A few posts ago, I wrote a piece themed around the question, “What is Browns owner Jimmy Haslam thinking?”

 

The Browns are 0-7 for the first time since their first season in the expansion era in 1999. That team went 2-14, but people are wondering if this club will win even just one game. Although there is always hope, it doesn’t seem as if Sunday, when the Browns, who have lost 22 of 23 games over the last two years and are still without a clear, defined franchise quarterback, serve as the host team in a game against the Minnesota Vikings in London, will be that day.

 

But Sunday does mark the halfway point of the season. Also, it signals the beginning of the bye week. The Browns won’t play again for two full weeks, Nov. 12, when they face the Lions at Ford Field in Detroit.

 

If the Browns get blown out, or even if they play competitively but still lose to the Vikings to fall to 0-8, would that be enough for Haslam “to blow this thing up,” as he once termed it, and fire head coach Hue Jackson and/or Executive Vice President of Football Operations Sashi Brown and Chief Strategy Office Paul DePodesta?

 

If Haslam were thinking about such a move, then this would certainly seem to be the perfect time to make it for it is a seminal moment in the season. It would give the new coach or the new people – however deep the swath of his cuts would be – plenty of time to get themselves organized for the next game and the beginning of the second half of the season. The Browns do not play at home – in Cleveland – again until Nov. 19 when the Jacksonville Jaguars visit. After that, then they’re not back at FirstEnergy Stadium until Dec. 10 and 17, when they play the Green Bay Packers and Baltimore Ravens, respectively, in their final two home games of the year. By then, the firing of his top people would be old news – as much as news of that magnitude would be second-page stuff anytime before the end of the season.

 

I certainly hope Haslam doesn’t clean house – I don’t think it’s the smart thing to do, because I believe that despite their record, the Browns are on the right track with a total rebuild I thought was long, long overdue – but it would be foolish to think that it’s not a distinct possibility.

 

If Haslam is going to stay the course and keep his guys in place, then he needs to come out during the bye and offer his support to them so as to send a clear message to the players and the fans. That would stave off the wolves – at least for a little while.

 

But he could also send that same message by doing just the opposite and making wholesale changes.

 

Indeed, it could go either way.

 

So, then, what is Jimmy Haslam thinking?

 

In one way, shape or form, we should soon find out.