Browns get new GM, but Jackson will stay
Sashi Brown brought analytics, a bevy of draft picks and some stability to the Browns. In the end, losing mattered most.
Unable to produce more than one win over two seasons, Brown was fired on Thursday by owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam, who jettisoned their lead football executive but chose to keep head coach Hue Jackson for another season despite a 1-27 record over two seasons.
Hours after Brown was let go, Cleveland hired former Kansas City executive John Dorsey as their general manager. Dorsey, who was fired by the Chiefs in June after four seasons, was credited partially for the club’s renaissance.
In announcing Brown’s firing, which was expected given the team’s sorry state, Jimmy Haslam also said Jackson, the former Raiders head coach, will return in 2018.
“I appreciate Jimmy saying that,” Jackson said following practice as the Browns (0-12) prepared to host the Packers on Sunday. “My focus of coming here to the Cleveland Browns is to coach the football team and help get this organization turned around. I haven’t been able to do that yet.”
Jackson’s survival would indicate he won a power struggle over Brown, the team’s former legal counsel who had no previous experience running a team.
Brown positioned the Browns to be better by acquiring more draft picks, but passing on quarterbacks Carson Wentz and Deshaun Watson the past two years and other questionable decisions with the roster sealed his fate.
The Chiefs went 43-21 under Dorsey’s watch and made the postseason three times. He also traded for quarterback Alex Smith in 2013, a move that accelerated Kansas City’s turnaround.
Bills’ rookie calls Gronkowski ‘dirty’: Buffalo rookie cornerback Tre’Davious White shook nervously in anger at his locker while accusing New England tight end Rob Gronkowski of being a dirty player for blindsiding him in the back of the head.
As for the NFL issuing Gronkowski a one-game suspension for the hit Sunday, White turned away from the television cameras and muttered: “It’s a joke, dog.” White then turned back toward the cameras and said he didn’t know what to say.
“He is what he did. A dirty shot. So what’s that make him? A dirty player. Simple,” White said.
“I’m laying there. He snuck me. My back turned. He could’ve broken my neck,” he added. “I’ve got a son to raise, and all of that. People don’t think of that when they just react.”
The comments were White’s first since being hit by Gronkowski with 4:50 left in Buffalo’s 23-3 loss to the Patriots. White lay near the sideline after intercepting a Tom Brady pass, down after being touched by a New England player, when Gronkowski barreled into him, leading with his forearm and striking White in the back of the helmet. Gronkowski was penalized for unnecessary roughness, then issued a one-game suspension by the NFL a day later, which he appealed unsuccessfully.
Gronkowski apologized following the game by saying he acted out of frustration. White didn’t want to hear it. “No. His intentions were what he did,” White said. “A man don’t do that.”
Dolphins register to vote: Miami said every player on its roster has completed paperwork to become a registered voter. The Dolphins met their goal of 100 percent registration set in June with the help of Martin Luther King III and Bill Wachtel, co-founder of the community action group Drum Major Institute.