‘Tis the season to run teams into the ground

By Michael Silver
November 8, 2009


On Tuesday at Cleveland Browns headquarters in Berea, Ohio, owner Randy Lerner welcomed two men into his office who go by the handles Dawgpound Mike and Mobile Dawg and spent two hours discussing the decrepit state of his organization.

Lerner initiated the meeting in response to the fan protest the two men are organizing for the Browns’ Nov. 16 home game against the Baltimore Ravens – a boycott of the opening kickoff which, even after Tuesday’s conversation, is still a go. According to Dawgpound Mike (a.k.a. Mike Randall of Massillon), Lerner “listened to everything we had to say. He asked our opinions on a number of things.”

Woof, woof.

Dawgpound Mike also told the Canton Repository that he came away from the meeting convinced that Lerner will fire head coach Eric Mangini after the season unless the 1-7 Browns show dramatic improvement.

“I believe, from what I heard, that if it doesn’t work out this year, Randy will make a move,” Randall said. “He’s not going to sit there and take this garbage anymore. He is [ticked] off. He is disgusted.”

Trust me, dude with a giant dog bone on your head – he’s not the only one.

In the latest lesson on How Not To Run An NFL Franchise (a seminar also being offered in Oakland, Tampa and Washington, D.C.), Lerner managed to drag his dysfunctional organization to a new level of public embarrassment.

On Thursday, I spoke to two NFL general managers who were appalled by Lerner’s behavior. Neither believed that even the most skilled men in their profession would have a chance of succeeding in such an environment.

“If you show panic like that, it’s over,” one GM said. “If it was me, and my owner did that, I’d quit on the spot. I’d say, ‘If you’d rather have those discussions with two ticket-holders than with me or my coach, then more power to you, because I’m out of here.’ ”

Conveniently, Lerner had already deep-sixed his GM, George Kokinis, the day before his meeting with Dawgpound Mike and Mobile Dawg. Though Lerner on Thursday denied to Sports Illustrated’s Peter King that he had fired Kokinis just eight games into a five-year deal, it’s merely a matter of semantics. If Kokinis were to try to enter Lerner’s office, with or without the dog-bone headwear, the cops would be called.

Whatever Lerner may have told his guests on Tuesday, the bottom line is this: Kokinis was a casualty of a flawed organizational environment that makes carrying out a plan for sustained success – or even channeling enough constructive energy to realize on-the-field rewards in the short term – a virtual impossibility.

They know all about this in Oakland, where Raiders owner Al Davis’ focus is diverted by legal proceedings (most notably, his attempt to terminate former coach Lane Kiffin “with cause” and thus avoid paying his contract) and multiple allegations of violent behavior against current coach Tom Cable. In terms of organizational humiliation, it’s tough to top the specter of a head coach, on the morning of a game, issuing a statement to ESPN that he had once struck his first wife because he believed she had committed adultery.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers can’t compete on that level, but their 0-7 start has produced its share of awkwardness and shame. Last week, co-owner Joel Glazer strongly denied rumors that the team could be for sale because of significant financial losses sustained in the Bernie Madoff investment scam; such talk is fueled by the fact that the suddenly stingy Bucs reportedly have far more space under the salary cap than any NFL team. On Tuesday, meanwhile, rookie coach Raheem Morris tried to rationalize a reported incident in which cornerback Aqib Talib heatedly swore at him after missing curfew during the team’s recent trip to London.

And while Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder hasn’t yet initiated any meetings with the “Hogettes”, he did apologize to fans at a charity event Tuesday for the team’s 2-5 start, saying: “We just feel terrible … We’re embarrassed … “

So is Snyder’s embattled second-year coach, Jim Zorn, who was recently stripped of play-calling duties in favor of Sherm Lewis – a coach deep into retirement who, until a few weeks ago, was calling out Bingo numbers at a Detroit-area senior center.

Do I feel sorry for any of these owners? No. Each is largely responsible for his own predicament.

Lerner, as my colleague Charles Robinson pointed out Thursday, created a situation doomed to failure in January when he hired Mangini first, then allowed the new coach to choose Kokinis as his GM. Lerner’s detached ownership style and malleable philosophical convictions form a brutal combination; forgive me if I’m not as easily won over as Dawgpound Mike.

