Ousted Cleveland CEO Joe Banner -- who is transitioning out of his role in Cleveland after being not asked back along with GM Mike Lombardi -- had the new offensive and defensive coordinators reporting directly to him, CBS Sports NFL Insider Pat Kirwan reports.
Kirwan spoke to a league source at the NFL combine in Indianapolis who told him Banner was a bit of a control freak and structured the coaching staff so that the new coordinators would answer directly to him.
That's atypical of an NFL team, to say the least. Generally speaking coordinators answer directly to the head coach, in this case recently hired Mike Pettine.
Pettine was hired after the Browns fired Rob Chudzinski following just one year at the helm. Chud has since latched on with the Colts as a special assistant to the head coach.
To say that the power structure in Cleveland was different would be an understatement. New GM Ray Farmer, who was at the time assistant GM, was not involved in the head coaching search either, Kirwan was told.
Having coordinators circumvent the head coach and GM by reporting to the CEO of the team is just out there. As Kirwan wonders, it's entirely possible that Banner wanted to control what players played and when.
