Sunday, February 14, 1999
Browns showing up Brown
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Carmen Policy vs. Mike Brown is not fair. Parity missed this boat. It's Intel against the Pony Express. Policy, who runs the Cleveland Browns, arranged for a limousine to take Damon Gibson to the Browns' draft headquarters. Damon Gibson!
Last year, a local sportswriter picked up Myron Bell at the airport. Welcome to Cincinnati, sport. Have a good time, but get out alive.
It's a rout already, and the Cleveland Browns haven't played a game.
The Bengals have identified their needs this winter. One is to lose Carl Pickens. Another is to lose Ashley Ambrose. A third, possibly, is to draft a quarterback. The Bengals only have four quarterbacks now. Four is not enough, though it may be three if they can unload Neil O'Donnell, except what team would want him at the money the Bengals are paying him?
Mike Brown says his team is one or two players away, and it is, providing the one or two can play quarterback, cornerback, nose tackle and wide receiver.
The Browns are poised to do heavy damage in free agency. The Bengals will wait until Cleveland finishes writing checks. This is the plan.
Policy says he wants the Browns to be very good, very quickly. Brown says he wants the Bengals to be competitive. Policy built the San Francisco 49ers into one of the NFC's two or three best teams. Everyone wanted to play in 'Frisco.
Brown hired Dave Shula and drafted Dave Klingler. We have to build walls and hire border guards to keep players here.
The Cleveland Browns are coming. There they go.
Arrogance in way
It took Jacksonville two years to be better than the Bengals. There is no reason to believe it will take Cleveland any longer. There is less reason to think Mike Brown and his family will do much to change that.
Other than what they're doing now.
The Bengals are running out of franchises less successful than their own. They don't have the Arizona Cardinals to kick around anymore. If the L.A. Clippers ever fold, the Bengals are in serious trouble.
The St. Louis Rams. Thank goodness for them.
There is an arrogance at work here, one not even a quickly successful Browns franchise can dislodge. It is the notion, held by Brown, that he knows what he's doing. And that, in fact, he's pretty darned good at it.
Arrogance is easier to deal with when it's justified. Everyone — e-e-everyone — understands the way to win in the NFL is to hire smart people and let them work. If any year showed that, it was the one just past.
Dan Reeves took control in Atlanta. Bill Parcells did the same in New York.
Mike Brown has neither the humility nor the lack of ego to do that here. Brown is a good man. He's a great businessman. He's a crummy football man.
Losing won't stop
Here's a wish: That the Browns draft Tim Couch, and the first time they play Cincinnati, Couch throws three touchdown passes to Gibson.
I don't know why people persist in hoping for the Bengals. Being a good fan does not mean having your heart kicked in every Sunday in the name of “loyalty.”
Mike Brown holds you hostage to satisfy his ego. As long as he runs this team the way he's running it now, it will never win. Not consistently. There could be an occasional playoff run. It will be coincidental. In the socialist NFL, everyone has a chance.
Until now, I hoped Brown would see that what he's doing doesn't work. In the face of his own failings, and the successes of others who did it differently, I thought he'd change. He won't.
Neither will anything else: The losing of games, the non-existent relationship Brown has with players, the notion that what worked 10 years ago will work again.
It's sad. But not so sad as this:
Here come the Cleveland Browns. There they go.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
DAUGHERTY ARCHIVE