The dysfunctional, contentious environment cultivated by Davis has been well-documented, as has his tendency in recent years to make decisions very slowly. It’s hardly a big deal by Raiders’ standards, but after last Sunday’s defeat to the San Diego Chargers several players complained to the Oakland Tribune’s Monte Poole that they still hadn’t been given a schedule for the upcoming bye week. In the obsessively planned world of the NFL, such a state of affairs is reasonably shocking, and it’s a sign that the coach (who obviously has his own issues, and may not be the coach much longer) can’t act without the owner’s expressed consent.

Joel Glazer and his brothers – and father Malcolm before them – have been good owners for most of the past 14 years. Yet their decision to fire head coach Jon Gruden and general manager Bruce Allen in January seemed capricious and resulted in a situation in which neophytes Morris (a 32-year-old who’d been elevated to defensive coordinator only days earlier) and GM Mark Dominik (elevated from pro personnel director) were learning on the fly and with a reduced payroll. On Sunday, when the Bucs bust out their old Creamsicle jerseys for their game against the Green Bay Packers, it will complete the bad-flashback imagery for fans at Raymond James Stadium.

Snyder, leaning on the advice of bulletproof vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato, was the one who decided in February of ’08 that Zorn, who had never been a play-caller, offensive coordinator or head coach, could handle all three duties for the ‘Skins. And Snyder’s impatience, volatility and close relationships with players such as Clinton Portis haven’t helped Zorn’s efforts to grow into those roles. Those criticisms, in my opinion, are far more reasonable than the ones leveled earlier this week by ex-Washington great John Riggins, who said on Showtime’s “Inside the NFL” that Snyder “is a bad guy” whose “heart is dark.”

Gulp. Have I mentioned that these are embarrassing times?

So how do these teams stop the madness? The two general managers to whom I spoke on Thursday agreed that organizational stability, beginning with unquestioned support from ownership and extending to a productive and compatible relationship with the head coach, was the biggest determining factor toward success.

Further, just as players can have their focus derailed by outside forces, organizational distractions can impair a general manager’s ability to provide the bold, decisive and reasoned leadership required to build a winner. This is especially true of a first-timer like Kokinis, who sources say was quickly unnerved by Mangini’s paranoid and domineering approach.

The general manager who said he’d have quit on the spot after learning of Lerner’s meeting with the fans told me he believes Kokinis “was in over his head.” Kokinis, he said, was unresponsive when it came to making trades, possibly because his nominal decision-making power had been usurped by Mangini.

The other GM with whom I spoke agreed that Kokinis was overwhelmed by the situation, saying: “He was disheveled from the start. If you’re not in a sound environment and things aren’t functioning smoothly, it’s hard to think clearly. When he was called about [potential] trades, he’d say, ‘We’re not in that mode; I’ve got to get back to you.’ It was never at the forefront because you got the feeling he had to deal with something down the hall. The [implication] was, ‘I can’t think about this right now.’

Kokinis’ union with the Browns was short-lived.

“Look, it’s hard enough as a first-time GM – you have enough to concern yourself in terms of shaping the roster and managing the front office. You want to talk about disruptive? Oh, man, I can’t even imagine having to deal with that stuff.”

The GM was talking about the infighting within Lerner’s organization, but he said similar things as we discussed the Raiders, Bucs and ‘Skins.

All four situations seem hopeless, but perhaps the owners in question will learn from these miserable experiences and bring new leaders into improved environments – or empower the current ones with the structure and stability necessary to give them a fighting chance.

It sounds good, in theory, but I have my doubts. In Lerner’s case, especially, I see the potential for prolonged futility, as evidenced by his comments Thursday to the Cleveland Plain Dealer which seemed to endorse Mangini as his coach beyond this season.

It’s quite possible that Lerner’s “solution” will be to hire a new GM and pair him with the heavy-handed coach who drove out his predecessor. In other words, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks – even if Dawgpound Mike thinks otherwise.

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