Goodness only knows what former Browns General Manager Ray Farmer and ex-head coach Mike Pettine did at the NFL Combine the last two years.
It’s a given that they didn’t properly evaluate the talent level of the players when they were there, but along with that, they also properly evaluate the character and work ethic of those players. That’s evident in regards to quarterback Johnny Manziel, whose erratic behavior off the field somehow surprised the Browns but did not surprise any other human beings on the face of the earth, and cornerback Justin Gilbert, who appears as if he just doesn’t care about anything, including remaining in the NFL. For that matter, you could also say that about Manziel. Hmmmm.
Nobody can be that ignorant or negligent, can they? The Browns were. Either that, or they were not telling the truth, and I don’t want to go there.
Whatever the case, Executive Vice President of Football Operations Sashi Brown, Vice President of Player Personnel Andrew Berry and head coach Hue Jackson need to make sure they ask all the right questions at this year’s Combine, slated for this week in Indianapolis. We’re talking about the right questions regarding things on the field, certainly, but the tape will reveal a lot of that. There is not tape, though, to reveal what’s in a player’s heart, mind and soul – in his make-up. And that’s obviously an extremely crucial part of the equation, too, so those questions must be asked.
Chris Palmer, the head coach of the expansion-era Browns for their first two seasons of 2014 and ’15, put it well one time when I asked him about it.
“The chances of a college player – really, any college player – really making it in the NFL is already razor-thin,” he said. “You think you have everything figured out, and then, for whatever reason, the player fizzles. When you consider, that, then, I can’t afford to draft a player – no matter how good he looks on film – if I know he has a character issue. That takes that razor-thin margin makes it even more razor-thin.
“Think about this: We’re in Pittsburgh, it’s late in the fourth quarter and we’re ahead but not by much, and I need someone to make a play. If I’m unsure whether that guy was doing what he should have been doing all week in terms of his preparation by going home, getting his rest and studying his playbook instead of carousing around in bars and night clubs to the wee hours of the morning, then I can’t put that guy out there. He’ll make a mistake and lose us the game.”
Never were truer words spoken. A lot of these players are very similar physically. What separates them is their drive, preparation, football intelligence and personal responsibility to both their teams and themselves. That’s something you can’t teach. A player either has those qualities or he doesn’t, and it can be determined by the interviews at the Combine, and the subsequent interviews when a team brings him in for a visit.
That was apparently big news to Farmer and Pettine, which is part of the reason why they got fired.
It’s a virtual certainty that it won’t be big news to the members of this new Browns regime, but the proof will be in the pudding.
However, as Browns fans have learned – painfully so – in this expansion era, there are no guarantees, even when it seems for all the world that there are.
