Publicly, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam has said nothing about whether coach Mike Pettine will return for the 2016 season. And Haslam isn’t answering that question privately either.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reports that Pettine asked Haslam to tell him whether he’d be back beyond Sunday’s season finale or not, and Haslam refused to answer.
“Pettine actually asked him, ‘Have you made a decision about my future?’ And Haslam would not answer, and that essentially ended that meeting,” Rapoport said on NFL Network.
Haslam’s refusal to answer strongly suggests that he’s not going to bring Pettine back: If Haslam believes Pettine is the right man for the job going forward, presumably he’d tell Pettine that.
So the Browns, who in the last eight seasons have gone from Romeo Crennel to Eric Mangini to Pat Shurmur to Rob Chudzinski to Mike Pettine, appear poised to make yet another coaching change. And hope that the next coach can win a playoff game, something none of the Browns’ coaches since their 1999 return has been able to do.