A lot of things have been said about the Cleveland Browns after they missed the playoffs this season with an 8-9 record, but to us, the weirdest thing is saying the dysfunction that was a trademark of much of the last 20 years, has returned to Berea.
Quite frankly, we don’t see any evidence of it.
Most of the noise surrounding the Browns have come from the media, the front office has been largely silent.
It’s the media and fans who are saying the team is deficient at the quarterback position and coming up with crazy scenarios to get some of the best QBs in the game in a Cleveland uniform.
And apparently at least one media member believes Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefanski should have anticipated a wide receiver coming off a season ending knee injury would ask out of town and when he didn’t get his wish, would put less than a sterling effort on the field.
We are sure the organization thought the player would be excited to come back to a playoff team, and try to help it toward the next level or two of the post-season.
What the Browns should be doing right now is a self audit, looking at what went wrong AND also what went right in an effort to be better next season. And with Berry, Paul DePodesta, and Stefanski handling this, we are sure it is being done without emotion.
By the way, that’s the correct approach, despite what the fans and media want.
To us, the dysfunction would be if we heard rumors that ownership was unhappy with the hierarchy in the organization or Stefanski’s job was in jeopardy because he didn’t follow up a post-season appearance with another one.
Instead, things are relatively quiet.
In fact, the Minnesota Vikings hired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, the vice president for football operations with the Browns, as their new general manager. And Adofo-Mensah went out of his way at his introductory press conference to call Berry a “rock star” and thank him for what he learned in Cleveland.
Sounds like it’s a crazy atmosphere in Berea, no?
We have said this before, we are sure the front office is doing everything it can to improve this football team so the absence from the post-season ends at one season. And they are looking at every position for improvement, including quarterback.
The dysfunctional thing to do would be to act with emotion, make a knee-jerk reaction to a season that fell short of expectations, and start making wholesale changes as soon as the season ended.
We didn’t see any of that. The only move made was a special teams assistant coach was let go. Defensive line coach Chris Kiffin left to join his brother’s staff at Ole Miss, but we would believe that has more to do with working with his brother than a bad atmosphere in the organization.
As for Odell Beckham Jr., the organization did right by him. They could have told him to go home and stay there when his unhappiness reached a crescendo, but they worked out a settlement so he could play somewhere else.
So people are finding fault with that as well.
What we don’t see is conflicts between the head coach and the front office, or between the owner and the front office.
We guess after this season, dysfunction is defined as not going crazy and firing or cutting coaches and players.
The narrative for some keeps changing…
Cleveland Sports Perspective 