Yes, it was embarrassing.

 

Yes, it was humiliating.

 

Yes, it was an unmitigated disaster.

 

Yes, what happened on Tuesday with the Browns was all that and more.

 

If you called it one of the worst moments in team history, you’d be right.

 

And if you wanted to call it something worse than that, whatever that might be, you’d probably be right, too. So go ahead, be creative.

 

To put it mildly, it was egregious.

 

But there was a silver lining – or linings – to what can best described as the trade version of Earnest Byner fumbling the ball on his way into the Denver end zone in the 1987 AFC Championship Game.

 

There are always silver linings to everything, even that.

 

And in this case, it is that the Browns didn’t get AJ McCarron to be their supposed franchise quarterback, if only for the rest of the season. This isn’t Alabama anymore but rather the NFL, and as such he has no chance whatsoever – in any universe — to be anyone’s franchise guy for any length of time, any way you look at it. The Browns know it, or should. The Cincinnati Bengals know it. I know it. You know it. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

 

In addition, now we know for sure who the bad guy is in the Browns hierarchy.

 

It’s not Hue Jackson.

 

Or Jimmy Haslam.

 

It’s Brown, as in Sashi.

 

His feeble attempt to make it look like he really wanted to get McCarron, when in fact he was undercutting the legs of the owner, who no doubt told him to go get McCarron so Hue would have a guy he wanted, and when in fact he was also undercutting Hue’s legs by making sure it didn’t happen with something he had executed flawlessly any number of times before – sending the proper paperwork to the NFL to consummate a trade – was a dishonest man proving beyond any shadow of a doubt he thinks he’s bigger than the team.

 

I really want Hue to stay.

 

I really don’t want Sashi to stay.

 

Whether it’s a football team, a factory or a footwear store, a dishonest man – a liar, if you will – is poison. He – his personality – is a cancer that spreads like wildfire and kills everything it touches. The Browns don’t need that monster-sized problem. They already have enough of them on their hands.

 

In any event, it will be interesting to see what Haslam does.

 

That is, once he cools off.