Browns Coaching Search Update

 

The Browns coaching search points out one of the Cleveland Browns largest issues, that of being disconnected from the reality of their national identity.  In Berea, the attitude seems to be that the Cleveland Browns head coaching job is an extremely desirable job, one that almost anyone in the NFL would covet.  In the Browns self-deluded world they have a Top 3 defense poised for continued success, a stockpile of valuable draft picks, light at the end of the tunnel on the Deshaun Watson fiasco, a whip smart front office headed up by valedictorian analytics staff that gives them a strategic edge, and a palace of a new stadium just around the corner.  THIS is one of the most storied franchises in all of sports, a place any coach in his right mind would want to become the face of the franchise.  This is greatly at odds with reality.

The Browns are known to have a dysfunctional franchise, evident from their last 26 years of very public performance.  The owner is one of the worst in all American professional sports where candidates need to weigh which is the most troublesome aspect of the Haslam character, the continued heavy-handed involvement in football operations or the very basic betrayals of trust in business dealings.  The more the ownership bristles at how they aren’t dysfunctional, the more dysfunctional they appear to be.  This would require a large amount of rationalization to get past, knowing that your career could be forever tainted by, oh… I don’t know… trading all your draft picks for a guy guilty of sex crimes that wasn’t interested in playing football or maybe trading both of your veteran QBs a few weeks into the season to turn the keys over to a couple of overmatched rookies.  Let’s say you can get past that…

Now you need to grapple with the reality that the Browns cannot cut Deshaun Watson, and that he is gobbling up about a quarter of your team salary cap.  You have no quarterback.  You have no way to get a quarterback for a year.   You don’t have any offensive linemen, no money to sign free agents, and no receivers.  The offensive side of the ball is a complete disaster and there is no immediate solution for your first year on the job.  You aren’t going to be able to “scheme” your way out of the fact that you don’t have guys that can block and your receivers can’t catch and your running back almost had his leg torn off late in the season.  You’ve got nothing and the guy that needs to find you players spent $18M a year on Jerry Jeudy.  Uh-oh.

Still, this is one of only 32 jobs.  The only problem would be if there were a bunch of vacancies so hot coaching candidates would have limited choices.  Wait… What’s that?  There are 9 available jobs?  Oh fuck.  I sold media for years and years.  Before our Corporate Overlords installed the “non-compete serf system”, you could move to other stations when things got fucked up at the one where you were employed.  When the TV/Radio station version of the Buffalo Bills job opened up, even people that were relatively happy with where they were would kick the tires on that job.  The Bills will get to choose amongst a plethora of qualified candidates.  Meanwhile there were media jobs at other places where NOBODY wanted to go.  Those places were picking through the dreck at the bottom of the river like a catfish, much like the Browns are doing now.  Sure, maybe the hot candidate will come interview with you, but they are just being polite.  Generally, those organizations are looking through the resumes of the guy that went to AA a few times but seemed like he was clean now, that one guy that may or may not have embezzled from his last employer, and the woman who might be a pathological liar but seems friendly.  Fans think that the Browns are more professional than where they work, but I’ve been inside.  It's not that different in the Browns front office than it was at 92.3FM Extreme Radio.  You just have a team shop with ugly shit with the Browns.  

The young hot coaching candidates the Browns are looking at have no intention of dashing their career on the rocks here in Cleveland.  “Well, a young guy can come here and even if it doesn’t work out, he can chalk it up to experience for his next head coaching job.”  Sure, just like Freddie Kitchens, Mike Pettine, and Rob Chudzinski did.  If you are a young coach that comes to swim here in this cesspool of poison, there is no scrub brush that can wash it off.  You are forever tainted like that kid in your grade school you still remember for having pissed his pants.  

Now if those reports are true about the Browns making candidates write term papers, taking personality tests, and written assignments across multiple rounds of interviews, the Browns have only proven what everyone else already thought about how fucked up the team operates.  Before someone comes running in with that “they are a data driven organization” bullshit, I’d like to point out that Paul Depodesta turned in his keycard to slink off to fuck up the Colorado Rockies because of one key data point.  They don’t get results because the people giving the tests don’t know what the fuck they are doing.  You could provide a complete textbook predicting the future to the Cleveland Browns and they would misinterpret the data and somehow still go 4-13.  There is no plan.  There is only process.

I’ll tell you what the most likely outcome is, which plays to the Browns favor completely by accident.  The Browns will not have the opportunity to hire any of the sexy young guns because the younger guys will recognize having the Browns on your resume is a scarlet letter.  If they want a future, it’s not worth the risk of coming to Cleveland to stand at a podium to try and explain what stupid shit the front office just did.  Any young guy that takes this job knows it might be his only shot at a head coaching gig, he isn’t qualified but just hasn’t been found out yet.  You do NOT want him.  He is going to flame out hard.  You cannot take an inexperienced person, place them in this totally fucked up environment and think it will work.  They have NO CHANCE.

The Browns will hire either Schwartz or Monken for the head coaching job.  This is not all bad as they really need to have an experienced head coach to try and sort through this mess and at least point the ship towards a direction… any direction.  Ideally, they hire Schwartz.  Do I think he will be a good head coach?  No, not really.  Do I think he has the best chance of surviving the dysfunction?  Yes.  Schwartz has worked inside the belly of this beast and at least has some idea of how to navigate the choppy waters of the team headquarters to get things done.  Now I am not saying that he will get things done, but at least he knows the hurdles.  Anyone else will come in and take people at face value for being competent not realizing that a great many of them are fools.  It will take a new hire at least a season to figure out who is grossly incompetent and who can accomplish basic tasks if you speak slowly and clearly enough.  Schwartz or Monken provides the opportunity for stability that comes from knowing how a real organization does things, although the chance the team hires some unqualified kid who wrote a good book report with ChatGPT is always in play.  

The bottom line is the Browns are going to have to take who they can get.  Nobody wants to come here.  You can argue that maybe the Cardinals job is worse as Bidwell is an asshole and a loon.  That Raiders job is terrible but at least you get a #1 pick QB, live in Vegas and can ask Mark Davis about the rationale behind that haircut of his.  Whoever the Browns hire will be trotted out as “Well, we got our guy.  Early in the process we identified Coach X as someone that can build the winning culture we all want here.  Coach X stood out early in the process as being on the same page as the organization and has shown himself to be one of the best minds in the NFL.  We can’t be any more excited to introduce the next coach of the Cleveland Browns… Coach X!”.  Meanwhile that guy is standing there with a weak smile knowing he was only going to prom because the three other guys that she wanted to take her to the dance bagged out. 

Go Browns.