Jim Donovan is every Cleveland Browns fan after a trying season

The Cleveland Browns are nearing a tipping point if even Jim Donovan is getting fed up.

Jim Donovan is tired of the Cleveland Browns, namely Kevin Stefanski and Andrew Berry, constantly saying all the “right things” and never the honest thing. He’s tired of the Browns being secretive with what they’re thinking and what they think the problems on the team. He’s tired of having to play the guessing game to really suss out what is going on with this team.

Just like most of the Cleveland Browns’ fanbase.

It’s one thing to not want to disclose private thoughts, but considering the city and fans drive the revenue for this outfit, they and the media, deserve to know what is really going on behind closed doors. This secrecy nonsense needs to end because it’s clearly not working and is only exacerbating the fandom’s issues with the team.

When you don’t address the issues at hand, and you just keep saying the same, empty, lines every time something goes wrong, we’re left wondering if you’re even seeing what we’re all seeing. That causes people to lose faith in you and once that faith is lost, it’s nearly impossible to get it back.

So Donovan is right to call out the unnecessary secrecy of the team’s decision-making process. This is baffling, as Donovan is one of those who rarely criticizes the franchise. So if he’s done biting his tongue, imagine what others are feeling.

No authority figure in sports should ever be given the benefit of the doubt

The issues with the Browns’ management aren’t new, it’s been going on since they arrived. Yet, looking at past comments from many of our loyal readers from the past three years, the thing that is most noticeable is the blind faith they had in two men who never earned it. Kevin Stefanski and Andrew Berry were constantly given the benefit of the doubt, time and time again.

A benefit they never earned.

From day one, some of us said that selecting Jedrick Wills over Tristan Wirfs would haunt the team. Saying this, however, got many fans angry. “How dare you question two Ivy League geniuses!”

Wirfs is a two-time All-Pro and the Browns would be lucky to get a fifth-round pick for Wills when he inevitably gets traded.

No one is above being questioned. The Browns have made boneheaded move after boneheaded move since 2020 and it continues to get worse and worse. While John Dorsey wasn’t a great GM, he did put the pieces together needed to get the Browns to the playoffs in 2020.

Now Berry has torn it down, and Stefanski has become a meme of himself. And somehow, despite clear examples of neither man being the right fit for this team, there are still loyalists to them. Still, there are people who believe them to be the answer.

Maybe they are. Maybe in San Fransico, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, or another team with ownership that isn’t so meddling, maybe they take that specific squad to unforetold heights. But that’s not the case, as they work for Jimmy Haslam, one of the worst owners in pro sports.

So yes, they aren’t the right fit because they’ve allowed Haslam to screw up their analytics-driven project. We were promised a new era, but instead, we got re-rehearsed platitudes that don’t say anything, despite taking up hours and hours of press conferences.

Stefanski and Berry have lost a majority of fans’ support and faith, and there appears to be no way to fix it. The team is re-tooling its entire offense with the input of Deshaun Watson, which seems like a bad idea, and whatever cap room the team had left is all but gone.

A scheme that was supposed to work with anyone? Gone. A practice of never-overspending to avoid perpetual cap hell? A joke.

This is the Browns heading into 2023.