Mike Florio wrote earlier Thursday that Browns owner Randy Lerner needs to come clean about what led to G.M. George Kokinis’ dismissal or not talk at all.
Unlike Redskins defensive coordinator Greg Blache, Lerner apparently doesn’t read PFT, because he’s still talking, but only hinting at what happened to Kokinis. In a conversation with SI’s Peter King, Lerner denies firing Kokinis.
“George is no longer active within our organization, but at this time has not been fired,’' Lerner said.
The Browns owner reportedly isn’t commenting further because the team is expected to attempt to cancel the rest of Kokinis’ contract “for cause” because he wasn’t doing his job. King credits a source that says Kokinis never tried to “exert his authority” despite pleas from “higher ups” for the G.M. to take a stronger role in team affairs. Kokinis is expected to contend that he was never given the final authority over the team’s roster that was promised.
The next step for Lerner is figuring out if Mangini could truly handle someone above him running the team’s personnel. And if not, does Mangini have a future in Cleveland?
“I still believe in Eric, and we’re trying to give him the resources he needs to be successful. We all knew the situation we were in when Eric took over,” Lerner said.
And now the rest of the country can see that Mangini has taken a bad situation, and made it embarrassingly worse.