What’s next for the Browns?

[Chomps]

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Barely two years after John Dorsey arrived to revolutionize the Browns, he’s out. And so the revolving door continues to spin in Cleveland, with the team once again looking for a new coach and a new General Manager.

So what comes next for a franchise that is dealing for the first time in a long time with high expectations that went unfulfilled, as opposed to low expectations that were completely fulfilled?

The public statements from ownership hints at a model that places significant control over the football operations in the head coach. The decision to “mutually part ways” (fire) G.M. John Dorsey happened because Dorsey wasn’t willing to surrender some or all of his control over the football operations.

So now ownership simply has to find a coach — an “exceptional leader” as Jimmy and Dee Haslam said in their statement making clear that they believe Freddie Kitchens isn’t and never will be — who will first have to persuade the Haslams that he’s the right guy. And who then will be able to do it.

That could be Mike McCarthy. Despite criticism that emerged late in his tenure with the Packers, the Browns would love to have the kind of run in Cleveland that McCarthy had in Green Bay. (That said, it makes plenty of sense to fully explore the nooks and crannies of Tyler Dunne’s detailed look at the McCarthy/Aaron Rodgers dynamic, and to understand why and how the Packers went from two failed seasons to 13-3 in the first year post-McCarthy.)

It could be Josh McDaniels, which would make Cleveland the latest Patriot Way outpost, joining Detroit, Tennessee, Miami, and Houston (sort of). McDaniels had that level of control in Denver, but that was a long time ago and McDaniels surely has grown, aged, evolved since then. And McDaniels, unlike other candidates, can truthfully say that he’s all in with Baker Mayfield as the long-term quarterback, given McDaniels’ strong interest in Mayfield prior to the 2018 draft.

Of course, this presumes that ownership hasn’t soured on Mayfield the way that ownership soured on Dorsey and Kitchens. Usually, teams with established quarterbacks fear hiring a coach who doesn’t want that quarterback (like McDaniels when he got to Denver and promptly got rid of Jay Cutler). Maybe the Haslams are secretly hoping for someone to sell them on a different plan, one that involves pursuing one of the many veterans who will be available in March (or earlier) or that entails finding a young quarterback.

While it would be a huge surprise to see Mayfield supplanted, the Haslams need to understand why his performance dipped so dramatically in 2019. In today’s NFL, with so many quarterbacks near or above a passer rating of 100, Mayfield’s 78.8 for the recently completed season, fueled by 22 touchdown passes and 21 interceptions and a completion percentage below 60, is glaring. Glaring enough to possibly make ownership squeamish about his periodic antics and/or flashes of temper, capped by his invitation to a Cincinnati heckler to “come down here and tell me that to my face” on Sunday. (The heckler hilariously took the invitation literally, reminding Baker that “we’re not allowed to.”)

Regardless of how it plays out, the Browns are once again hitting the reset button. While it’s not a full-blown restart, the extent to which things are torn down will depend on which coaching candidate can make them think that he has the answers for which the Haslams continue to grope blindly in the dark.

The wild card in all of this (other than Mayfield) is chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta. He has lasted through two very different regimes in Cleveland, and he still has plenty of influence — even if he won’t move to Cleveland and devote his full attention to the team. Via Ian Rapoport of the NFL, DePodesta is now running the search for the next coach.

But the next coach may not want an absentee strategist whispering in the ear of ownership, and once the Haslams find their guy it’s possible that their guy will try to get them to quit listening to DePodesta.

However it plays out, the Browns have lost the luster of up-and-coming contender. When and whether that returns will hinge on who gets hired, who else gets fired, and ultimately what kind of product the Browns put on the field in September. After this season’s disappointment, it would be very prudent for everyone to take a wait-and-see approach before concluding that the Browns are finally ready to be something more than what they’ve always been.