After last week’s late-term abortion of a game against Green Bay, I came to two unofficial conclusions about my relationship to the Browns this season: first, that that would be the last time I paid money to watch them at a bar this season, and second, that I would only write posts about them if something really remarkable happened.
Well, after today’s equally embarrassing loss to the Bears, something remarkable happened.
Randy Lerner addressed the media.
In the process, he provided such a disarming window into the source of the organization’s dysfunction that I had to address it.
I’m a strong believer in the notion that every company takes on the personality of its chief executive. As I’ve said over and over again, pro sports franchises are businesses. Franchises with dysfunctional owners beget dysfunctional front offices beget dysfunctional teams. If you too buy into that notion, then even glancing through the article explains basically everything that’s wrong with the Browns from an organizational standpoint.
At the risk of being dramatic, Randy Lerner appears to be a complete train wreck.
The biggest piece of concrete news from his apologetic, rambling, hand-wringing press conference is evident in the headline of the Plain Dealer’s article. Lerner has pledged to bring in “a strong, credible, serious leader…to guide decisions in a far more conspicuous, open transparent way.”
Of course, the problem is that he also pledged to do this without firing Alpha Dog.
At the core, Lerner has decided to augment the organizational hierarchy in this manner because he thinks the team lacks leadership and quality decision-making on football issues. But normally, those are the elements provided by your head coach and / or GM. I’m not arguing that there aren’t huge question marks about those things within the Browns. But if your head coach and GM aren’t working on that level…then what level are they working on?
Put another way, if your coach isn’t leading and your GM isn’t providing a clear philosophy for the organization or good personnel decisions, what exactly are they doing?
To me, the answer is “stealing money.”
But let’s put aside the obvious problems in this idea, because hovering over it like a giant bat-winged monster are Lerner’s own thought process and decision-making.
Every owner in every sport obviously has his own personality. When Jerry Jones makes statements to the media, it’s news of a very low order because he loves the spotlight, loves to talk, loves to make headlines. Randy Lerner, on the other hand, has a lot more in common with J.D. Salinger than Jerry Jones when it comes to interacting with the press. So if he comes out of his secret mountain lair to hold a press conference, it’s a big deal.
When this happens, Lerner’s only goal in speaking to the media should be political. He has to let the fans know that he recognizes that there are problems with the franchise, he shares their frustration, and he is working to fix things. That’s it. He doesn’t have to offer a detailed, concrete plan. He just has to reassure everyone that he has the stable business mind to put the organization back on track.
The problem, of course, is that Lerner did none of this. He laid out a plan that was semi-specific but not clear or sensible. He claimed that he wasn’t necessarily in the loop when it came to the decisions being made by Mangini and Kokinis, especially regarding the yo-yoing of DA and Brady Quinn. Mangini, as we all know, has made a point that he is always talking with Lerner, though we also know that Mangini is a master of talking to people without giving out any actual information. But regardless of whether this revelation was a lie or not, it doesn’t make Lerner look good.
That said, the biggest red flag was Lerner’s emphasis that he didn’t entirely have his thoughts together on what to do and needed more time to figure it out because there”s a lot going on right now….The answer is soul-searching.”
If this was indeed the case, then we have to ask: why didn’t he wait until he’d done that before he rounded up the press corps?
I’ll ignore any kind of pop psychological analysis of what this tells us about Randy Lerner as a man. However, I can’t ignore that it demonstrates a lack of basic strategic thinking and common sense that Browns fans should find deeply troubling. Any credit I can give Lerner for assessing the situation honestly is overshadowed not so much by the fact that he is having second thoughts about his decision-making, but by the fact that he doesn’t even have the awareness to realize that he shouldn’t express this to the public. If the owner doesn’t have any confidence in his hiring, why should the fans? And if he doesn’t even have this basic awareness after several years at the helm of the organization, why should the fans have any expectation that he’ll suddenly figure out how to run a franchise on any level? We’re not talking about inventing cold fusion here, just fundamental business thinking.
As Mary Kay Cabot points out, Lerner still owes Phil Savage and Romeo Crennel $20M over the course of the next several years. Canning KokGini would only add to that price tag. To any rational business owner, that has to be a factor in considering how to move forward. But if there’s any solace to be taken from Lerner’s display of political ineptitude, perhaps it’s that he seems to be enough of a reactionary that cost may not matter.
Then again, maybe it will. I haven’t made up my mind about it yet. Give me a few days to soul-search.
-T
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