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Some people don’t know when to be quiet.
Others don’t know when to talk.
That’s the case with one former member of the Browns, and a current one.
Ex-General Manager Ray Farmer is the one who needs to keep his mouth shut. For his own sake, he needs to do so.
Farmer, who was fired at the end of last season after two horrific years on the job, said the Browns were not equipped to handle “the quirks” that come with having quarterback Johnny Manziel on their team.
That’s true. We wrote that in this space months ago. The fact Farmer is just figuring that out now tells you all you need to know about his intellect on the matter.
But whose fault was it that the Browns were ill-prepared?
It would be the GM, in this case Farmer. He was the one in charge of evaluating this kid up and down, both on and off the field. He was also the one in charge of disseminating the information and making the decision on whether to draft him.
When Farmer went out and selected Manziel in the first round, at No. 22 overall, in the 2014 NFL Draft – and, make no mistake about it, it was him, not anyone else in the organization, who did it, despite what he tries to keep telling us – it was then also his responsibility to set up the process by which he would be handled by the club.
The fact that was never done – Farmer admitted it wasn’t done – is his fault. The buck stops at his desk.
Leave it to Farmer to incriminate himself.
When he was in Cleveland, Farmer let everyone know with his pompous attitude that he was always the smartest guy in the room. But the problem is that when people do that, we find that just the opposite is true as soon as they open their mouth.
So just be quiet, Ray Farmer, and go away.
Now we get to the guy who should be talking, especially the other day when he was questioned by reporters. That’s Justin Gilbert, the cornerback who was drafted 14 spots ahead of Manziel, at No. 8 overall in 2014.
A lot of people claim that Manziel may be the worst first-round draft pick in Browns history. But a good case can be made that it might instead be Gilbert.
While Manziel did indeed do some good things on the field, only to negate them – and then some – by his poor decisions off the field, Gilbert has given the Browns absolutely nothing on defense in his two seasons. He’s been a complete non-entity.
Gilbert said he doesn’t want to look back and re-hash the past. That’s a poor decision. He needs to man up and address it, say he needs to get better and that this is a big season for him to prove himself to a new coaching staff, which it is. That’s all he has to say. The media would respect that and walk away.
Players are required by the NFL to talk to the media. As part of that, Gilbert owes fans an explanation for being an investment that has paid no dividends yet. And he makes himself look bad by refusing to talk about the elephant in the room that is his colossal failure as a pro.
So we’ll say it for him: He’s a first-round draft pick, so the Browns are going to give him every opportunity to get himself straightened out, especially in light of their shaky situation at cornerback. But the members of this coaching staff will go only so far in that regard. They didn’t bring him in, so they have nothing invested in him. He’s on the resume of the previous regime, namely Farmer and former head coach Mike Pettine.
So this new group won’t hesitate one bit on getting rid of him and moving on if they become convinced he can’t play.
And if the Browns cut him before the start of the season, which is a distinct possibility, then he will quickly find out that no one will care if he doesn’t want to talk about his NFL career. He will be yesterday’s news.
By Steve King
