Mike Pettine's Brutal Honesty Could Save the Browns

INDIANAPOLIS — Cleveland Browns coach Mike Pettine could have dodged every difficult question fired at him during Wednesday's press conference.

Ducking controversy at the combine is to coaches and executives what performing the three-cone drill is to rookie linebackers: inevitable and essential. Some coaches/general managers refuse to answer tricky questions. Others speak in vague generalities, droning on and on about "the process" until the press corps starts snoring. A few are conspicuously absent, skipping press availability altogether.

Pettine took the podium looking grim and determined, almost melancholy. His starting quarterback is in rehab for an alcohol problem. His team faces sanctions because its general manager texted suggestions to coaches on the sideline during games. His star wide receiver faces a year suspension for multiple violations of the league's substance abuse policy.

Even the simple act of hiring a quarterback coach brought a whiff of scandal. New arrival Kevin O'Connell was working with prospect Marcus Mariota at a quarterback academy before the combine, and there have been whispers of improper communications between prospect, coach and team. Free agents like tight end Jordan Cameron and quarterback Brian Hoyer are reportedly eager to evacuate before the final implosion, per CBS Sports' Jason La Canfora and ESPNCleveland.com's Tony Grossi.

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Pettine is besieged from above and below like few coaches in NFL history have ever been. For most coaches, dealing with only one of the bushel of problems Pettine faces would cause painful press-conference prostate surgery. No one would blame Pettine for offering a series of standard-issue, extra-bland non-answers, hewing as close to Marshawn Lynch territory as possible during his mandatory 15 minutes. "I'll open it up and try to be as boring as possible," he joked, or threatened, at the start of Wednesday's press conference.

But Pettine was anything but boring. He was open, forthright, and a little bit defiant in the face of the withering negativity surrounding the Browns organization.

It was refreshing and a little bit inspiring. If the Browns really are a lawless Western town, Pettine sounded like Gary Cooper in High Noon: the last honest man willing to stand in the middle of Main Street and shoot from the hip.

Pettine met Johnny Manziel questions head-on. "I did go to visit him last week," Pettine said of his troubled quarterback prospect, who checked himself into a rehabilitation facility for substance abuse a few weeks ago. "I just wanted to go visit him and see how he's doing, let him know that we're proud of him for the decision he made to go in, and that he has our full support."

Pettine could have punted when asked about Ray Farmer; the Browns general manager who texted coaches during games is scheduled to speak for himself on Thursday. Pettine could also have downplayed the incidents or pretended to be comfortable with a little in-game backseat driving. He was frank instead. "It was, in games, very emotional. I'm not going to go into my initial reaction," he said. "I wasn't thrilled about it, but Ray and I had very clear and open communications about it."

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The O'Connell-Mariota connection could have been scoffed off like a hundred other scuttlebutt-sweeping questions asked at each combine. Pettine answered in detail. "He wasn't really working with him," Pettine said of the coach and prospect. "I know there are some reports out there that he was doing playbook stuff with him. Kevin doesn't even know our offense yet."

Pettine said that O'Connell accepted the Browns job offer but wanted to finish working with Mariota and other quarterback prospects on combine preparations before joining the organization. "I didn't look at it in any way that we were gaining some sort of advantage," Pettine said. "I just looked at it as: This is a guy with integrity who wants to fulfill a commitment that he made."

Pettine could have ducked for cover on Josh Gordon by filibustering on the need to perform background checks and emphasize character. Instead, he fired back.

"If you just say, 'Listen, we're only going to add players to our roster who were on the National Honor Society or in the school choir,' there's a danger to that," he said. "If you look across not just the league but society in general, it's rare that you're going to have somebody who just has impeccable, clean character.

"It's all risk-reward. ... I don't think you can just knee-jerk react and go in the exact opposite direction and say that everybody with any kind of red flag, you shy away from."

It's not the answer we are used to hearing—or the safe response we have grown comfortable with. But it was the response Pettine gave.

Pettine could have gone through his press conference without mentioning the Browns' beleaguered owner at all. No questions were asked about Jimmy Haslam, whose regime has been a nonstop series of scandals and bumbles.

