The last two Browns training camps were circus sideshows.
Really, ladies and gentlemen, you can’t make this up.
There was Johnny Manziel, who was more interested in partying than playing. He was trying to stay one step ahead of would-be defenders, and one step ahead of would-be arresting law enforcement personnel. He dared both to catch him.
There was Mike Pettine, whose inability as a head coach was superseded only by his inability to have even a clue about quarterbacks and offensive football. What he knew about those two subjects could have been placed upon the head of a pin, with enough room still left for the Terminal Tower.
Because he didn’t want the team to draft Manziel in the first place, Pettine was bound and determined not to play him even if it meant using Josh McCown, a nice guy who sometimes puts up good numbers but has made a career out of losing games, or Brian Hoyer, a nice guy and a local guy who unfortunately gets the yips in tight situations and can’t seem to pull himself out of them.
Pettine wasn’t concerned about winning. He was concerned about making his point, and being right.
There was General Manager Ray Farmer, who drafted Johnny Football. He wanted Pettine to play Manziel because it made him look, like he knew what he was doing. He didn’t care about winning, either, as least as it related to football games. The only victories he wanted were in his own little egotistical battles with Pettine.
It was dysfunction personified. No wonder the Browns flopped on the field.
But the tickets to camp are free, and you have to pay to get into the circus. So at least fans got something out of the last two camps.
As interesting as all that may have been at times – it stirred the same kind of curiosity as what we have when we pass the site of an accident on the highway – it will not be part of this year’s camp.
Pettine and Farmer are long gone, and so is Manziel. And by the time camp rolls around, there seems to be a good chance that McCown will be outta here, too.
The Browns will run a professional camp, especially when it comes to quarterbacks. Imagine that, a professional team running a professional training camp.
Head coach Hue Jackson would have it no other, way.
The quarterbacks, newly-signed free agent Robert Griffin III and either Jared Goff or Carson Wentz, whomever the Browns take at No. 2 overall in the draft, will have a fair competition based upon a well-thought-out plan by Jackson. The Browns will give Griffin every chance to be the starter, with Jackson believing he can pull the best out of the former Washington Redskin with good coaching and a good scheme that suits his skill set, and would like the rookie to watch and learn until it is time – whenever that is – to pass the baton to him.
Today is Easter, March 27, and we already know the ground rules. And they make sense. That’s why we call it a professional camp.
It will make for good football, which is what camp is supposed to be about in the first place. Its interest will come out of this. Football fans will like it. The entertainment crowd won’t.
Oh, well.
If want a sideshow, then you’ll have to wait until the circus comes to town – but that won’t be at Browns Headquarters.
