Ted Stepien.
It’s a name you probably don’t recognize. If you consider yourself a diehard Cleveland sports fan and you don’t recognize it, chances are you’re either too young to remember the Cleveland Cavaliers of the early 1980s, or you’ve worked tirelessly to scrub any recollection of it from your memory bank.
Stepien owned the Cavaliers from 1980-1983, and in three short years, nearly killed professional basketball in Cleveland, Ohio. After a litany of bizarre marketing gimmicks (including dropping softballs off a skyscraper in downtown Cleveland) and horrendous trades (including dealing away a pick that eventually became the #1 overall pick in the 1982 draft, aka James Worthy) the NBA stepped in and created a rule commonly know as “The Stepien Rule”, which prohibits a team from trading its first-round pick in consecutive years. Additionally, upon Stepien’s sale of the Cavaliers in 1983, the league offered the Cavaliers compensatory draft picks for the ones foolishly squandered by Stepien as a courtesy to new ownership for spending money on a flaming train wreck.
The 2014 Cleveland Browns may not have reached Stepien-level ineptitude just yet, but I couldn’t help but think of this name on Tuesday when news broke that the Browns had fired general manager Mike Lombardi and that team CEO Joe Banner would be “stepping down”, each having spent less than 18 months on the job. And some in the national media now believe Stepien-ian measures are needed to keep this once proud franchise from spiraling further out of control.
I think the league office needs to intervene in Cleveland. I’m serious.
— mike freeman (@mikefreemanNFL) February 11, 2014
After resisting the urge to write about the Browns after they dumped first-year head coach Rob Chudzinski and his staff, this announcement pretty much forced my hand.
One can surmise the writing had to be on the wall for Banner and Lombardi at least in Haslam’s head, as moves like this typically don’t come out of thin air. The fact that this move was not done immediately after the season — and just one week prior to the NFL Combine — is unnerving for Browns fans. Owner Jimmy Haslam seemed to be firmly behind his less than dynamic duo of Banner and Lombardi, as he repeatedly supported their exhaustive search for a head coach.
It was the third week in January, the Super Bowl matchup had already been set, and the Browns were still the only NFL team without a head coach. Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn had interviewed for the job and reportedly did well. Yet rather than waiting on Quinn’s season to finish out, Haslam, Banner and Lombardi, known in some circles as “The Three Stooges” (possibly in part due to the pressure applied by media and fans) hired the obscure Mike Pettine to lead their team.
Who knows? Pettine could end up being a fine NFL head coach, but all the vacancies around the league had been filled, and since there’s only one Cleveland Browns in the NFL, it was reasonable to assume nobody else would can their head coach without warning. Therefore, there was no need for Cleveland to settle on Pettine, a guy who seemed to not be on the radar of any of the other six teams in need of a coach, prior to Quinn making his decision.
As you may have heard, Quinn’s defense went on to make Peyton Manning look like Brandon Weeden and the Seahawks went on to win their first Super Bowl. What you may not have heard is Quinn publicly stating he would’ve been interested in the Browns job after the season ended. Perhaps Quinn was simply playing a political game and he ultimately would’ve turned Haslam down, like so many other candidates, or maybe the Browns could’ve had the orchestrator of the NFL’s best defense, instead of the man who orchestrated a defense that gave up 37 points to the aforementioned Brandon Weeden.
The ballsy moves made by Haslam this offseason however cannot be completely viewed as negative. Few pegged Chudzinski as the type of leader necessary to take a football team to the promised land. Banner’s reputation was absolute shit around the league and some believed it impaired the Browns’ ability to attract top-level coaches and free agents (something that’s never come easy to this city…in any sport). And Mike Lombardi’s hiring was vilified right from the start— mainly because he’s Mike Lombardi.
Sidebar: And even after leaving Cleveland a second time, we all now know he’s still just Mike Lombardi.
The Browns also promoted assistant general manager Ray Farmer to GM. Farmer was impressive in his various media stops throughout the day yesterday, and is viewed by many around the league as a promising young executive. Many fans on local Cleveland radio seemed optimistic about the changes and there was an uptick in season ticket deposits from the day before the announcement.
One can only imagine how much it must take to get a billionaire to swallow his pride, but Haslam did it when he removed Chud in January, and he did it once again in yesterday morning. Rather than allowing his ego to get in the way of what Cleveland Browns fans deserve, Haslam has taken it upon himself to see the errors in his ways and correct them without hesitation. Then again, given Haslam’s pending legal issues, which could very realistically land him in the slammer in 2014, the Browns owner has no doubt become accustomed to dining on humble pie in the last 12 months. And Haslam’s eagerness to admit his mistakes cannot and should not excuse him from his culpability in the hiring of three men with renowned unsubstantiated and or unproven credentials.
Sidebar: This, after he preached the importance of continuity upon his purchase of the team in October 2012. Since then, three head coaches, two CEOs/Presidents, three general managers and you can throw in a few assistant coaches too.
In the last 14 months, the Cleveland Browns have employed 56 coaches.
— Peter King (@SI_PeterKing) February 12, 2014
Sadly, this type of gross mismanagement is nothing new to Cleveland sports fans. Only the Browns could make everyone forget about the season the Cavaliers are currently struggling through. But despite the fact the Browns are loaded with draft picks, cap space and a new movie this April that could serve as the perfect backdrop for their revival, the reality is this football team is going into a pivotal draft with an unproven GM, who was not in on the interview process of “Stone Cold” Mike Pettine, architect of the 6-10 Buffalo Bills defense. Furthermore, Jimmy Haslam will be forced to continue his Fred Astaire routine around the fans/media skepticism over the direction of his franchise and its perception of perpetual disarray, while attempting to simultaneously dodge prison.
Whether during the season or after the season, the Cleveland Browns are never short on entertainment. Let’s just hope the only radical plot twists this spring regarding this haphazard organization are in Draft Day, not on draft day.