Truth and Rumors

Heard on 1460 The Fan this afternoon as I drove home from work:

A "source" called Chris Spielman this morning from inside the Browns organization, and reported that Phil Savage wants to draft Joe Thomas, and that, when he told Randy Lerner this, Lerner flat-out told him NO. Something along the lines of: this pick needs to be a deep-impact pick. Then I got out of the car.

First and foremost, I take all of these sorts of things with the proverbial grain of salt. But, to address this more specifically, two things:

1) If Lerner spent that much time hiring the right "football" people, and claims to want to hire the right people and then get out of the way, either he's lying or this source is full of shit. You don't hire a GM, save him from being fired when the marketing manager team president tries to shove him out the door, and then tell him how to do his job. If that's the way Lerner wants to run this team, he should either a) sell the team and get a different job, or b) be straight with the fans and tell us he's trying to make a marketing splash with this year's #1 pick. I'm not going to buy season tickets anymore if he's going to overrule his GM, coach, and scouts as to who is the best player to select for this dreadfully under-talented team.

2) Impact can be felt in a number of ways. Lerner has kept ticket prices down. I appreciate that, as a ticket buyer. But, sooner or later you have to put a GOOD FUCKING TEAM ON THE FIELD. What's more important: selling jerseys (Peterson, Quinn), or getting the best player for this team's current situation (Thomas)? It's like Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinese) says in Apollo 13, when working on the re-entry sequence and the engineer tells him they might have to skip turning on the parachutes: "If the chutes don't open, then what's the point?" Randy Lerner, if you don't actually try to build a good fucking team, what's the point of trying to market it to an increasingly impatient fanbase?? More specifically, if you have a swiss cheese offensive line who can't block anybody, what's the point of getting a blue-chip quarterback or running back?

We've seen our two most hated rivals win Super Bowls since 2000. I'm all for sacrificing Brady Quinn jersey sales if it means getting a player in one of the most (if not THE most) dire needed areas of the team: offensive line.

Let the people you pay to make the football decisions ACTUALLY MAKE THE FOOTBALL DECISIONS!!