Notes from Jimmy Haslam's Press Conference: Browns Will Hire Coach First, GM Second, and Sashi Brown Named Executive VP of Football Operations

After firing head coach Mike Pettine and general manager Ray Farmer on Sunday, Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam met with the local media. Here are some notes from Haslam's press conference:

• Effective tonight, Sashi Brown is now the Executive Vice President of Football Operations. He will have the ultimate say on the roster.
  
  
• The team will hire a head coach first. The search committee will consist of Jed Hughes of the consulting firm Korn/Fairy International, Brown, Haslam, and his wife, Dee.
  
  
• He shot down the report that Doug Marrone would be the team's first head candidate in the head coaching search. Haslam cites some of Korn/Fairy's hires as Pete Carroll and John Schneider in Seattle, Andy Reid in Kansas City, Bill O'Brien in Houston, Jim Harbaugh at Michigan, and Dan Quinn in Atlanta. They will try to find someone as quickly as possible, but obviously want to make the right hire, whether it takes two weeks or two months.
  
  
• Once the head coach is in place, the search for a general manager (GM) will take place. The new head coach, Hughes, Brown, and the Haslams will be the search committee for the new GM. The new GM will report directly to Brown, and their primary job will be talent acquisition. Haslam believes that Brown, who is very good at systems processing and analytics, paired up with someone who is a good talent evaluator, will make for a successful marriage.
  
  
• Haslam said that there are several coaches they would like to stick around, but some that they will not ask back. They have not yet informed the coaches of that information, so Haslam didn't want to comment on it.
  
  
• When asked whether Johnny Manziel reported to Berea this morning for his concussion check-up, as required by the protocol, Haslam said that his understanding is that Manziel did not show up.
  
  
• Haslam accepts responsibility for the team's failures. He says it's been very humbling and a lot harder than he had thought (to build an NFL team the right way). They were naive when they came into the process -- it's one thing to be the minority owner of the Steelers, but it's another thing to be the majority owner of a team. He's learned a lot, unfortunately the hard way, but learned nonetheless over the past 2-3 years.

What did you think of what Haslam had to say?