Several of you noticed during Monday’s coverage of the Scouting Combine images of former Browns G.M. Michael Lombardi looking at paperwork containing a large image of the Browns logo while working with his new employer, the New England Patriots.
Whatever the materials were, the Browns aren’t saying anything about the subject.
The Browns provided PFT with a “no comment” response to PFT about the situation, and the Browns separately have provided a “no comment” to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com.
Cabot adds, citing an unnamed source, that current Browns G.M. Ray Farmer isn’t concerned about the situation.
It’s impossible based on the images displayed on NFL Network to know whether the Browns should be concerned. Obviously, a personnel executive fired before free agency or the draft carries his own mental impressions out the door, barring the intervention of the Men in Black. But if the fired personnel executive carries through the door scouting reports prepared by other employees of the organization, that could be a problem.
From the Browns’ perspective, there’s nothing to be gained by crying foul, because the Browns could have avoided any misappropriation of proprietary information by, for example, putting Lombardi on ice until after the draft or ensuring that he was taking no scouting reports or other useful information for draft purposes out of the building.
For now, it’s simply not known what Lombardi had, who prepared it, or whether he should have had the information. Those things likely never will be known.