Cleveland Browns: Owner Jimmy Haslam Breeds Apathy

As long as Jimmy Haslam continues to own and operate the Cleveland Browns the way he has, the team is reduced to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic hoping the iceberg miraculously gets out of the way. Before and after the game on Sunday, which the Browns fell to the Cardinals 34-20, the team was surrounded by rumors ranging from the team having a fire sale as the trade deadline approaches this coming Tuesday to the ever present possibility that the Browns’ head coach, Mike Pettine, is fighting for his job.

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Since taking over ownership of the team, when many fans no one could be worse than Randy Lerner, Haslam has done nothing to improve the team’s woeful win-loss record while only serving to drag the team into the depths of embarrassment time and time again. All of this only breeds an environment of apathy from a fanbase that is running out of hope and anger to waste on the team.

Nov 6, 2014; Cincinnati, OH, USA; Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam looks on from the sidelines against the Cincinnati Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium. The Browns won 24-3. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

Haslam was awarded the team after he had been the minority owner of one of the most consistent, orderly franchises in the NFL – the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Commissioner Roger Goodell was convinced this was a slam dunk great move, because Goodell would be easy to approve since he was a known commodity within ownership circles and would have learned how to run a franchise from the Rooneys.

Instead, Haslam was immediately part of an FBI investigation involving his company, Pilot J then cleaning house for the first time with the Browns.

Not an unexpected move, Haslam replaced the remnants of Lerner’s final hires to make his own. That was three years and two head coaches ago.

After just a year of Rob Chudzinski, the Browns are now in the second year of Mike Pettine and despite statements in August that he would not blow up this regime, the assumption is that Pettine is coaching for his job. If Ray Farmer is replaced along with him, that would put Haslam on his third front office in four years.

Haslam’s expectations and irrational behavior make it difficult for anyone to succeed and poison any potential pool of candidates. The concept of having to coach to win right this second forces both the coach and GM to make decisions focused entirely on this moment in time with little or no thought to the future.

There are many fans clamoring to see Johnny Manziel, arguing that playing the 36 year old Josh McCown is a waste of time and the team needs to see what Manziel can do. Assuming that Manziel was close to McCown in terms of ability and readiness (which is debatable), there is no incentive for Pettine to play Manziel if he is not the absolute best option to win games. It does not benefit Pettine or his staff to coach up players for the next staff if they cannot help him stay employed now.

This also makes it more difficult for the team to attract or retain players, since the only constant is Haslam. Money is obviously a huge selling point for players but things like fit, the coaching staff and volatility matter and may be the difference for players. It can be extremely difficult for players to want to spend their prime years in an unpredictable situation where the only redeeming quality is the money on the contract. Players want to compete, want to win, and feel like they are part of something. Right now, with the specter of another regime change, there is little if anything to be attached.

Chudzinski was given just one season and Pettine may well just get two. Outside of a tendency towards masochism, no good head coaching candidate is going to want to go to Cleveland and take what might be their only shots to coach an NFL team when the owner has this type of track record.

People liked to joke that Pettine was the umpteenth choice for the head coaching vacancy after Chudzinski. Every high profile coach turned the Browns down, including but not limited to Chip Kelly, Gus Malzahn, and Bill O’Brien. Two years later and primed for their third head coach in four years, there is every reason to believe the situation is even worse.

Aug 23, 2014; Cleveland, OH, USA; Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam during warm ups before the game against the St. Louis Rams at FirstEnergy Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

This goes to another huge Haslam issue, which is his complete lack of self-awareness. Despite the fact that Haslam’s track record is one with numerous failures and few if any successes in his role as team owner, he never takes a meaningful look in the mirror or seeks to change his own behavior. After proclaiming so-called rookie mistakes (that were not really rookie mistakes), Haslam tried to assure the public that he would not blow up this group he put in place in August. At just the halfway point of the same season, the talk has shifted to potentially doing just that, again.

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Every indication is that the front office is filled with people who do not focus on their own job and there is crossover from unqualified people into roles they have no business performing. This reared its ugly head in the situation that saw Ray Farmer get suspended for texting demands down to the field and the coaching staff. There has been plenty of talk that President of Business Operations Alec Scheiner, among other unqualified opinions including Haslam’s, is having a huge impact on important personnel decisions.

The lack of clearly defined roles with anyone holding them accountable when they drift has created a Wild West feel to the offices within Berea. Haslam’s first role, above all else, is to create the best possible environment to promote success from top to bottom. The top has been nothing but a steaming pile of excrement that is trickling down to the field.

Getting back to the rumors of a fire sale before the game – the reality is that those rumors could have been made out of thin air. The unpredictable nature of the organization and its owner has created an environment where any rumor, no matter how outlandish, is given attention and discussed as though it is possible.

For example, it was floated out there that Joe Thomas was mentioned in trade rumors. The idea that the Browns would trade a lock Hall of Famer, just 30 years old, playing at an incredibly high level should automatically be dismissed as a joke. Not with Haslam in charge. The lack of a track record to do most anything logical has this team in a situation where the coaching staff and players have to address these types of rumors in the post-game press conference.

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The Browns are not a good football team and there is plenty of blame to go around. Players need to play better, coaches need to coach better, but it all starts from the top and the weakest link in the entire organization is and has been Jimmy Haslam. If he proceeds to fire Pettine, Farmer or both, he finds himself squarely in Daniel Snyder zone. Not only will he look irrational, but just as with Snyder in Washington, will have effectively toxified the situation so much that there is little if any hope for things to improve.

Despite the starvation to see the Browns be successful from fans, the apathy is increasing. Much like with Modell when the team was primed to move in 1994, outside circumstances and overwhelming success in other venues are not working in the Browns’ favor. The Ohio State Buckeyes won the National Championship last year and might be poised to make a repeat this year while the Cleveland Cavaliers are poised to make another run for their first championship in franchise history as well as the city’s first since 1964.

With the losses, embarrassment and constant speculation about what is going to happen with the Browns, there is a limit to what fans can take and apathy is more powerful than outrage. If on the radio, social media and general conversation does not even bother to get mad at the Browns, preferring to talk about the Buckeyes, Cavs, or anything else, that is a loss for the Browns. Anger and frustration are indicators that fans are at least engaged. When even that starts to disappear, what else is left?

The only meaningful solution is winning games and doing it on a consistent basis but even before that, there has to be something in place that suggests that winning is even a reasonable outcome. Currently, the way Haslam is operating the team, that is dubious.

What makes Haslam’s feat so impressive is just how fast he has done it. He was only awarded the team in 2012. Not even four years since he took over the team, it appears primed to be a completely toxic environment with no hope in sight, fans’ patience tested and plenty of talented players’ prime years wasted while he continues to try to figure out how to run a team – or not.

Short of divine intervention, there is little, if anything to suggest Jimmy Haslam will allow the Cleveland Browns to be successful, unless he makes a concerted effort to change how himself, first. There is no evidence to this point that Haslam has or is even capable of changing how he operates the team, so the fans are forever caught in the lurch until Haslam figures out what is readily apparent to everyone else. What he is doing is causing the problems this team has rather than fixing them and he is one of the worst owners in the NFL and the results are making it increasingly difficult to care.