When Jimmy Haslam took over ownership of the Cleveland Browns, he promised better days ahead for the downtrodden franchise fighting for relevance. He said it wouldn’t be long before fans started to see the team do some smart things. He has showed signs of delivering on that promise.
Haslam has brought hope back to a fan base starving for a winner with his energy, his passion, his enthusiasm and his commitment to winning. The Browns have a new regime once again led by Joe Banner, Michael Lombardi and Rob Chudzinski. They will be in charge of getting things together on the football side and have already started that makeover. Cleveland has been one of the most aggressive teams in free agency, trying to upgrade their disappointing defense from last season. Of course, they also have the sixth overall pick in the draft as well, which is another opportunity that the Browns will have to add a difference-maker on either offense or defense.
It all comes down to quarterback in the NFL and Brandon Weeden, the incumbent starter, remains a huge question mark. Even with that question left unanswered, there is finally a reason to believe that one of the NFL’s punchlines will finally turn things around thanks to a commitment from the owner that has been lacking for the last decade.
Jimmy Haslam joined 92.3 the Fan in Cleveland with Baskin and Phelps to talk about how things have been for him since taking over as owner of the team, fans being upset that he decided to go back to Pilot Flying J, if he thought he would be more involved in the day-to-day operations of the Browns and what he thinks about the moves made this offseason so far.
How things have been for him since taking over the Browns:
“Candidly, we couldn’t have done it without Joe (Banner) and without the team that we put together. … Between (CEO) Joe (Banner), (President) Alec (Scheiner) and (Executive Vice President) Brent (Stehlik), we put together what I believe is an All-Star team and people with a tremendous amount of experience either in the league or in professional sports in general. We’re very excited to have veteran, experienced, hard-charging and hard-working people like that on our team.”
On fans being upset that he went back to Pilot Flying J:
“Let me go in reverse order and say, and I think I surprised people by saying that, although I was somewhat taken aback at the reaction, when I took a step back and thought about it, I was actually delighted. And you say, ‘Why do you say that?’ Because it shows the fans care. And there are some NFL cities where if the owner announced that, fans wouldn’t care. The fans of Cleveland want to win and they care about the Browns, so we took that as very positive reaction and are excited about it. I said this publicly guys, I was running Pilot Flying J this time last year and hopefully anybody didn’t see any lack of enthusiasm, intensity or passion. During the season and once training camp starts in June and July, we will be up here about two-thirds of the time. I can assure you there is no one more committed to seeing the Browns win than myself and my family.”
Whether he thought he would be more involved in the day-to-day operations of the Browns:
“I grew up in our family business and I think there’s probably a lot of people out there that can appreciate that, and candidly thrive off running a large business like this and it gives me energy, it gives me intensity and believe it or not, it increases my focus. I did miss that and and I wanted to continue that. I thought it was in the best interest of our shareholders, our customers and our employees, but I want to say again that there is no lack of enthusiasm and intensity for the Browns. I am not a person who has any hobbies. I don’t play golf, I don’t fish, I don’t hunt and my kids are grown, so I’m willing to commit whatever time necessary to turn the Browns into a winner that the fans deserve. I will quickly say this, somebody asked me if I was going to go watch Geno Smith’s workout and I said, ‘No, I’m not going to go do that. That’s what Mike Lombardi’s job is and that’s what Norv Turner and Chud’s jobs are. We have people far more qualified to determine whether Geno is an NFL quarterback or not than myself.’ I only site that as one example, but there are numerous others. I’m not going to watch tape, but we are going to set the strategy and our strategy this offseason was to build our defensive line. We felt we needed it, and two, with Ray’s new defense we needed to shore up some positions. I think we have done a good job of that. We’re still trying to pick up some other good free agents and I think there’s some other good opportunities out there, and of course we are continuing to focus on the draft. I think everybody has to remember that the Browns have won 23 games in five years. I’d love us to be 13-3; I don’t think it’s going to happen. We want to build this team the right way, spend the right amount of cap money, not leave ourselves in a tremendous bind in a couple of years, put together a consistent winner and that is our commitment to the Browns fans. And they deserve it.”
On the moves made in free agency:
“We’re really excited about Paul (Kruger). We had the opportunity to have dinner with Paul and his mom and dad … and I think he is a quality player which is obviously what we want. I also think he is a quality person. He’s also the right age. He’s 26 or 27 years old. We are equally excited about signing Desmond Bryant. I think Desmond, Paul has gotten a lot of attention but we think Desmond is — I don’t want to say a diamond in the rough but we think he has tremendous potential. I had dinner with him the same night and we think he is going to be a great addition to our defense. I had the opportunity to watch Jason Campbell play college football at Auburn and he’s a very good athlete, has a lot of NFL experience and also think he will be a big addition to our team.”