The Browns have fired their top decision maker. Sashi Brown has been relieved of his duties, the team announced on Thursday morning. However, coach Hue Jackson will return in 2018. 
“We have great appreciation and gratitude for Sashi’s commitment and leadership to our organization but believe transitioning to someone with strong experience and success in drafting and building consistently winning football teams is critical to the future of the Cleveland Browns. Today we informed Sashi that we were going in a new direction. The 2018 draft and offseason is pivotal for our franchise, we need to ensure that we maximize our opportunity for success; with our picks, free agency and building our roster. Hue Jackson will remain our coach and will return for the 2018 season but we feel it is necessary to take significant steps to strengthen our personnel department. We have begun the process of having productive conversations regarding leadership of our football operations and will provide further updates when appropriate. We thank Sashi for all his hard work and dedication to the Cleveland Browns.”
The Browns are 0-12 and 1-27 over the last two seasons. Some sort of shakeup was expected, though not necessarily before the end of the season. It’s possible that the Browns were motivated to get a head start on their GM search after the Giants sacked Jerry Reese earlier this week. Their next hire will be their ninth GM since returning to Cleveland in 1999.
Meanwhile, the Browns will hold off on hiring their tenth coach since returning to Cleveland. Jackson was brought to Cleveland for his offensive acumen, leadership, and positive energy. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to demonstrate much of that with a lackluster roster. The good news for Jackson is that even if his team goes 0-16 this year, he will return for next season.
Brown was hired as the Browns’ executive vice president/general counsel in January of 2013 and was promoted to executive vice president of football operations in January of 2016. He took an unorthodox approach to team building, one that has yet to bear any fruit in Cleveland. However, he did leave the team with lots of cap room and draft capital to work with, so the team’s next GM may be in a position to succeed – provided that he can break the team’s longstanding curse.
The Browns have the resources to start putting good players on the field, but it’s just a matter of using them the right way. The person that’s hired is going to have a big chance to make a mark on the team, so hopefully it’s finally in a good way.
I bet if they drafted Darnold or Allen and successfully develop them in the offseason they could be a 5 or 6 win team next year
I might be in the minority but I want to see them pass on a quarterback this year and focus on putting serious weapons on the offense. I know that passing on quarterbacks hasn’t worked out well for them recently (and I LOVE Rosen so I’d be fine with taking him), but although Kizer has still mostly been pretty bad this year, he’s been showing a little improvement lately. I’d want to see what he can do with a full year of experience and with legitimate talent around him before throwing him into the scrap heap and burning another top pick on a quarterback that still wouldn’t have talent around him.
While I get that, it’s also hard to evaluate if you have weapons if your quarterback isn’t good. So while I understand the want for weapons for a rookie, Miami and arizona is the argument of without a q.b wr have limited value.
I’m not a browns fan, but I agree with this approach. Throwing a rookie qb into the fire and forcing him to be the entire team is a proven strategy for failure in development. Without weapons already in place there is no point to drafting a quarterback.
Maybe they should include the coach in the player selection process.
Browns have to fire Jackson!!!! Nobody got any better with him coaching. He is part of the losing culture and must go!!!
I CANT WAIT FOR THE 0-16 PARADE.
yep the guy who wanted wentz is garbage. he may not be Lombardi but it’s hard to win when you get garbage handed to you.
Hue Jackson was .500 with the Raiders. At the end of his only season with Oakland he wanted to be part of the decision making with the front office. They was told “no”. Jackson left…