The Browns reached out to PFT after Sunday’s report regarding efforts to reach out to football executives, calling the report “not true.” Slightly stronger language was used when reacting to the report in communications to other media outlets.
“False and erroneous” (as opposed, I suppose, to “false and accurate” or “true and erroneous”) is the term that was used when characterizing the report to Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
We’ll stick with “true and accurate,” since that’s what the report was and is, and I don’t really expect the Browns to admit that efforts already are underway to communicate with people who could be hired at some point in the future to assist in the ongoing effort to turn a habitual game loser into an at-least-once-per-month-on-average game winner.
The Browns are 0-6 this year, 1-21 under the latest iteration of the football operation and coaching staff. If they aren’t actively exploring ways to improve a front office that passed on Carson Wentz once, passed on Deshaun Watson twice, and outscored an opponent only once in 22 games that count, fans should be demanding that they do.
Good news, fans -- they are. And while specific names have not yet been harvested by PFT’s reporting efforts, don’t assume they’re talking only to people who currently are available to be hired, since anyone currently working for another team is off limits under the tampering rules. Tampering happens routinely in the NFL, and it’s extremely easy to initiate communications with no fingerprints that can be plausibly denied later.
Or plausibly denied, you know, right now.