The High Cost Of Cannings

It’s been another disappointing season for the Cleveland Browns this year and, as is always the case in sports, some fans are calling for the coach’s head. That means that Kevin Stefanski is on the hot seat, and the team’s owner will have to make a decision on whether to keep the coach or look to someone else.

ESPN reports that, at owners’ meetings this past week, the NFL presented owners with information about the staggering cost of now-fired coaches, general managers, and other front office executives. The total tab comes to $800 million, which is real money even in the fantasy world of NFL owners and the jaw-dropping pay packages for athletes and coaches. Some teams are shelling out big bucks for multiple firings in recent years; the New York Giants, for example, are paying two prior head coaches along with their current coach. And here’s the thing to keep in mind about those terminated coaches on the spreadsheet that the NFL shared with the owners: every one of them came to their job with great fanfare and with the promise of leading their teams to great success.

So, what about Stefanski? The record is decidedly mixed for the third-year coach. He took the Browns to the playoffs and won a playoff game in his first year, suffered through a bad 2021, and stands at 6-8, with a very remote chance at the playoffs, with three games to go this year. But here’s a statistic that should give Browns’ fans some pause: with the team’s win over the Ravens last Saturday, Stefanski is the winningest Browns coach since the team came back into the league in 1999. That’s because the Browns have had a ludicrous number of different head coaches during that period–ten head coaches and two additional interim head coaches. The Cleveland head coaching carousel is outpaced only by the number of quarterbacks that have started games for the Browns since the team returned to the league.

I’m in favor of keeping Stefanski, although I reserve full judgment until we get to the end of the season. The team still seems to be playing for him, I think his run-oriented approach is well-suited to a team that will play a number of foul weather games every year, and I believe his stolid demeanor is well-suited to Cleveland, too. This season has been a strange one, in view of the Deshaun Watson situation and the need to start a career back-up for most of the season. Even so, the Browns could be in the thick of the playoff race this year, but for the kinds of mishaps that seem to happen only to the Browns.

If there is one thing the Browns could use, it is stability. Assuming the team still plays hard during the next three games, I hope Cleveland’s ownership learns from that $800 million spreadsheet and decides to keep Stefanski.

The Elf, Himself

I was on the road yesterday and happened to catch some sports talk radio hosts making fun of the Cleveland Browns’ new midfield logo, shown above. They were laughing at the idea that a football team would feature a giant elf on the field. They compared Brownie the Elf unfavorably to one of the old Rice Krispies elves, arguing that he looks angrier and somewhat disturbed. And they professed not to understand why an elf would be associated with the Cleveland Browns, arguing that a logo of a dog–due to the Dawg Pound section of fans in the stadium–would be a much better logo. .

The sports radio hosts are not alone in dissing Brownie the Elf and the Browns’ field. One article even suggests that the Browns specifically picked the elf logo to gin up controversy and distract from the team’s on-field problems last year and its dubious off-season decision to go all in for Deshaun Watson, the quarterback who was obviously facing a long suspension due to multiple claims of sexual misconduct.

I’m a supporter of Brownie the Elf, and evidently so are lots of other Browns fans–which is why the running elf won the poll the Browns ran to select their new midfield logo. And while I wouldn’t expect sports radio hosts or sportswriters to actually do any research before voicing their ill-informed opinions, I think Brownie is a great choice. Why an elf? It’s obvious: the team has long been known to fans as the Brownies, and a brownie is a synonym for an elf–just like pixie and sprite. The elf has been associated with the franchise for decades, much longer than the Dawg Pound, which didn’t really start until the 1980s. And the elf is showing fierce determination because he’s running the football and getting ready to give a devastating elfin stiff-arm to a would-be tackler.

I also like the elf choice because it says a lot about Cleveland, which has always gone its own way and marched to the beat of a different drummer. Lots of people have disparaged Cleveland over the years, but in reality it’s a great city with a lot of heart, a blue-collar mentality, and a quirky sense of humor, besides. Picking an elf for the field is just another way for Cleveland to show those qualities for all to see and reaffirm that the Best Location in the Nation isn’t worried about the tender sensibilities of sports talk show hosts or the conventional, boring, market-driven decisions of other NFL teams. And the fact that the running elf goes back to the days when the Browns were regularly competing for, and frequently winning, the NFL championship, doesn’t hurt, either. Given the Browns’ struggles since they came back to the league in 1999, why not pick a logo that harkens back to the team’s glory days?

I’m glad the Browns picked Brownie the Elf to grace the field. Now let’s just hope that this season we can celebrate what happens on the field, too.