The Browns players were not mentally engaged yesterday in the 24-6 loss to St. Louis Rams.
 
If they had been into it, then they would have wouldn’t have fumbled the ball away and have it returned for a touchdown just minutes into the game.
 
The head coach, Mike Pettine, was not emotionally engaged, and hasn’t been all year.
 
If he had been into it, then, especially on a day like yesterday when things rock bottom with a miserable 18-point loss to a mediocre opponent, he would have cut loose on someone – the players who weren’t focused or the officials who stood idly by while quarterback Josh McCown was beaten to a pulp, especially with what looked to be a helmet-to-helmet hit that left him on all fours with his head on the ground.
 
What was worse? Pettine just standing there like a statue? Or players unable to hold onto the ball as if it were a hot potato?
 
Or was there something worse than both of those, what with General Manager Ray Farmer refusing to come out in public to face the music even though he has had four first-round picks in the NFL Draft the last two years who contributed absolutely nothing yesterday, and have contributed absolutely nothing this year or, in the case of Justin Gilbert and Johnny Manziel, have contributed absolutely nothing for two years now?
 
It’s hard to tell which one is the worst look? Suffice to say that they’re all terrible.
 
Here’s another even bigger question: If you’re Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, what do you do from here?
 
Do you blow it up now? Do you blow it up at the end of the season? Do you call Farmer and Pettine into your office, ask them a lot of pointed questions and demand that their answers be what you want to hear?
 
Clearly, things can’t continue like this. It’s an embarrassment to everybody involved. If there’s a shred of pride left in that building out in Berea, Haslam has to do something.
 
Doesn’t he?
 
Well, doesn’t he?
 
Everybody – including the guy writing this piece – has said, and almost all of them continue to say, that the Browns won’t blow it up in the middle of the season like this because they have no one among the assistant coaches who is qualified to take over as head coach, even for half a year on an interim basis.
 
But is that still true?
 
By promoting an assistant, could the situation possibly get any worse than what it already is?
 
After all, the Miami Dolphins blew it up recently and are doing a lot better after promoting on an interim basis Dan Campbell, a virtual unknown who is all of 39 years old.
 
Or should Haslam blow it up and hire somebody from outside the organization and give him the job for the long haul?
 
Blowing it up would get everyone’s attention. Bringing somebody in from the outside and giving him the ability to make changes immediately with the knowledge he has time on his side, would get everyone’s attention even more.
 
Should Haslam let Pettine and Farmer finish out the year but also demand that the coach start playing younger players to see what they can do?
 
In the very least, with McCown all banged up, and perhaps with some concussion issues that we’ll find out about later on in the week, shouldn’t Manziel get the start on Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals at home? Don’t the Browns need to find out, once and for all, if he can help them going forward?
 
And here’s another one: If the Browns won’t fire Pettine for the upheaval it would cause in the day-to-day operations of the team on the field, and I can understand that in a lot of ways, would they – should they – get rid of Farmer? After all, with the team at 2-5 and going nowhere fast with two consecutive losses, this season is lost, but next season is not. Farmer is in charge of getting the team ready for next season, but, with his poor track record, especially with those four first-round draft flops, do the Browns really want him making any decisions going forward.
 
Keep in mind that the Browns were fine with Farmer out of the building for the first four games of the season while serving a suspension for his involvement in Textgate. No one missed him. The organization wasn’t any worse for the wear.
 
These are all difficult questions, for which there are no easy answers.
 
But by doing nothing – by continuing to adhere to the status-quo as if it were some kind of lifeline to the promised land when in fact it appears to be an anvil disguised as a life jacket, ready to sink everybody and anybody who clings to it – Haslam is, in essence, saying that he approves of, and has signed off on, what has taken place thus far?
 
And no one, especially the man at whose desk the buck stops, can ignore the fact that this thing needs to be at least changed immediately in some regard, and then perhaps completely overhauled in the offseason.
 
That we’re having this discussion before the season is even half-over simply makes the situation just that much worse.