But Pettine decided to rush to his boss' defense unbidden. "The most upsetting thing to me about this has been the depiction of Jimmy Haslam," Pettine said. "He's been depicted as a guy who's been meddlesome and involved in a lot of decisions. That hasn't been the case at all … He's been the ultimate in what we talk about as 'servant leadership.'"

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Pettine worried that last one might sound like a bit of a whopper. "I know some people are going to say that, 'This is the guy who signs his check, so he's gonna pump him up.'"

Actually, Pettine sounded sincere, whether pumping up his boss or expressing pride in a quarterback who could just as easily inspire regrets. He sounded like the voice of reason in a world gone crazy, the not-yet-mad Road Warrior who still stands for something amid the chaos of the Browns' apocalyptic wasteland.

Last combine was almost exactly like this one. Pettine arrived at the podium just after Haslam executed a massive regime change over his head, firing team president Joe Banner and general manager Michael Lombardi. A report that Pettine was a consolation prize for the Browns, who were hoping to lure Jim Harbaugh away from the 49ers, surfaced just hours before Pettine's first national press appearance in 2014.

Pettine answered questions then as he did on Wednesday, with a mix of bluntness, clarity and a bit of biting humor. He's always in the middle of a hurricane. He always comes across as the only one in Cleveland who knows how to batten down hatches.

A funny thing happens when you respond to tough questions with openness, a little vulnerability and a splash of honesty. People offer you the benefit of the doubt. We sympathize and empathize. We begin to believe you, and to believe in you.

If anyone can save these Browns—and that's a big if—it's Pettine, the sane man stuck in an insane situation.

When Pettine says that all hope is not lost, it's possible to rally with him. "I think a lot of positives have come from the past month," he said. Believably.

Manziel is not a lost cause. "He's in a much better place now than he was before he went in," Pettine said. "He seems very determined to come out of it in a much better way." Pettine said Manziel would be welcomed back and "treated as he was treated before."

Farmer and Pettine can still work together, in a way that does not involve illegal and unwanted in-game telecommunications. "I feel very comfortable with my relationship with Ray," Pettine said. "That hasn't changed. He and I still see things very much the same." That whole texting thing? "It's a mistake. He admits it. And a lot of it is deeply rooted in his competitiveness."

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The new coaches, including O'Connell and relative unknown John DeFilippo (who replaces Kyle Shanahan, who seemed eager to escape Cleveland, at offensive coordinator), could breathe some fresh air into the staff. "I'm very rejuvenated," Pettine said.

It may all be a tall tale, but it's a tale well told. On a day when 49ers GM Trent Baalke acted shocked and petulant as he deflected a peppering of Jim Harbaugh questions, when coaches and executives spoke as if admitting that they had ever seen Jameis Winston play football would put them at a crippling competitive disadvantage, when 90 percent of questions were answered either with gritted teeth or mumbling cliches, Pettine told the story of a franchise that made a bunch of mistakes but is trying to get better.

Pettine told a story of owners, coaches, executives, troubled would-be superstars and everyday players who can still communicate with one another and seek common solutions. He told the story of a Browns organization that actually still clings to some semblance of organization, even if Pettine looks like the only one still capable of erecting the scaffolds.

It wasn't all rosy. "I'd be a lot more concerned if we had a game this Sunday," Pettine said of his depleted, question-riddled roster. But it was not as bleak as the last month's headlines would suggest.

"You'd be surprised at how positive the feelings are, not just in the coaching area but around the building about the Browns moving forward," Pettine said. "I know that feeling is not shared by many outside the building. But if I had to choose one, that's how I'd prefer it to be."

It takes more than one February press conference to turn skeptics into optimists. The Browns have problems that cannot be solved by straight talk. But straight talk is better than no talk or double talk, both within the Browns and without. To borrow a phrase from Manziel's situation, the first step is admitting the problem.

The Browns may have more problems than Pettine has solutions. But it helps to talk about these things. Pettine is the best hope the Browns have of rebounding from their latest rediscovery of rock bottom.

I am not sure he can do it. But when he claims to be looking forward to the challenge, I believe him.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.