There was Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel driving like a madman on the expressway last week while having some kind of physical confrontation with his girlfriend. The incident also allegedly involved alcohol.
Wow, there’s a shock. Who could have ever seen that coming?
What should the Browns do about it? What will they do about it? And when will they do it?
Who knows?
But, more importantly, here’s what we do know: It’s another bad-look story for a franchise that, from the moment it returned to the field in 1999, has had so many bad-look stories that you have to bundle them in groups of 10, and by category, to organize them.
In this year alone, here are the stories coming out of Browns Headquarters in Berea:
*Manziel returns from a stint in rehab in the offseason and then, after keeping his nose clean for a long time, inspiring the hope that he might finally be getting his life in order, he slides back into his old habits eight days ago with his highway high jinks. Though fully aware of the situation and admitting that it’s serious, the Browns, for reasons they haven’t yet divulged and may never divulge, refuse to de-activate him for last Sunday’s 26-23 overtime loss to the Denver Broncos. Manziel is making an impact on the Browns, which is what you would expect from the No. 22 overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft, but it’s not the kind of impact the club expected, wanted or needed.
*Cornerback/returner Justin Gilbert can’t get onto the field on defense. He’s not good enough. He was horrible when he played previously, but he contends he performed well, something that even head coach Mike Pettine, who has always bent over backwards to support him, scoffs at. Gilbert was the No. 8 overall draft pick in 2014. So, with Gilbert and Manziel, the Browns are getting absolutely nothing from their first-round choices that year.
*Andy Moeller is dismissed as offensive line coach after an incident with his fiancé that allegedly involved alcohol and physical abuse. Since he had a long history of such incidents before coming to the team in 2013, the question that begs to be asked is: Why did the Browns hire him in the first place?
*Pro Bowl cornerback Joe Haden, the face of the team in many respects, goes to Pettine and begs out of a game with a hand injury, calling into question his toughness and commitment, especially from someone who is supposed to be setting an example for younger players.
*General manager Ray Farmer is suspended for the first four games of the season for his involvement in Textgate, in which he texted down to the sideline during games last season wondering why Manziel was not playing. Not only was it illegal, but it was a blatant attempt by Farmer to usurp Pettine’s authority and cut his legs out from underneath him. Farmer and Pettine had to spend time at a retreat in the offseason to try to make nice with one another, and although both say that everything is fine now, there have been any number of examples indicating that a disconnect still exists.
*Though the NFL game has become one of passing the ball, Farmer continually refuses to use a high draft pick on a wide receiver, who could be signed on the cheap because of the rookie salary cap. Yet he couldn’t wait to sign aging wide receiver Dwayne Bowe to a free-agent contract in the offseason guaranteeing him a cool $9 million. And then Bowe misses almost all of training camp and the preseason with a hamstring injury, and has played only a few snaps in the regular season. Hmmmm. Where’s the value, or sense, in that? Yet the Browns insist there will be a time and a place for Bowe to make contributions this year. Doing what? Cleaning uniforms? Striping the field? Accompanying Chomps on personal appearances?
Through it all, the Browns bristle at the suggestion that theirs is a dysfunctional franchise.
Really?
As much as the Browns are incredulous over such allegations, fans should be incredulous – and, it appears, are becoming increasingly so — over the team’s refusal to admit what’s painfully obvious to anyone and everyone outside the organization. The first step in any recovery is to admit you have a problem, and the Browns definitely have a problem – lots of them, in fact.
The Browns continue to make news, a good bit of it nationally, but it is for all this craziness. Save for tight end Gary Barnidge’s between-the-legs touchdown catch at Baltimore, they seldom make news regarding good play on the field.
Until that changes – until the Browns perform well and record significant victories, not just once in a blue moon but on a consistent basis – they are going to be stuck in the mud of losing and all other kinds of negativity. Instead of being admired and respected, they are going to be ridiculed and held up as an example of how a franchise should not conduct itself.
In St. Louis, where the Browns play the Rams on Sunday, they are using this week to get ready for the game. But in Cleveland, they are using this week to wade through all the nonsense that just keeps happening. Preparing for the game is the last thing on their minds. They hardly have time for that.
The Browns can change the look of their uniforms with the best of them, but they can’t change who they are, what they do, and how they do it.
With these new-look unis – nine, count ’em nine, different combinations in all – the Browns couldn’t wait to distance themselves from a past they’ve never even tried to recognize, understand, embrace or appreciate. What they fail to realize, though, is that in turning the organization into a laughingstock, they have made those players and coaches from the past – the ones who won eight league championships from 1946-95 and sent 16 people into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the ones who made the Browns a model franchise, one that others in and around the game rushed to copy – as anxious as they can be to distance themselves and their shining legacies from all of the Three Stooges-like buffoonery that has gone on in the expansion era.
So while this Manziel madness is what we see now, the problem is actually much deeper, and with a much longer history, than that.
