It seems easy to view the Browns as a joke, a laughing stock, a debacle, the epitome of ineptitude, and a complete waste of time for a passionate city of diehard football fans.
But when a new front office came to power in Cleveland, fans wanted to be optimistic.
There have been some positive signs from this organization throughout the first couple months.
Head Coach Hue Jackson has made a good impression with a lot of the fan base so far.
The front office and coaching staff seem to be in sync, as opposed to the last regime.
Maybe they’ll finally turn the franchise around.
However, if March 9th left one impression on me, it’s that this new group is disconnected from what the fan base has been going through for what feels like an eternity.
The front office, led by Sashi Brown, decided to let Travis Benjamin, Alex Mack, and Mitchell Schwartz walk.
They’re headed to playoff contenders with real quarterbacks and winning cultures.
As I write this, Tashaun Gipson could be next to follow their lead. (Update: By the time I finished writing this, news broke that Gipson is signing with Jacksonville.)
It’s not all that big of a shock that the aforementioned players left.
What is more surprising however is who’s left on the Browns.
Johnny Manziel.
Browns fans have been told by reporters for five weeks that March 9th would be the day the franchise finally cuts ties with the 2014 First-Round Draft-Pick.
He should have been cut five months ago, but that’s neither here nor there.
What remains is that the front office is choosing to let him linger on the roster a little longer, reportedly to see if any teams offer a trade to get Manziel off their hands.
It makes absolutely no sense to me because all 31 teams should already know that the Browns plan to cut him anyway, so what’s the point?
But what the Browns’ decision to hold on to Manziel makes perfectly clear is that this front office has absolutely no idea what their fan base has gone through recently.
I’m not even talking about the grand scheme of depression the franchise has caused this city since 1999, but just in the last two seasons alone.
A large percentage of the off-the-field distractions and on the field pathetic production is due to the wasted first-round draft-pick and wasted potential of Manziel, who himself has been “wasted” a considerable amount of the time he’s been on the roster.
The one word to describe the two seasons since Manziel arrived in Cleveland is “wasted.”
Yet the front office honestly thinks keeping him around another day or maybe for a few more days is the right move.
This is because they weren’t here to put up with his crap during the season. Sashi was working for the Browns, but he didn’t have to answer the questions every other day that had nothing to do with football. Or wonder if his supposed franchise quarterback needed a babysitter at 23 years old.
He’s already had to put up with a fair share of it in just over two months, but even that doesn’t give them enough of an idea to see what kind of a joke this franchise has to deal with every day in the media.
A new video surfaced the same morning that the team went into the day planning not to release Manziel just yet.
This is all the Browns front office can expect between now and the time Manziel either changes his lifestyle or is booted out of Cleveland.
Manziel probably wants out of Cleveland himself. Maybe this new regime is just making him suffer a little longer?
But any highlight videos that come out related to Manziel for the forseeable future will have more to do with bottles, strippers, and clubs and probably nothing to do with football.
The move to keep Manziel shows that no one in a position of power in Berea can relate to the frustration the Browns fans have dealt with over his shenanigans.
But why would they?
Most of them weren’t here for any of his tomfoolery. And he wasn’t Sashi’s problem until now.
They’ve gotten a few doses of it, but it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. This is just Johnny Lite. Apparently what they’ve seen is not enough. Maybe they’re in denial. Just like Manziel.
But this does not just reflect on the front office. It also shows that Coach Jackson was not abundantly clear that he wanted Johnny out at 4:00 PM and not a second later.
It also makes it clear that Jimmy Haslam still doesn’t believe he’s seen enough to make it one of the top items on the “to-do-list” to cut Manziel as soon as the calendar turned over.
The team is holding out hope that there is some other franchise that is even more clueless than them. The Browns are actually hoping that some team is willing to give up ASSETS to get Manziel. Just taking a chance on him at the league minimum seems ridiculous enough to begin with at this point.
This organization continues to show that they are a joke. They let talented players walk away, just like past regimes.
They keep the guys who have no idea what it means to be a great teammate. Just like past regimes.
They are completely out of touch with their passionate fans, who shell out money to buy a product where the value is nowhere near its price.
As someone who wants to be optimistic about the Browns and wanted to give this new front office and new coaching staff a fresh start, one of my most important indicators to look for was “would this team make a statement that they will not tolerate the childish behavior of Manziel any longer, and cut him at 4 PM?”
The statement they have made is that nothing he did was too important to keep him from hanging around another day.
But the guys who actually contributed and provided valuable service for this franchise for years and years were not worth the money to keep.
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