Cleveland Browns: Sashi Brown’s “rash of changes” comment hits home
By Joel W. Cade
The Cleveland Browns fired former executive vice president of football operations Sashi Brown. Years later, Brown finally got his turn to speak about the organization.
The Cleveland Browns are consistently changing things in search of consistency. But the only consistency is the fact that things are always changing.
This merry go round of changes began when owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam bought the team in 2012. Since that time, the team has gone through 7 head coaches. That number includes permanent and interim head coaches. That is a lot for owning a team for only 8 years.
The front office has not been immune to change either. During the Haslam’s 8 year reign (of terror), the Brown have had 6 different people sit in the general manager’s (or equivalent) chair. Again, that is a lot of turnover for a short period of time.
But this is all old news for Browns fans. The team always seems to be searching for the perfect fit. They want the magic elixir that will make the Browns just like every other successful team in sports. But if they are not successful immediately, well they get fired immediately.
There is an interesting pattern to all of this change. The Haslam’s seem to be rotating between approaches. Their approaches are not as innovative or forward-thinking as they would have fans believe. Instead, they are simply recycling the same two ideas until something works.
These same two ideas are simply 1) the so-called “analytics” approach and 2) traditional “old school” football methods. The Haslams are making decisions as if they are swinging on a pendulum.
When the “analytics” doesn’t produce an immediate winner, they swing the pendulum to the extreme opposite and hire “old school” football guys. When that approach fails to yield an immediate winner, they swing back to “analytics” people.
If there were no friction or drag, a pendulum would swing forever. It seems without a check or balance on the Haslams’ perpetual changes this pendulum might swing forever as well.