THE CULPRITS ARE THE OWNERS

By STEVE KING

I listen to Browns owner Jimmy Haslam talk, such as he did in his press conference on Thursday as he discussed the team’s firing of head coach Freddie Kitchens and General Manager John Dorsey and the search for their replacements, and I can’t help but to picture someone – and something – completely different.

Haslam and his wife, Dee, the co-owner of the team, are well-meaning – I believe them when they say they feel terrible about what has happened to the Browns during their seven-plus years as the people in charge – but they aren’t from Cleveland and don’t truly realize what the club means to all of Northeast Ohio and beyond. As such, then, they can’t feel as badly as the fans do about what has taken place, with all the losing and dysfunction, both of which to franchise historic proportions.

The fans had no say in the matter as the Haslams took this community heirloom – a franchise that is a cornerstone of the NFL – and have repeatedly smashed it against a rock to the point where it is now unrecognizable to those who remember all the winning and championships and coaches, trainers, equipment managers, public relations people, ticket agents and so many more employees who spent all, or nearly all, of their professional life with the Browns because it was the best job in the world since it was their hometown team. It was an honor and a privilege to walk through those doors in Berea – at the present team headquarters on Lou Groza Boulevard and, before that, at Baldwin-Wallace University – every day all those years.

That the Haslams are not just any ol’ strangers, but also former part-owners of the arch-rival Pittsburgh Steelers, makes it all just that much more hideous.

What has happened has happened – it’s history, and there’s no going back – and so the only way to quell the fans’ anger, frustration, disappointment, etc. is for things to change now.

Right now.

Drastically.

And for the foreseeable future.

Will it?

For that matter, can it, under the Haslams?

We can all only hope. Sadly, that – hope – is all we have, all we can control.

The rest – all the rest, all the important stuff – is up to the people who keep wrecking it.

It’s a helpless feeling.