Cleveland Browns: Investigating the Front Office

Sep 27, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Cleveland Browns running back Duke Johnson (29) Oakland Raiders cornerback

(25) at FirstEnergy Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

The Cleveland Browns’ front office is standing in the way of the team’s success. The question that needs to be answered is just where the problems lie and what can be done to eliminate them to allow the team to be in the best position to succeed. Because of the nature of front offices being so private, this is largely an exercise that stems from taking on field evidence in the form of evaluating decisions made, working backwards and adding my own beliefs and inferences to come up with a hypothesis on what is wrong and what can be done to address it.

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I’m inclined to believe Ray Farmer can be a good general manager for the Cleveland Browns, if allowed to fully operate in his position. Looking at the two NFL Drafts and free agency under Farmer the past two seasons, the second to seventh round of the draft, undrafted free agents and traditional free agents have been a solid haul for the Browns.

Taking established veterans out of the picture and looking purely at players that can potentially be contributors in the foreseeable future, the Browns have been able to add the following in the past two seasons.

Joel Bitonio, Chris Kirksey, Duke Johnson, Xavier Cooper, and Pierre Desir are contributing from the NFL Draft and look like players that will continue to improve with time and development.  K’Waun Williams, Taylor Gabriel, Jamie Meder, Jordan Poyer, and Travis Coons were either undrafted free agents or low profile free agents that the team picked up that are playing now and may be able to help down the road. Noticeably absent are Scott Solomon and Isaiah Crowell; Solomon looked promising at the end of last year but he simply has not been able to do anything this year due to injuries and while Crowell was a contributor last year, his impact this year and in the future looks like it will further decrease.

As for the rest of the second through seventh round picks, some are playing and not yet succeeding such as Nate Orchard and Malcolm Johnson. Ibraheim Campbell is learning behind Donte Whitner and playing special teams. Charles Gaines, Randall Telfer and Ifo Ekpre-Olomu have been injured and the latter two were picked with the intent to let them use this year to recover from injuries suffered in college. Hayes Pullard is on the practice squad.

Terrance West and Vince Mayle were abject failures. Even in the event the Browns bring back Mayle at some point before the end of the season to develop him in the offseason, which can be spun as cunning, having a fourth round pick spend time on another team’s practice squad and roster in between, is a miss.

Next: The first-round picks