vitriol toward the Browns.
Haslam will never be as bad as Modell, but he is approaching legendary Stepien status.
He’s had an axe to grind every since his pal Lombardi got fired.
Only 6 more games to go!
Everyone associated with this team needs to stop telling the fans to be patient. We’ve been patient. We’re quite capable of continuing to be. They need to start telling their boss to be patient.
Seriously, if this is true I think Haslam might be the only person in town who didn’t expect the Browns to go 0-16 this year.
The Browns are like an abusive SO. The only tolerable Sundays are the ones they don’t play – thank God for Thursday night football this week. And yet I keep caring about it. If they shake things up any way other than fiddling with coordinators, I may beg my friends to stage an intervention.
Even Haslam expected it, but he expected them to look good going 0-16.
Actually, the sky generally has been falling.
In hindsight I’m not sure it’s possible to look good going 0-16. I’m not sure it it’s possible to play hard and lose every game by 3 points.
When you know you stink and you know you’re embarrassing yourself and you can’t do anything about it it kinda affects how you play the game.
tl:dr – no matter how hard you try you can’t look good if you’re pooping your pants in public.
Of course you can’t look good going 0-16. That’s the mistake they’ve made a hundred times before, rebuilding from scratch because the team looked bad in a rebuilding year. And if they make it again, I will be…
Unsurprised.
Oh man…not this s#!t again…
Here we go: LaCanfora hates the Browns, is a Ravens fan and friends with Lombardi.
If the front office is as smart as they think they are they know 2 quarters isnt much in the grand scheme. Who knows? Maybe Kessler took the hint tnd may try and stretch the field next week. Then Hues a genius.
I never understood how/when/why starting NFL qbs became so fragile. In baseball, if Kluber didnt have his stuff for one reason or another one day and got pulled in the 3rd, no one worries what that does to his psyche. No one worries about losing ths locker room. Used to be that way in the NFL too, although that started evolvibg around the mid 90s. Anyhow, jeebus, its only a big deal to peoplw selling a story, I bet.
Next- Jimmy Haslam and ten departments. Jimmy Haslam, frequent punching bag of JLC. Im not sure JLC has missed a single chance to try and embarrass Jimmy since Lombardi got canned…maybe those ten departments are HR, concessions, public relations, IT, marketing, etc…im certain there are ten departments withing any billion dollar corporation that have exactly ntohing to do with that corporations main product.
Moving along. Just dont go 0-16. Pull one out. Then it doesnt matter
I’m available Jimmy. I just need a guaranteed 4-yr contract. You won’t hurt my feelings if you want to move on after one year. Here are my credentials…
-Once had two pick-6’s in a college intramural flag football game
-Won Super Bowl back to back seasons in my Madden franchise
-I get “ready” for game days like a seasoned vet.
So if what La Canfora is saying is true, then why is there an article from Mary Kay that sounds like Jimmy is saying the exact opposite??
https://www.cleveland.com/browns/index.ssf/2016/11/hue_jackson_says_jimmy_haslam.html
http://www.marriedtothesea.com/092210/an-axe-to-grind.gif
http://i.giphy.com/emDa7BjE51THO.gif
https://media.giphy.com/media/RiDZXTqTJSXV6/giphy.gif
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FWIW, MKC, who has her own issues with credibility, disputes the report.
Even though I don’t think you can give much credence to what La Canfora writes when the Browns are involved, of course there’s tension. 0-16 sucks. When no one is happy, there is tension.
” … as many as 10 departments report directly to Haslam, an owner with a history of having zero football decision-making skills.” Of course, the FO he hired is absent the same history. La Canfora circles Berea like a buzzard searching for distress stories, real or imagined, and we have no idea if this is at all accurate or in a correct context. But not hard to imagine that the tepid early draft returns and blowouts are causing some panic at the top. The defense simply gave up in the second half, the last thing an owner wants to see from a young team playing on national television in front of a sea of empty seats. After witnessing 3 failed FOs in 5 years, he should by now know what questions to ask and to whom they should be directed.
Like Banner, Sashi talked his way from the business side into the highest rank of player personnel evaluation. Andrew Berry isn’t yet 30. DePodesta is somewhere on the west coast, presumably tweaking his football software programs. This set-up guaranteed a painful learning curve. It did not guarantee that it would eventually work, or that Haslams have the acumen to predict whether they’re on the right track.
hi HARV … i actually saw DePodesta at the game Thursday !
….wearing a purple tie, in Baltimore. I’m sure it was a tribute to Prince.
If Hue and HBT aren’t tanking quite to Jimmy’s expectations, there are other experienced personnel to choose from… Sam Hinkie is available.
I think there’s a scenario here where the front office could have wanted Cody Kessler to continue being vetted and could think that Ray Horton has not been able to bring the young guys up to speed as quickly as expected (thus putting him on the “hot seat”), but everyone is still on the same page without any malice towards each other. In fact, I believe that’s the true situation here based on the comments from Hue and the fact that none of the Browns beat reporters are reporting friction. Firing Ray Horton would not be a reactionary Haslam-type move if Ray Horton really hasn’t been successful in meeting his specific goals for this season.
Firing a coordinator mid-season does little if the problem is the absence of fundamentals and knowledge of the system that was to be installed beginning in the mini-camps. And hard to believe there’s a full rebellion going on when, with maybe exceptions, these players are all trying to establish themselves in the league. I’m suspecting that 1) Horton has failed to dumb-down his pet defenses for young and fringe players, and 2) Horton is overrated. Still, the team doesn’t need even more chaos while they spend the last 6 games trying to keep a steady eye evaluating what’s here.
Or whatever. Hard to care.
This is something as a number of other local scribes have backed what MKC said this morning. In the past most were eager to jump on the national narrative. This is different.
I just hope that heading into this season the ownership, FO, and coaching staff got together and had a meeting of the minds: “Look, we all know that we’re headed for a really bad season. Like, 0-16 bad. And we all know that there’s no way for 0-16 to look good. So, can we agree that no heads are going to roll until after the dust has settled and we’ve had a chance to sift through the detritus?”