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The Cleveland Browns‘ 2015 season will officially come to an end tomorrow afternoon. For some people, mostly the fans who’ve paid hard-earned money to watch a 3-12 train wreck, this will be great news. For multiple members of the Browns organization, not so much.
Primarily, I’m talking about head coach Mike Pettine and GM Ray Farmer. There have been numerous rumors going around about the fate of these two men. Initially, there were some who believed both would be safe if only for the sake of consistency. Recently, a report claimed Pettine might get another year, while Farmer will be shown the door.
However, things took a bleak turn for Pettine today when multiple stories came out indicating his tenure with the team might be coming to a close.
Per Mary Kay Cabot, multiple members of the Browns staff met with Pettine yesterday morning, leaving said meeting under the belief the coach will be fired at season’s end. Additionally, Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network reported Pettine had asked owner Jimmy Haslam whether or not his job was safe, and Haslam refused to answer. It’s tough to find any optimism in that situation, and now odds definitely favor Pettine being fired along with Farmer.
So, just about four months after Haslam claimed that, no matter what happens this season, he wouldn’t blow everything up, it certainly sounds like he’ll be doing exactly that Monday. And, with yet another slamming of the reset button, a franchise seen as a league-wide laughing stock will watch its reputation take yet another devastating blow.
Some would say it’s impossible for Cleveland’s reputation to get any worse than it already has. My guess would be those people are not Browns fans, and haven’t seen this franchise out-do itself in failure since 1999. As it stands, Haslam blowing up another front office is going to do a lot more harm than good, at least initially.
Haslam has only owned the Browns for a little over three years. In this short time, he’s already developed one of the worst statuses in the NFL. He’s hired and fired numerous regimes at what would seem like a record pace. Said regimes have all had the word “toxic” tied to them at some point or another. It seems like every year, numerous media members paint Cleveland’s facility as one which is nowhere close to figuring out how to win.
Keep in mind, all of this has happened before Haslam prepares to dump yet another staff. If he indeed goes through with firing his third coach and GM, how do you think this will make the Browns look?
Championship-starved Cleveland fans have been begging for their football team to hire “proven winners” for decades now. However, when your team is seen as a joke throughout the league, how exactly can you lure said proven winners to work for you?
The impending coach and GM search Haslam is reportedly about to commence is going to be littered with hurdles. Potential coaches know they’ll be asked to turn around a moribund franchise in minimal time. GMs will know they’ll be on thin ice from day one, dealt a roster full of holes and told to make something out of it. Anyone heading to Cleveland will know they’d be working with a franchise immune to consistency.
The real problem, though, is that Haslam has no choice here.
Farmer has been a disaster, proving to have little to no idea on how to build a team. Pettine had one of the best starts ever for a Browns coach, posting a 7-4 record late last season. Since then, he’s only won three games.
Now, if Haslam somehow finds himself a great staff, one which the team can finally build around and strive towards some semblance of consistency, then this rebuild will have been a success. However, since buying the team in 2012, Haslam has hardly proven he has any idea of how to hire the right people.
So, despite the fact he’ll pretty much have to oust Farmer and Pettine, Haslam will also be providing even more evidence the Browns are a rudderless ship. With more than a handful of other teams likely looking to fill coaching vacancies, additional damage to Cleveland’s reputation is hardly going to do any favors in the upcoming search.
Proven winners may be what fans are dying to have in Cleveland, but as long as the team continues to fall deeper into chaos, I wouldn’t expect any credible coaches to come to town anytime soon.
Casey Drottar is the Cleveland Beat Writer for www.Rantsports.com. Follow him on Twitter or “Like” him on Facebook
