Browns owner Randy Lerner obsessively avoids having his voice or image recorded by the media.
On Tuesday, however, he blazed new ground by taking a meeting with two unhappy fans.
Lerner met with men who have called for fans to not take their seats at the November 16 Monday nighter until after the kickoff.
(In an unrelated note, ESPN is no longer cursing the fact that this game has landed on their 2009 schedule.)
Mike Randall of Massillon and Tony Schaefer of Sandusky spent two hours with Lerner, and they were impressed.
“He wants to get this right,” Randall said, per Steve Doerschuk of the Canton Repository. “He was very open in saying
mistakes have been made. He basically said, ‘I take full blame.’
“Randy strikes me as very passionate about owning the team and getting this right,” Randall said.
And they got some insight regarding whether Lerner will keep coach Eric Mangini beyond the 2009 season.
“I believe, from what I heard that if it doesn’t work out this year,
Randy will make a move,” Randall said. “He’s not going to sit there and
take this garbage any more. He is [ticked] off. He is disgusted.”
Lerner’s peers might be feeling a little queasy, too. Now that Lerner has seen fit to sit down with two of the customers, others whose teams fall on hard times might be pressed to do the same.