The Browns fell to 3-10 and sadly, the prospect of winning again this season seems slim.  I guess Vegas was right months ago by setting the Browns over/under very low.  Why has this happened to our team?  The answers are many, but as big as any single answer can be, it has everything to do –  and not do  –  with football at the same time.

My feeling is Kevin Stefanski is probably a decent guy.  Remember his statement early on?  “We are gonna be Tough, Smart and Accountable.”  Sounds like something a young coach would say, and I really liked that mantra for then a very young team.  At first, that seemed to be true and we watched his team play hard, and work hard having direction in a very tough division.  In that era if the organization would have left him alone, stayed out of the daily on the field operations and allowed the football people to do their job, I feel things would be very different today.

It was another blunder made in a short period of time.  Firing John Dorsey who drafted Patrick Mahomes for the Chiefs and really helped build them was canned here in 2019 for many reasons, but mostly for being an older school football guy.  He now plays a major role with the one loss Detroit Lions.  He made his errors here no doubt about it, but he also drafted the best players that are still on this team.  He picked Baker Mayfield too, whom he drafted to change the culture here, remember we were 1-31.  Baker did that and that shouldn’t be minimized.  The new culture was young and starting to work but was so foreign to the guy at the very top, he didn’t understand it, and the generation gap became wide.  So they ran Baker out of town.  Baker made some errors here, but his demise was old man/young dude generated.  Simply an immense lack of knowledge about the modern athlete and his generation.  The famous quote was, “We need an adult at QB”   So they did the next logical thing, and gave Deshaun Watson 230 million guaranteed dollars.

That’s where Tough, Smart And Accountable got its death sentence.  Giving up the future and a kings ransom for a guy with a .500  NFL record, and all of his personal and horrible legal situations is probably the worst decision an NFL team has made in decades.  Making idea of making him the face of a franchise and asking good guys to follow him and look to him for leadership was simply ridiculous. All the way pretending like none of the stuff was really happening, shoving it under a rug. 

The trade wasn’t smart, it wasn’t tough, and NO ONE has been held accountable.  It’s the stuff of beyond zero people skills on the the Browns part.  Watson also did himself additional damage by thinking of ONLY the money as he said NO to the Browns a day or two earlier.  They also underestimated how fans would react to his signing.  And in fairness to him, I feel Watson did too. Tough to be successful when the feeling and karma all around you is terrible.

Now the QB has collapsed, as has another season and any support at all for him.  So what’s next?  Will Stefanski get the boot along with most of his staff and be scapegoated? ? What about the guys right above him?  Will they be accountable?  Those at the very top,  what do they do with the literal no win  –  and no way out   –  situation that has been created?  The immediate future is really iffy and that’s tough for us fans.

This franchise at this moment could easily become the place where no one is going to want to play.  Sadly again, I feel that just a few years ago with the young core, the young QB and young coach, it was among the hottest destinations there was for players to come, as many felt that real winning, I mean REAL winning was just around the corner.  That was 2020. That seems like 1920 now. The ongoing troubles of our team was precipitated by a lack of patience and a self destructive generation gap that feels like a deep crevasse now. 

So today it’s the Chiefs and Taylor at home.  Hoping fortough today, bacause they shed smart and forgot about accountable a long time ago.

Go Browns!