How do you fix the Browns, who dropped their third straight to fall to 2-6 with a 34-20 loss to the Arizona Cardinals today at FirstEnergy Stadium?

 

You do it in steps.

First you hire a general manager who understands that offense – not defense – is the means by which teams win today. Defense used to be that means, but that was eons ago, at least. You don’t really stop your opponents now. You just outscore them.

Anyone who tells you that the problem with this team is the defense – not just this year, but in every year since the Browns came back in 1999 – is not thinking clearly, or at all. If you’re a fan, that type of comment should make your head hurt – a lot.

So the GM must focus the majority of his attention on acquiring as many good skill players as he can possibly get in the NFL Draft, especially in those all-important first few rounds where the best players are there to be had. Since passing is the way offenses move now, we’re talking about big, strong and fast wide receivers and tight ends who can simply overpower cornerbacks and safeties to go get the ball.

But by far the acquisition that is most key must be that of a big-time quarterback, since that is the most important position in team sports. All the great skill players in the world aren’t going to do anything for a team unless there is a quarterback who can deliver them the ball, especially in the most crucial situations such as in the red zone, on third down and in the fourth quarter. These are the times when games are won and lost.

Then a team must get a head coach who understands the way the game is played today. He must be offensive-minded and his coaching degree must be in quarterbacks. A master’s and doctorate are preferred. Yes, a team needs a defensive coordinator, but just not as a head coach. Never. Ever.

Also, the head coach and the GM have to be able to work together as a team and be willing to check their egos at the door. Their relationship must be that of a professional marriage in which they don’t talk behind each other’s backs. Their only goal is for the team to win, and the best way they can accomplish that is if they do everything they can to make each other look good.

The Browns have none of these ingredients. In fact, they’re not even close. They need a telescope to see where they should be – that is, where the best teams are.

GM Ray Farmer’s thinking about building a football team is stuck in the Stone Age. For whatever reason, he refuses to draft wide receivers early, and he wouldn’t know a big-time quarterback if he saw one. Putting him in charge of picking the players is like hiring an expert in demolition derbies to transport classic cars.

Head coach Mike Pettine thinks you can win games 13-10. These games now are 13-10 with four minutes in. He’s a good defensive mind, but that’s like being well-versed in snow tires while living in Florida. It doesn’t do you any good at all.

Quarterback Josh McCown is 2-16 in his last 18 starts. He does just enough to lose you the game. He’s a nice guy who works real hard and has a team-first attitude, but the number of impact plays he has made this season is equal to the number of nude sunbathers there will be along the beach at Edgewater Park in the middle of January.

The NFL is a big-boy league that’s based on results, with the only result that matters being whether your team wins. Josh’s team this year doesn’t win. His teams have never won in any year. So we’ll give him a participation trophy for showing up and trying real hard.

Until the Browns find great men to fill all three of these positions, they have absolutely no chance to win consistently. It’s no more complicated than that, even though the Browns have turned the inability to grasp that simple axiom into an art form.

I don’t know very much about art. But I know what I don’t like when I see it. And I don’t like what I see with the Browns.

Neither should the fans, who, as we’ve said here umpteen times, deserve so much better than this continual exercise in futility by their football team.