Browns Banner and Lombardi are out

[Guest]

It gets better......

Browns owner Jimmy Haslam pulled off one of the most surprising NFL moves in quite a while on Tuesday, announcing that the team no longer needed the services of CEO Joe Banner and general manager Mike Lombardi -- both of whom had been in their respective jobs for about a year.

Naturally -- and deservedly so -- the Browns were blasted for their decisions to continue to hit the reset button on the franchise.

Now, however, here's another strange twist to the story.

According our old pal Mike Freeman at Bleacher Report, Haslam contacted Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells and, though a job offer never materialized, Haslam supposedly wanted Parcells to run the Browns organization.

Parcells said he talked with Haslam but told Freeman it was "only about how I believe organizations succeed and others fail."

Wrote Freeman: "I'm told Haslam saw Parcells as a way for the Browns to regain the credibility lost from the recent string of embarrassing moves the team has made. The problem with possibly pursuing Parcells is that he's 72 years old and clearly done with football. But it would have still been an interesting coup."

Parcells clearly is one of the smartest minds in NFL history, but his last stop in Miami didn't go well, and though the Saints thought about consulting with him a couple years ago after Bountygate, it appears that the chances of anybody hiring Parcells at this point -- or him wanting to be hired -- is rather slim.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-...owns-franchise

[Maynard]

the way i heard that report was that jimmy only talked will parcells. im just assumed coaches, GM, execs and players all looked to each other for advice from time to time. not sure how this became a story.

what would be interesting is if parcells directly influenced jimmy to dump banner

[Guest]

This is truly bizarre........just wow.

The Browns have been in the news a lot lately for the dysfunctional nature in which they've reorganized their coaching staff and front office over the last few weeks. It might've been worse than anyone ever knew.

Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer has a revealing piece Thursday (which is well worth your click and full read) in which she details how things went down in Cleveland, with the end result being the dismissal of Michael Lombardi and the "phasing out" of Joe Banner with the Browns.

In that profile is an interesting nugget about would-be candidate Josh McDaniels, who's still the offensive coordinator of the Patriots after withdrawing from the candidacy. Cabot reports that "within about 24 hours" of withdrawing, McDaniels called the Browns and tried to get back in the coaching search before they ultimately ended up hiring Mike Pettine.

Unsurprisingly, it was Lombardi who pushed for McDaniels as a head coach, believing he could succeed in his second stop much like Bill Belichick. (Who, ironically, was fired from the Browns in his first stop as a head coach.)

Cabot reports, despite the team's public statements to the contrary, that McDaniels could've been their last-minute "mystery candidate." According to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, McDaniels was in the mix and was considered the Browns "last-resort, safety-net option."

The McDaniels issue created, Cabot reports, controversy between Lombardi and Banner. As did the candidacy of Greg Schiano, who received recommendations from Belichick for the Browns job.

According to multiple reports, Banner wasn't remotely thrilled about the possibility of hiring Schiano and his lack of interest in Schiano -- when his boss Haslam was clearly interested -- apparently created friction between those two men.

So, to sum up ... Banner and Lombardi were at significant odds with one another and, reportedly, Banner was ready to fire Lombardi. But Banner and Haslam were also at significant odds and Haslam was gearing up to fire Banner.

Ultimately Haslam simply cleaned house. There's nothing functional about it. The whole process was a pretty big embarrassment. It's entirely possible when the smoke clears that Cleveland will be in a better place. It just might be a while before the smoke gets out of the way.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-...oaching-search

[Youk]

Even more interesting is the fact that the reports now say McDaniels declined a second interview in that same time period

A couple of intriguing reports emerged on Thursday regarding Josh McDaniels’ candidacy for the coaching job in Cleveland. And now there’s a third.

Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer got the ball rolling with a report that McDaniels was a candidate until the end, and that he wanted the job. We then reported that he was a safety-net candidate, and that the Browns didn’t necessarily want to hire him.

In response to those reports, he’s another key piece of information we’ve obtained from a source with knowledge of the situation — shortly before hiring Mike Pettine, the Browns made a formal request for permission with the Patriots to interview McDaniels a second time. And he declined.

On the surface, that cuts against the notion that he wanted the job. Unless, of course, McDaniels wanted a wink-nod commitment that he’d also be getting an offer.

Regardless, the Browns wanted to interview McDaniels a second time. For whatever reason(s), McDaniels wouldn’t do it.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/02/13/source-mcdaniels-declined-second-interview-with-browns/

[Napt0wn_S1ayer]

[Guest]

I guess it seems Banner was doomed from the start. Incredible that two coordinators with the experience that Turner and Horton have would be fine with reporting directly to an executive.

Ousted Cleveland CEO Joe Banner -- who is transitioning out of his role in Cleveland after being not asked back along with GM Mike Lombardi -- had the new offensive and defensive coordinators reporting directly to him, CBS Sports NFL Insider Pat Kirwan reports.

Kirwan spoke to a league source at the NFL combine in Indianapolis that told him Banner was a bit of a control freak and structured the coaching staff so that the new coordinators would answer directly to him.

That's atypical of an NFL team to say the least. Generally speaking coordinators answer directly to the head coach, in this case recently hired Mike Pettine.

Pettine was hired after the Browns fired Rob Chudzinski following just one year at the helm. Chud has since latched on with the Colts as a special assistant to the head coach.

To say that the power structure in Cleveland was different would be an understatement. New GM Ray Farmer, who was at the time assistant GM, was not involved in the head coaching search either, Kirwan was told.

Having coordinators circumvent the head coach and GM by reporting to the CEO of the team is just out there. As Kirwan wonders, it's entirely possible that Banner wanted to control what players played and when.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-...irectly-to-him

[Maynard]

i understood this to be the new coordinators. never the less, it paints a clear picture why banner was fired. how in the world can a ceo have coordinators report to him over the HC....what a joke of a franchise.

although, if this is true it makes me feel better about the direction of the team.

word is that it was lombardi who told the reporter about this at the combine....he is with NE now, but was using his browns notebooks. lol

[Guest]

i understood this to be the new coordinators. never the less, it paints a clear picture why banner was fired. how in the world can a ceo have coordinators report to him over the HC....what a joke of a franchise.

although, if this is true it makes me feel better about the direction of the team.

word is that it was lombardi who told the reporter about this at the combine....he is with NE now, but was using his browns notebooks. lol

I mis-read that. I really thought Banner would be good for the franchise, guess I was wrong on that one. No way did he learn that from the Eagles organization, I have to think he was paranoid over something.