Chris Palmer, the first head coach of the expansion-era Browns, is a really nice guy – as nice, and as kind, of a man as you’ll find in pro sports.
Using a popular phrase, he’s just good people.
But even the nicest, kindest and most patient people have a limit to what they will tolerate. And when they reach that limit, they can explode just like everyone else.
It was late in the 2000 season and starting quarterback Tim Couch – the No. 1 overall pick in the team’s first draft back in the NFL in 1999 – had been lost for the season with a freak broken thumb injury on the last play of practice just a couple weeks earlier. That his backup, Ty Detmer, had suffered a season-ending torn Achilles tendon injury late in the preseason finale, meant the Browns were being forced to play quarterbacks who couldn’t make the varsity at nearby Baldwin-Wallace University.
Palmer could see what was happening. His team, after an encouraging 2-1 start, was in a free fall. He would later call it “a runaway train.” The Browns were headed for a horrible record – it ended up being 3-13 — and that, coupled with the horrible 2-14 mark of 1999, meant that Palmer was headed toward a horrible fate. He knew he would be fired as soon as the season was over and that his dream of being an NFL head coach would end forever.
Who was going to hire a guy whose career record was 5-27?
So Palmer was not in a good mood – to say the least — as practice began on the indoor practice field at Browns Headquarters in Berea. To make matters even worse, her was also not happy with a story written by a beat reporter that Palmer should be fired.
The coach exploded, snapping at the reporter who was with a group of other media people watching on the sideline. Another beat writer intervened to try to calm Palmer down, and it finally worked only after the coach angrily pointed at the other writer four different times as he exclaimed, “That guy!”
Afterward, it was funny, but at the time it was happening, it was a little tense — or perhaps a lot – because none of us had ever seen the nice-guy coach anywhere close to being that irate.
I thought of that when current Browns head coach Hue Jackson, almost always an affable guy as well, was incensed when he met with the media following Saturday afternoon’s practice that, wrought with penalties and other sorts of dysfunctionality, was less than stellar.
Jackson’s outburst wasn’t a negative. It was a positive. It made him appear human, just as Palmer’s tirade did 17 years ago. Especially when you’re in a position of power, you need to send a message every once in a while to remind those you coach, teach, serve, etc. that you’re not a pushover.
And that message was made loud and clear – and then some – as the Browns got back to work following Thursday night’s 20-14 victory over the New Orleans Saints in the preseason opener.
