For the last four weeks since he was allowed back into Browns Headquarters after serving his four-game, NFL-imposed suspension for his involvement in Textgate last season, fans and media members alike have been asking – in some ways even begging, pleading – for General Manager Ray Farmer to address the media as the season has spun wildly out of control.
The ship is sinking, and we needed to hear from the captain.
Farmer finally made himself be heard late this afternoon.
Be careful what you wish for, because you just may get it.
It was an unmitigated disaster — uncomfortable, disappointing and anger-inducing all at the same time. It was so bad it was unbelievable.
We have told you any number of times that Farmer has no idea what he’s doing. To call him inept would be a compliment he simply doesn’t deserve.
We have told you any number of times that Farmer has absolutely no relationship with his head coach, Mike Pettine. If they were married in a real sense – and they should be professionally, for every good team has a GM and a head coach who are joined at the hip and can finish each other’s sentences – you would say they are like roommates, living in the same house but only speaking to one another in passing, and then only barely. Someone needs to call a divorce lawyer.
We have told you any number of times that Farmer has an ego the size of the Terminal Tower, and is so condescending that it is almost as if he is standing at the top of that Cleveland landmark as he speaks to people standing on the street below. Farmer doesn’t have conversations with people. He talks at them. He speaks, and they listen. He doesn’t care what anyone else says. It doesn’t matter. It has no relevance to him.
We have told you any number of times that Farmer doesn’t ever let the truth stand in the way of what he believes. He will say whatever he has to say to make himself look good and, when it applies, appear to be blameless, twisting and turning the facts into shapes that look like pretzels, or Denver Broncos safety Dennis Smith’s legs when Browns wide receiver Brian Brennan left him at the 15-yard line as he ran into the end zone with a 48-yard touchdown reception with just under five minutes left in the 1986 AFC Championship Game.
We have told you any number of times that Farmer never thinks he – not the organization, but he — makes a mistake. It’s just that there hasn’t been enough time yet for him to be proven right. He’s like that blowhard friend/neighbor/uncle/acquaintance who knows everything about everything, past, present and future, and just won’t quit talking because he has no idea how bad, and silly, he looks as he stands there and spews his rhetoric. Too bad there isn’t someone in the organization who is brave enough to kick him in the ankle and tell him to sit down and shut up.
And you saw, and heard, all of that – and then some – today in a press conference that will go down as possibly the most rambling, incoherent exercises in doublespeak in Browns history, and maybe even overall Cleveland sports history.
We hate that we’ve long been right on all these points, for in that being the case, it doesn’t bode well for the Browns and, ultimately, you, the fans, who, as we’ve also said any number of times, deserve so much better than this.
It is said that you have to hit rock-bottom before you can start moving forward. Let’s hope the pathetic and embarrassing display that played out in the Dino Lucarelli Media Room in Berea, is that bottoming-out. If it is, then that’s a positive – and perhaps the only one – from Farmer’s presser. Better days are ahead – at some point.
But if it isn’t, and things are going to get even worse, then …. then … that’s unfathomable, and scary, and depressing.
And sad, very sad.
