(Opening statement)- “Briefly I just wanted to open it up saying how excited I am to be part of the Cleveland Browns. I found out something about myself in my year off, that I didn’t want to get away from the game. This was as tremendous opportunity for me. I’m very, very excited about it and I can’t wait to get back there and roll up my sleeves and get to work.”
(On if he has made a decision on Eric Mangini)- “I have not made a decision on Eric. I met with Eric when I was back there for my brief stay and have talked to him on the phone a couple of times about football issues. There are a couple reasons [I have not made a decision], one, I think it would be really unfair. He’s at the end of finishing his first season there and the team is doing well and clearly responding to him. That type of decision will be made once I get back there. I’m arriving back there on Monday. Eric and I will meet next week and then we’ll come to some sort of a decision. I didn’t think it was right. He’s working like crazy to finish the season on an upbeat note. We’ll have those discussions next week.”
(On if his duties have been spelled out)- “I think so. I think I have way too much responsibility (joking). I am really looking forward to it. It’s quite different than what I’m used to. When I went to Seattle, I went as the coach and general manager and executive vice president. I did have a president that I answered to, who was in between me and the owner. Then my duties changed there, obviously, after about four or five years. This, Randy Lerner is my boss and I answer to Randy. Then it’s my job to kind of direct traffic and put the organization together after that. I have all the responsibility anyone could ask for and now I have to hire good people.”
(On his responsibilities and if he will coach)- “You know what, Terry (Pluto), next Tuesday, I believe next Tuesday is when I sit down and we really bang through some of this stuff I’ll be more specific. Right now I’m putting together the structure of the organization, as far as I would like to do it. A lot of these things can’t be done until the season is over, as far as other people and contacting other positions. I’ll be able to answer that very clearly, I think, at our next meeting next week. My coaching, as far as coaching on the field, in the near future I’m not going to do that. Things can change, I suppose, down the road, but this year I accepted this new challenge in my career and I’m really excited about it. It’s different, because I won’t be on the field, but I’ll be doing everything in my power to help make the head coach successful. That’s how I’m looking at my current position.”
(On how big of a job it is to get the team where fans want it to be and how much he has been influenced by the last three games)- “I think anytime that you have a season that is below expectation levels for everybody, coaches, organizationally, fans, you know there’s some work to do. I think what the team has done in the last three weeks is a credit to Eric and his coaching staff and to the players. When you know you’re not going to be in the playoffs and you know you have a little less to play for, I suppose, than other teams, how do they players respond? How do the coaches respond? That part of it’s been really good. Any decision I make regarding the coaching staff, or anybody there, will not be based on three games or two games or one game or anything like that. I think it’s the total body of work. I’ve got to see progress. I’ve got to see things going in the right direction and then I’ll make my decision. I’m very happy for those guys. The last three weeks they’ve had three wins. Coaches and players work so hard that you deserve a few wins. That’s what you’re playing the game for. Like I said, a lot of those decisions will be made down the road after I get into Cleveland.”
(On if he will hire a general manager)- “I’m going to hire a general manager, yes.”
(On how he weighs the current coaching situation versus him coming in wanting his own guy and a fresh start)- “I think that’s the question. Eric and I talked about this, I’m not a big fan of the quick hook. I would never do that with quarterbacks when they played for me. I really don’t think one year is enough to prove what you’re trying to get done. Sometimes you go into situations and because of things that you have no control over, all of a sudden the team is suffering. Sometimes you have control over situations and poor decisions are made and that’s another reasons teams [suffer]. That’s what I have to evaluate. I wouldn’t be a big fan of just allowing a guy to coach one year and out, but having said that, I haven’t made any decisions yet. Eric and I are going to talk next week. I still have some time to think about this. I want to do what is right for the organization and the Cleveland Browns. That’s my charge. I want to see the team’s record better. I want the organization to be functioning properly. I want the fans to be very proud of their team. That’s the decision I have to make and that’s going to take a little time, not a lot of time, but a little time.”
