The talking is the easy part.
Now Browns boss Mike Holmgren and Browns legend Jim Brown have to do the hard part, which is actually make up.
As Alper mentioned in the morning links, both sides said the right things last week. Holmgren began at a press conference saying he’d welcome back Brown “with open arms,” and Brown responding to a question from a reporter that the statement “showed a lot of class.”
But columnist Bud Shaw of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wisely raised an eyebrow at the Kum-Ba-Yah singing, and said there are still miles to go to repair the relationship, which can’t be fixed by media intermediaries.
He points out the ridiculousness that the Indians currently have a better relationship with the volatile Albert Belle. That broken marriage was mended quietly, with former Indians teammates working Belle back-channel, taking small steps to bring him back into the fold.
It’s easy for Holmgren to say he wants Brown to be a part of things. Just as it was easy for him to cut his pay and turn him into what Brown referred to as a “mascot.”
If he really wants to reconcile with the franchise’s best player, he’ll get up from behind a podium and actually reach out to Brown, instead of waiting on the local newspaper to do it for him.