Cleveland Browns: Should be worried about GM Ray Farmer?

Feb 19, 2015; Cleveland Browns general manager Ray Farmer Indianapolis, IN, USA; speaks to the media at the 2015 NFL Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports

It was quite the Labor Day weekend for the Cleveland Browns, with roster cuts, a trade, player signings, and a suspension for an assistant coach, all as the club prepares for Sunday’s season-opening game against the New York Jets.

The weekend also marked the start of general manager Ray Farmer‘s four-game suspension for texting coaches during game’s last year.

Farmer came into possibly more than his share of criticism over the weekend, with fans complaining about some of the players the Browns released – most notably wide receiver Josh Lenz – or those the team retained – most notably wide receiver Terrelle Pryor.

We also heard a fair amount of grumbling over the decision to trade second-year running back Terrance West, who led the Browns in rushing in 2014 with 673 yards. Surely, the critics are saying, moving on from a player who was a third-round draft pick just one year ago is as true a sign of Farmer’s incompetence as anything else he’s done in Cleveland.

If you only look at Ray Farmer through the prism of his failures he is obviously going to come off bad – just like every other general manager in the NFL

Which has us wondering if Browns fans should be worried about Farmer’s role in acquiring personnel for the club.

Where Browns fans fall on the Farmer debate pretty much comes down to how they view quarterback Johnny Manziel and cornerback Justin Gilbert, the pair of players selected by Farmer in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft.

Both players have had more than their share of struggles so far: Manziel because he took what amounted to a redshirt year in 2014 (without bothering to notify the coaches), and Gilbert because he only wants to do everything his way. Not helping matters is that Manziel has a bad elbow, leaving the Browns to bring in Austin Davis as insurance, and Gilbert has a bad hip, helping to put him behind just about everyone on the depth chart.

Now with West on his way to Tennessee for a conditional draft pick and suddenly the top half of Farmer’s first half doesn’t have as much shine to it.

It wasn’t just last year’s draft, but there has been much agita over the release on Saturday of Vince Mayle, the club’s fourth-round draft pick in the 2015 NFL Draft. (Mayle will reportedly be joining the practice squad of the Dallas Cowboys.)

Put all that on one side of the ledger and it would be easy to see how some people would want to portray Farmer as an incompetent stooge.

But if you are going to hold up Manziel, Gilbert and West as “failures” on Farmer’s part, you then have to give him credit for guard Joel Bitonio, who showed Pro Bowl form as a rookie after being selected in the second round. Or defensive backs Pierre Desir and K’Waun Williams, who earned valuable playing time last year, running back Isaiah Crowell, the team’s top running back, and Taylor Gabriel, all brought in as undrafted free agents last season?

What about this year? Doesn’t Farmer deserve some credit for drafting Danny Shelton, Cameron Erving, Duke Johnson, Nate Orchard, Xavier Cooper and Ibraheim Campbell – all players expected to make an impact on the team for the next several years?

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What about free agents Karlos Dansby, Donte Whitner, Tramon Williams, Brian Hartline and Randy Starks, among others? Certainly some of that credit needs to fall on Farmer, yes?

Did the Browns miss on Manziel and Gilbert? Maybe. Should they have figured out something was amiss with West before drafting him? Maybe, but you never know how a taste of success or money will change someone. Could they have used a fourth-round pick on someone other than a player that was widely expected to need time to transition to the NFL? Possibly.

But would you rather the Browns kept Mayle simply because he was a (relatively) high draft pick? Or defensive tackle Phil Taylor simply because he was owed more than $5 million this season?

Should Browns fans only focus on those moves and not look at the entire body of work that Farmer has put together so far? Of course not.

If you only look at Farmer through the prism of his failures he is obviously going to come off bad – just like every other general manager in the NFL. With all the moves a general manager makes each season, there are bound to be mistakes, you just have to hope the bad outweighs the good.

And in that case, for now the scales seem to be tipping decidedly in Farmer’s favor.

What do you think of the overall job Ray Farmer has done so far as general manager?

Next: Browns suspend OL coach Andy Moeller

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Should Browns fans be worried about GM Ray Farmer?

By Thomas Moore | Sep 8, 2015

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