(On the fans being upset about past losing seasons)- “The Browns have such a wonderful history that I can understand the fans’ position. In my time in the NFL I’ve had the privilege of working for the 49ers and then the Packers and then the Seattle Seahawks. There was a time when I was a kid in San Francisco where you could walk into Candlestick Park, or in some days Kezar Stadium in the way back when, and you could buy a ticket and sit down anywhere. That was quite different from the time when I was coaching there when we were expected to go to the Super Bowl every year. The tickets were tough to come by. The fans were suffering for a while there and then all of a sudden Bill Walsh came in and you guys know the rest of the history of that. In Green Bay when I went in there, they had been in one playoff game in 24 years and since the (Vince) Lombardi era had really had a tough time. Now, it’s a unique place and the fans will always be there, but they were suffering. We managed to turn it around and fix it. I felt good about the job we did. Seattle, the same thing, they hadn’t been to the playoffs in 12 or 14 years, or whatever it was, and we were able to be a consistent playoff caliber team, I think, got to the Super Bowl once, so we flipped it a little bit there too. I understand the fans’ frustration and that’s a little bit why I took the job, because there’s something inside of me that enjoys the challenge of fixing something, tweaking something to get it back on track again. I know we have a great fan base in Cleveland. I know that and they’ve been very loyal. I sense their frustration just a little bit. Now we just have to make them real proud of their football team again. It’s going to take hard work, but we can do this.” (On evaluating Brady Quinn and the quarterback position in general moving forward)- “I haven’t done it yet. We’ve been doing other things. I know this, Derek Anderson had a great game against us when we played them a couple years ago on Monday night or Sunday night, I remember that. Brady, I remember him really more coming out of college. I have some film I’ve been looking at and I’m going to continue to look at it. That question has to be answered down the road, not just by one person, but by a group. I know this, that it’s very, very important to have your quarterback play well to be successful. I think if you looked around the league everyone knows that. In fairness to Brady and to Derek and to any quarterbacks with the Browns, it’s too early for me to comment on that. I’m not going to be the coach, but I am going to work very, very closely with the coach on personnel. Eric shares my views on how important the quarterback position is for any team. That’s what we have to do. We have to be tough in some ways. We have to be honest about it. If we think we have the quarterback there that can take us where we want to go, fine. If we don’t, then we have to do something about it. We have not made that decision yet.”
(On if the Browns can be turned around in 2010)- “I would love to tell you, ‘Sure, absolutely’, but you guys know as well as anybody sometimes you can’t get all the pieces together in the first year. People look at the Miami situation, I think, of a year ago where they were 1-15 and then they made the playoffs and they did a nice job of turning that franchise around, so it’s possible. It doesn’t happen like that real often. Now, can you improve and get better? Absolutely, and I would be very disappointed if we couldn’t do that. Just how much a flip you can make in one year, a lot of it depends on some key positions on the football team and those are the things we’re going to be evaluating.”
(On if he has thought about hiring an African-American general manager, such as Reggie McKenzie)- “I think Reggie McKenzie is a good man and he is a good friend. I’ve been doing this a long time, Reggie (Rucker), as you know and I think I have made a lot of good friends and know a lot of good people in this league. By rule, we really can’t get started on any of this stuff until after the final regular season game. Obviously we will comply with the Rooney Rule and interview African-American candidates, which there are good ones, as part of the process to finding a general manager. Reggie would certainly be in that category. I want to make this clear, I have not talked to anybody yet. I’m putting together my lists. My goal is to get the best guy that I think can do the job for us. Absolutely, those guys will be taken into consideration during this process.”
(On how long his deal is for)- “Let’s see, it’s a five year contract.”
(On what drew him to the Browns)- “First of all, I knew I wanted to go back to work. For a long time in this year I took off, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to still be on the field coaching or in a different role. Once I made that decision, that I wanted to kind of try something new, then we had a few options. The reason that I am in Cleveland now, and proud to be in Cleveland now, is Randy Lerner. I’ve had the privilege of serving on a lot of committees in the league, know a lot of owners, I call some my friends. I had never really met Randy or spent any time with him. I will tell you this, it was very, very refreshing. Clearly, he wants his football team to do well. When he presented the job to me and what it would entail and the type of access I would have to him and his vision for the team and the fans and the city of Cleveland and all that stuff, as far as I was concerned he hit a home run. Obviously the job’s a great job, but I really took this job because of the owner. I think he cares that much and I really don’t want to let him down.”
