Report: Browns owner picked Hue Jackson, Manziel against staff wishes
The Cleveland Browns might be more dysfunctional than previously imagined.
A Thursday report from ESPN's Seth Wickersham highlights a series of issues the organization has dealt with since Jimmy and Dee Haslam bought the team in 2012.
The Browns have gone 27-84 since the couple took ownership, experiencing a series of changes to coaches, general managers, and executives.
According to Wickersham, shortly after replacing head coach Rob Chudzinski - after just one season - with Mike Pettine, and firing CEO Joe Banner and general manager Michael Lombardi to promote assistant GM Ray Farmer, Jimmy Haslam influenced the group to select quarterback Johnny Manziel in the first round of the 2014 draft.
Members of the staff apparently preferred Teddy Bridgewater, but that changed after his team interview and workout.
"Something about Bridgewater's handshake rubbed Haslam the wrong way," according to Wickersham.
When Manziel began sliding in the first round of the draft, he texted then-quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains to ask the team to select him.
"Farmer knew whom the owner wanted, so he made a decision that felt like a concession and traded up to draft him, despite significant concerns about Manziel's skill set and hard partying at Texas A&M," Wickersham writes.
Haslam's influence didn't end there.
After two seasons, 10 wins, and plenty of bad press during the Farmer-Pettine regime, Haslam installed Sashi Brown as executive vice president of football operations and set out to find the right head coach for a drastic rebuild.
"It was 4-1 in favor of Sean McDermott, the (Carolina) Panthers' defensive coordinator, a coach who had crushed his interview and was known to be open to new ideas. Haslam voted for Hue Jackson," Wickersham writes.
Jackson signed on reportedly unaware of the level to which the team was preparing to rebuild. What followed was a one-win season and a winless season. Finally, in 2018, infighting between Jackson and offensive coordinator Todd Haley, which was on display during HBO's inside-the-locker-room documentary "Hard Knocks," led to the dismissal of both.
The Browns hired Freddie Kitchens as head coach in January, making him the fifth full-time head coach during Haslam's seven-year tenure.
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