Browns Solve All Their Problems

The Cleveland Browns in the midst of an awful season (current record 1-7) solved all their problems yesterday by firing General Manager George Kokinis. Who? Exactly.

I'm not defending Kokinis or claiming he did a great job. I will say he was not the main reason this team has only won one game and looked worse than pathetic on offense. The job of a general manager is to hire the coaching staff, oversee the scouting department, and assemble the on field talent. How much of that has Kokinis been able to influence? Well, the head coach Eric Mangini was hired two weeks before Kokinis. So, we can't blame Kokinis for Mangini. The April draft was graded as above average. In hindsight, any draft can be nit-picked by pointing out players who were by-passed who did better than the player selected. Many have said they should have taken Rey Maulaluga in the second round instead of a receiver. Maualuga ended up going to divisional rival Cincinnati Bengals and is having a good rookie season. However, people forget why Maualuga fell to the second round - he was considered a character risk (never an issue for the Bengals) due to a couple of altercations in college and in pre-draft work he didn't impress scouts add that to a past knee injury and he was too big a risk for a first round investment.

Whatever Kokinis did or didn't do, his share of the blame pales in comparison to Mangini's. I'm not say Mangini should be fired just that it would have made a lot more sense than canning Kokinis. This move just makes ownership look foolish and reactionary. The only thing that could make this move seem reasonable is if Kokinis committed a firing offense that they are not disclosing or they already had a top level replacement lined up. There were no rumors of misbehavior on the part of Kokinis, which leaves the question who is the "great" GM they have line up as replacement? If they didn't have a replacement lined up then there was absolutely no reason to make this move now.

Bottom line: I currently have zero confidence in team owner Randy Lerner and his management team to run this team or even choose the right replacement for Kokinis