Cleveland Browns Fire GM, Reportedly Give Bernie Kosar Bigger Role

The first ax fell on Monday in the Cleveland Browns organization as general manager George Kokinis was escorted out of the facility by security.

WTAM in Cleveland is reporting that a front office management team of Bernie Kosar and Ernie Accorsi will be announced sometime today. Kosar was hired as a consultant a few weeks ago and Accorsi has been an adviser of the Lerner family for years.

The latest report is that Accorsi will be named the new general manager, however, Accorsi has not confirmed this.

Accorsi formerly was the Browns GM from 1985-1992.

While the move to get rid of Kokinis wasn’t a surprise, as I predicted it yesterday , what is a surprise are reports going around that owner Randy Lerner fired Kokinis “for cause.” For those of you who don’t follow the Oakland Raiders, which means Kokinis will not be paid the remainder of his contract.

Raider owner Al Davis is known for firing his head coaches “for cause” so he doesn’t have to pay them anymore.

This usually isn’t done around the league because organizational changes are made on a fairly regular basis, and guaranteeing front office contracts is seen as a way of discouraging just firing people indiscriminately.

Also, by denying the ex-executives their contracts, in theory, it makes it harder to attract quality people to work for your organization.

That being said, no one should be paid for failure. Make no mistake, Kokinis’ time in the Berea, Ohio, facility was nothing more than a complete failure. My respect for Lerner just grew by this act.

The rest of the coaching team now faces a brand new world. Head coach Eric Mangini no longer is the top dog of the organization. His hold on absolute power ended with the blowout loss to Chicago on Sunday.

This can’t be helped but to be viewed as a good thing. Mangini spent so much time being a control freak, the team couldn’t move forward.

By their own admission, players had no idea what the team was trying to accomplish or what the direction was. There was the generic “win games, play better football” mantra, but there was no roadmap to success.

While Mangini keeps his job for the moment, don’t expect him to keep it if the Browns continue to get blown out on the field like they did versus Chicago, Green Bay and Baltimore.

Mangini has chosen to keep his offensive coordinator despite having one of the worst offenses in the history of the NFL.

This is Mangini’s ship, and he’s going to go down on his terms.

If Lerner is serious about changes, and serious about improving the team he inherited, then the firing of Kokinis and Mangini’s operations director, Erin O’Brien, last week, are just the beginning.

This team has to show improvement on the field, or Mangini will find himself being fired “for cause.”