The recent blog on Cleveland Browns GM Randy Lerner sparked a slew of comments to my Facebook link, including from a couple of Cleveland Browns fans and former Cleveland residents. A few disagreed with my contention that Lerner’s recent meeting with two high-profile fans demonstrated some degree of communications prowess, in particular in the context of the overall mess that is this year’s Browns.
A bit more research on my part, including perusing the online authority on the team, Orange and Brown (theobr.com), would have provided me (and this blog’s audience) with a more complete picture of just how Cleveland Browns’ management has communicated this year, both internally and externally.
Overall, the picture is not pretty. Consider: GM George Kokinis’s unceremonious firing after just 10 months on the job with little or no public explanation; a reportedly micro-managing head coach who was evidently less than a team player with his former GM; and a typically media shy owner in Randy Lerner who is operating a ball club without proper operations professionals in place.
All that said, in the face of fan complaints and a call for a team boycott, Lerner’s sitting down with a couple of well-known, long-time and, it might follow, influential fans is commendable. By contrast, in a sea of similar discontent here in Detroit going back much longer, Detroit Lions ownership continues to say nothing to no one. That was my point and, unfortunately, still is.