Cleveland Browns Are Building Castles in a Swamp

King of the Swamp Castle

"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show them.

"It sank into the swamp.

"So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp.

"So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp.

"But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England."

Another year, another front office search begins in Cleveland.

With George Kokinis ousted as the general manager, and head coach Eric Mangini looking more like a desperate Napoleon, the winds of change are once again blowing around the Browns.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, while expecting a different result. Owner Randy Lerner has repeatedly gone to the New England Patriots well of coaching talent, and come back with brackish water.

In his quest to provide the team with a credible, and vocal front office leader, Lerner has several quality candidates available to him.

Good luck getting any of them to come to Cleveland.

Lerner refuses to give the front office a direction. Instead, he waits until the ship is sinking to do anything about it.

Perusing through various media, many people have come to Lerner’s defense, saying he’s a nice guy to a fault, and that he really cares about the Browns, and wants them to succeed.

While that may be true, being nice has never won anybody anything, except a “Nicest Guy” contest.

As for Lerner’s passion for the team, he might want to start making decisions that show he cares, rather than pushing the responsibility of running the team onto somebody else.

That’s been Lerner’s M.O. for the past few years. “I love this team, but I can’t really be bothered to run it. So I hired a guy from the Patriots because, hey, the Patriots win Super Bowls!”

"Oh, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you."

In Cleveland, you can.

Lerner usually just turns over the keys, and jets off to New York. The front office then begins to fight over responsibilities, one voice eventually takes over, gets in over their heads, and then the whole team collapses.

Add to that some bad drafts, and it’s no wonder the Browns are fighting Detroit, Oakland, and Tampa Bay for the title of “Worst Team in the NFL.”

Some of the rumored candidates for the Bowns' fifth rebuild in 11 years are Mike Holmgren, Mike Shanahan, Bill Cowher, and Bill Parcells.

None of those names sound bad, but only Shanahan and Cowher are under the age of 60.

How many of those guys really want to take on a massive rebuilding project at their age?

I’m not even 40 yet and, assuming I had the credentials to be on the list, I’m not sure I’d want to work for Randy Lerner, and the mess he’s created in Cleveland.

You’re looking at one solid year of building a front office, coaching staff, and a scouting department.

Also, whoever takes over will be expected to show improvement on the field in that one. The fans won’t be demanding a playoff-caliber team right away, but they will want to see what was promised to them this year—progress.

While Mangini has made a lot of bad decisions on and off the field this year, his failure to make the team even competitive is the driving force behind the call for his dismissal.

Mangini would argue that most of the players he cut aren’t playing anywhere else, and he’s got a point, but almost every guy he’s brought in has also underperformed.

Performance has dropped on the right side of the offensive line.

Look up the stats for yourself. I was going to put up a bunch of numbers to prove my point, but then I got sick of looking at them. Not just any kind of sick; I think I contracted Swine Flu from looking at the Cleveland Browns' 2009 stat page.

In the midst of the carnage, Mangini has insisted that it's all part of "going through the process."

What that process is, hasn't been known until today:

"And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then thou shalt count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four thou shalt not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three.

"Five is right out.

"Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."

Whoever Lerner hires will probably fire Eric Mangini.

Every loss the Browns have in the second half of the season will be another nail in his coffin.

The question isn’t whether or not Mangini will be here in 2010, but how many wins he needs even to have a chance of keeping his job.

If Lerner is able to convince any of the people on the rumor list to come to Cleveland, Mangini is history. It’s hard to believe any of those guys would want to keep Mangini around.

For the rest of this season, try to think of the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail when, by the fourth try, the King of the Swamp boasts about how the castle quit sinking into the swamp.

Browns fans can only hope the fifth try works for King Randy in Cleveland.