Browns owner Jimmy Haslam appeared before the Cleveland media today to announce the firing of head coach Rob Chudzinski and said the reason for the firing was simple: The team needs to get better.
Haslam told reporters that he hates hearing people refer to these Browns -- who have gone either 4-12 or 5-11 in each of the last six seasons -- as the same old hapless losers.
“There’s nothing -- and you all have every right to write it -- that galls me more than to read on Monday mornings, ‘Same old Browns.’ Because that’s not what we’re all about, and that’s not what we came here for,” Haslam said.
One reporter at the press conference asked Haslam whether he, Browns CEO Joe Banner and G.M. Mike Lombardi are “the Three Stooges running this operation.” Haslam insisted that he and the men he hired know what they’re doing, although he acknowledged that firing the head coach after one 4-12 season will be met with some skepticism.
“We deserve the skepticism,” Haslam said. “We have the best fans in the world, and I’ve said our fans deserve better.”
Haslam said he and the front office will search for as long as it takes to find a coach he’s confident can win.
“We want an individual who’s a strong winner, who knows how to win football games,” he said. “I don’t know if it’ll take a week or a month.”
However long it takes, Haslam needs to find some coach who will make the Browns a better team -- a coach who won’t be mentioned alongside failed recent coaches in Cleveland like Romeo Crennel, Eric Mangini, Pat Shurmur and now Rob Chudzinski.