Despite Constant Turnover, Should Browns Consider Yet Another Coaching Change?

In July, during training camp, Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam said something to the assembled media that resulted in a sense of calm washing over the entire organization: He's all for coaching continuity into the 2016 season.

Haslam, via Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal, said, "We're not going to blow things up. ... I think we're on the right track, so we're not going to blow things up. I understand why people might ask that after a couple of bumps in the road the first couple of years, but we're not going to do that. I think we're putting in place a good foundation."

Given that Haslam had an itchy trigger finger after his first season as the team's owner, relieving head coach Rob Chudzinski and his staff of their duties after just one year on the job and doing the same to team president Joe Banner and general manager Mike Lombardi, this sounded like good news at the time.

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The one thing the Browns have desperately needed since returning to the league in 1999 is coaching stability. Currently, head coach Mike Pettine is the team's eighth since that time and, at least in July, Haslam didn't seem interested in thinking about who the ninth may be any time soon.

But, of course, these comments came well before where the Browns stand now, with a 2-5 record. One that has brought Pettine's win-loss total with the team to 9-14. The defense, Pettine's specialty, has regressed. No longer is the secondary one of the NFL's best, and the defense as a whole is giving up a 28th-ranked 393.1 yards per game.

The run defense, like last year, is to blame for most of this. Right now, the Browns rank last in the league at stopping the run, allowing an average of 151 rushing yards per game, up from the 141.6 the last-place Browns' run defense allowed in 2014. 

Stat	Value	Rank
Def. YPG	393.1	28th
Def. PYPG	242.1	16th
Def. RYPG	151.0	32nd
Def. PPG	26.0	23rd
Off. YPG	364.1	12th
Off. PYPG	273.7	8th
Off. RYPG	90.4	28th
Off. PPG	21.0	T-23rd
Sacks	26	T-2nd
Penalties	60	3rd

And though the offense has improved, particularly on the passing side of things where the Browns are averaging the eighth-most yards per game, the team is still scoring 21 points per game, compared to 26 points per game given up to their opponents. And the run game hasn't taken off, despite Isaiah Crowell, Duke Johnson and Robert Turbin all looking like viable runners, on paper. Currently, Cleveland is putting up an average of just 90.4 rushing yards per game.

The Browns are also struggling in other areas, such as penalties. The Browns are the third-most penalized in the league presently, with 60, 44 of which have come during road games. 

Even the once-vaunted offensive line is struggling, giving up 26 sacks through seven games this year, 21 of have been taken by starting quarterback Josh McCown. The beating he took on Sunday against the St. Louis Rams—four sacks and numerous hits—knocked him out of the game late with a shoulder injury.

Coaching cannot be to blame for all of these mistakes, but it's also clear that coaching isn't helping the Browns dig out of their current hole. 

On Monday, Pettine, via Scout.com's Hayden Grove, acknowledged the Browns need to do things differently, saying: "Continuing to do what we've done would be foolish It has gotten us these results so far." Though he did note that "We're not going to do anything radically different. It has to be incremental."

Pettine sees the issues as rooted in personal accountability of his players and staff members, as individuals: 

"

The challenge to each man in the room, coaches and players was, 'what am I going to do different? What am I going to do extra? Is it the weight room? Is it in the meeting room? Is it on the practice field?' Everyone was challenged to take a personal inventory, where they are, what are they doing well and what are they not doing well and how do we change it?

"

Still, there has yet to be any consequences for the Browns' poor performance on the field. No one has been benched outright, even in response to the defense's inability to stop the run, aside from a change in the linebacker rotation. The offensive line hasn't been tweaked beyond certain plays where rookie Cameron Erving acts as an extra tight end on occasion. 

While Pettine can preach accountability, until he actually takes action to back this up, these remain just words, just lip service—something that runs counter to his mantra for Cleveland's 2015 season: "Words into action."

Haslam may have believed, back in July, that "we have the right people in the building now," and that "we've got the right people in place to over a period of time [to] be successful here, and we're clearly focused on doing that." But what he had envisioned is not coming to pass. And Pettine hasn't taken control of the situation in any demonstrable way to this point. 

The risks of wholesale coaching changes are obvious and well-known to an organization that has undergone it on so many occasions. Continuity and consistency is important for a team that is trying to make long-term improvements. But there is a fine line between continuity being a boon for a bad team and simply committing to continuity for continuity's sake.

Certainly, things cannot keep going the way they have been for the Browns this season. Whether that means wholesale changes in the coaching staff or going over Pettine's head to fire defensive coordinator and Pettine's longtime friend Jim O'Neil, Haslam looks like he will have tough decisions to make at some point this season or in the offseason.

That may not be what he had wanted this summer. But if coaching stability means the Browns keep on struggling, then there may be cause to move on from Pettine and his crew in 2016. That will certainly be a step backwards for the team in certain areas, but if the team keeps stepping backwards with this coaching staff remaining in place, it could be a worthy trade off.