Jimmy Haslam Wants to Be More Involved? Good
There's been a bunch of hand-wringing over the notion that owner Jimmy Haslam wants to be more informed with the new setup of the Cleveland Browns. Given his track record as owner of the team, it's natural to be skeptical, nervous - okay, terrified at this idea, but it's actually probably the best thing for the potential longevity of Kevin Stefanski as the head coach of the team.
It's been reported by Steve Doerschuk of the Canton Repository that Jimmy Haslam wants things like "hours-long, Monday-after, owner-coach meetings". Beyond the fact that a number of teams do this already, the more Haslam understands about what the Browns are doing, the more likely he's going to buy into it. If he buys into it, he's less likely to want to blow it up and less likely to want to meddle.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this, every minute Haslam's being informed as to what the this organization is doing, whether it's from Paul DePodesta, the Chief Strategy Officer, Stefanski or the general manager still to be hired, the less he's talking to outside sources and having them tell him how things should be done. That causes him to doubt the people he actually hired and get distracted by something shiny, like the top of the head of San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh.
One of the issues that has plagued the Browns since the Haslams purchased the team was a failure to understand what they are supposed to do once the hiring is done and they are down to actually operating as a football team. What do I do with my hands, so to speak. Haslam has taken great pride in his intellectual curiosity, always asking questions of people from players to coaches to executives. And that can be a huge asset, but when it causes him to use his hands to call for outside opinions that make him second guess everything his team is doing, it increases the likelihood of acting irrationally.
The more Haslam understands, the more confident he is in what's happening and the more he wants to see it through. It will also help him understand what the football operation needs to be successful and what he can positively impact. Rather than being part of an incursion to trade draft picks for a mediocre quarterback, he can make sure the football operation has everything it needs to fuction at the highest level.
Rather than picking sides in battles between factions within the building, he's hearing one message being reinforced over and over again with what sounds like a substantial amount of transparency, which should only make him feel more confident in what's happening.
It's impossible to predict what Haslam is going to do given what's happened with him to this point, so it's completely fair to expect the worst while hoping for the best. But unless they decide to sell the team, he's not going anywhere. And since he is an owner, he can basically do what he wants. There's also nothing to suggest he's going to all of a sudden be an absentee owner that just signs checks the way Randy Lerner did when he owned the team. Considering the options, having him personally investing himself in understanding what this football operation is doing, it could prove to be beneficial.