(On if it will be a complete rebuilding project)- “Again, I’m not going to talk in great depth around that, other than the fact that if you keep blowing up the team it takes longer to fix it. I believe, and I believe that Eric believes, that there are parts of this football team that are young, talented and play hard and are just what he wants. Then we have to look at the things that we think we’re a little deficient in. Like I said, my job is to make the team and the coach on the field as successful as he can be. With that comes hard decisions. Without going into great detail, it seems as though, I think, the current staff has tried very, very hard to start that process. To restart it all over again, I don’t think we have to do that, I really don’t. I hope it doesn’t appear that way when we roll up our sleeves and dive in there. I think they’ve started that. Now we just have to really identify areas where we need to get better and then figure out what the best way to handle that is. We have a number of draft choices. We can go into the free agent market. We want to build it for the long term and things like that. This will be sitting down and having a lot of discussions on how to make this team better. To answer your question, no, I don’t think we have to go in there and blow it up again.”
(On what offense and defensive scheme he wants to run)- “Like I said, and I want to try and make this clear, I’m not coaching anymore. I’m going to try and help the organization from a different angle, if you will. Having said that now, I really believe in what we did and I think I’m pretty good at it. I think I was a decent coach and I came from a system that I understand and a system that’s been proven in the league. Whoever the coach is, I would like to be able to talk to and I will be able to talk to my coach about offensive football, certainly, and football in general. He’s the coach though. If I can’t persuade him to do something that I think works pretty well, then I’ve probably done a poor job of convincing him. I’m pretty good at persuading people along those lines, so we’ll see what happens. It was my impression when I talked with Eric, as an example, that he was very willing to listen. He wants the same things I do. We want the team to be better. We want to win and we want the fans to feel good. We’re going after the same thing. I think when you have guys, their vision’s the same and they’re pulling in the same direction, some of this other stuff, you can get it done. You can come to an agreement and make it work.”
(On who will have final say on the roster)- “I get the final say on everything, which is fun. Now, does that mean I go in and pound the desk and say, ‘We have to do this and this is what we’re going to do’? No. The coach is involved big time. The general manager is involved. I am going to be involved. I anticipate a couple other really good football men to be involved. It’s always been my experience, with teams that were successful that I was involved with, that it was more of a consensus than one person just saying this is what we’re going to do. Now, I’m there to break the ties. If we can’t come to a consensus, then I see that as my role. As far as specifics and who sets up the 53-man roster, who makes the cuts, how we go do all that kind of staff, I can get into more detail with you when I get there. That’s not one man’s decision ever, in any organization I’ve ever been in.”
(On if he will come in thinking he wants a West Coast Offense team)- “I think that’s a decision I make after I talk to the head coach. If he doesn’t like what I like then he has to convince me that what he’s doing is better than what I would like to see. That’s the type of discussion that we have. Then after that, like I said, you come to a consensus, you come to an agreement. We both want the same thing for the Cleveland Browns and then once we decide on that, now you try and get the right personnel to fit the system. That’s the way I’ve always done it and I anticipate that’s the way we’ll do it again.”
(On what he learned in his first stint as a general manger and president that will help him do better this time)- “Good question. I think when you go into an organization, like I’m coming into Cleveland, you have to get the right pieces in place, then you have to get the right people in place. When I was also the head coach and had the responsibly of being GM, it was very important to me that I have my personnel people in place and my financial people in place, because I was going to be very involved with coaching he football team. There have been some people that had that position that were more personnel people and, even though they were called the head coach, kicked the coaching responsibilities to the coordinators. I didn’t do that. You can’t do it all, you don’t have enough time, so it’s important to me that I had good people who I could go into a meeting, listen to what they had to say, say what I had to say and then make the decision that way. In Seattle, when I went in there the first time, I would say if I had to do it all over again differently, I would have made some of those changes sooner. It took a couple years to get the right people in place. Now, Mike Reinfeldt is the President of the Tennessee Titans. Ted Thompson, who was with me, I brought in, is now the President of the Green Bay Packers. Scot McCloughan, who was there, is General Manager of the San Francisco 49ers. We had a good group of people. If I had to do it all over again, I would have made immediate changes and tried to get the ball rolling a little sooner. That was one thing. Second thing is, in the personnel part of it, our first draft was less than spectacular, because I had really two groups giving me information, the existing group that had been there and the new group that came in with me. We didn’t do a good job with the draft, because I didn’t. I learned from that. Those types of errors, I trust I won’t do again, I won’t make again.”
