Browns cleaning house again, fire Mike Pettine, GM Ray Farmer
In the 16 seasons the New England Patriots have employed Bill Belichick, the Cleveland Browns have run through eight coaches (including two Belichick disciples) and will soon hire a ninth.
That’s because Mike Pettine has been fired by the team after only two seasons, both with losing records, at the helm. Pettine was informed of his firing by Browns owner Jimmy Haslam on Sunday night, just hours after the team finished its season with a loss to Pittsburgh.
General manager Ray Farmer also was fired by Haslam on Sunday. Farmer had been GM since February 2014 after being promoted a month after Pettine was hired by former CEO Joe Banner.
Haslam issued an open letter to the fans, explaining that he’s “confident we will build a winning football organization” despite Pettine being fired because “we don’t believe our football team and football operations were positioned well for the future.”
The moves were not shocking given the team’s stunted growth, a disjointed front office perennially in search of a magic cure and the lack of a bona fide franchise quarterback — a crusade that now is well into its third decade.
The Browns once more are in full rebuild mode without a lot of clear-cut reasons to get excited about.
Pettine amassed a two-year mark of 10-22 following Cleveland’s 28-12 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, playing them tough but falling short with Austin Davis at quarterback after Johnny Manziel was ruled out for the game earlier in the week with a concussion.
The Browns won seven of their first 11 games under Pettine and were in the 2014 playoff race, atop the AFC North, but fell hard — they lost the final five games of last season — and have lost 18 of their past 21.
Few of those were more embarrassing than the prime-time loss to the Baltimore Ravens this season in which the Browns were attempting a game-winning field goal, but it was blocked and run back for a walk-off touchdown and the most Browns-ish of Browns losses in yet another sub-.500 season — the franchise’s eighth in a row and 15th in 17 seasons since being reborn in 1999 after former owner Art Modell relocated the Browns (now the Ravens) after the 1995 season.
Pettine was saddled with inconsistent quarterback play, having to start Brian Hoyer, Josh McCown, Manziel, plus Davis and Connor Shaw for short stints. None established themselves as credible options, and Manziel’s off-field immaturity — he was in Vegas on Saturday night, not with his teammates on Sunday, USA Today reported — and limited growth on it were weekly headaches for Pettine and his staff.
The Browns previously tried in vain to land Jim Harbaugh by trade, and Pettine reportedly was the Browns’ fourth choice but landed the gig nonetheless, hired by a front office — Joe Banner was out soon after — that was in flux then, just as it could be now. Pettine replaced Rob Chudzinski, who lasted only one year as head coach.
Can the Browns convince a top-tier candidate — a college rock star, an established NFL coach with experience or a rising coordinator candidate — to take this job? It will be an extremely tough sell. For as many first-round picks as the team has made recently (seven in the past four years), there is a talent deficiency, especially at quarterback, where Manziel is a major question mark.
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm
