Greg Schiano against the New Orleans Saints during the first half of a game at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano engineered a disastrous 2013 season that caused him to be unceremoniously dumped upon the conclusion of the year, and he did a terrible job of coaching in just about every facet. An embarrassment to the organization with his draconian tactics, Schiano once didn’t allow the MVP of the Buccaneers only Super Bowl win to take deserving kids with him to a Bucs practice. He led a toxic work environment, and treated his players as if they weren’t professionals. Current and former Bucs players alike spoke ill of him, and his X’s and O’s were equally suspect. He ran mindbogglingly stupid stunts instead of allowing guys like Adrian Clayborn to do what they do best, and he was too slow to allow all-world CB Darrelle Revis to lock up the opposition’s top wideout in man coverage. If you think his knee injury was a legitimate excuse for Schiano to use, then you need to take a closer look at just how amazing Revis was in zone despite that not being his natural playing style (or the style most beneficial to the team).
Despite Schiano’s unmitigated disaster of a 2013 season in Tampa Bay, he still received head coaching interest from one NFL team. Sports Illustrated’s Peter King reports that the reason why the Browns traveled to Tampa to interview Schiano was because of endorsements that owner Jimmy Haslam, who might be just as incompetent as Schiano given all of his strange moves this offseason, became very intrigued. CEO Joe Banner was unsurprisingly not happy with Haslam’s decision to interview Schiano, who could have really made the Browns in a worse position had they decided to hire him. Per King, Banner was “cold” to Schiano in the interview, which helped the Browns in the long run but undoubtedly didn’t do him any favors with Haslam.
Was this a reason for Banner’s announcement yesterday that he will step down in May? The Browns offseason has been full of so many twists and turns that I would buy this one. We can only hope that Haslam can make wiser decisions in the future, and that Ray Farmer and Mike Pettine can help give the organization more stability. It’s also a good thing Banner made sure to stop the Schiano love in its tracks, because he would have been the worst possible hire for this team given what happened in Tampa.
The move isn’t the problem, but the timing is more than just alarming.