A new twist on the thought of the Browns having a GM

The other day, I talked about why I disagreed with Mary Kay Cabot’s opinion that the Cleveland Browns should hire a football GM, which in the process would likely shift Sashi Brown to the business side of things (as the team president). While I am still not in favor of such a shake-up because of my reservations that we can actually make it work with another cook in the kitchen, she did add a new twist to the story on Saturday via Twitter.

It started when a reader commented on her article, saying that Cabot’s idea of a GM “may work in theory, but not in reality under the team’s current structure without disruption.” Here was Cabot’s response:

On Twitter, I responded to Cabot by saying, “It would be interesting if some GM candidate already loved the Browns’ approach and said, ‘let me be part of it, not disrupt it.’” Cabot responded with, “I can assure you, he exists.”

If Cabot had mentioned this note in her original column, I think it would've changed a portion of my reaction. I still don’t agree with the dismissal this soon of the Browns’ innovative and analytical approach. However, I had said the following in the comments section of my post:

I think you can bring a mentor of sorts in, if they are willing to accept that role, to serve as a consultant for Brown. But I don’t think you radically change his position or power after one year.

What Cabot is referring to is different than a mentor for Brown, but it does seem to hint at somebody who wants to join the group and “be a part of the gang” as opposed to someone being hired by Jimmy Haslam to course-correct the current structure. Now that Cabot has expressed that one of the candidates on her list “would jump at the chance to be GM with the current Browns setup,” let’s peek at the names she highlighted:

Eliot Wolf of the Packers, Dan Morgan of the Seahawks, Adam Peters of the Broncos, Scott Pioli of the Falcons, Terry McDonough of the Cardinals, Lionel Vital of the Cowboys, and Chris Polian of the Jaguars.

With this new twist to the story, what do you think, Browns fans? I would not mind it as much if Brown basically said, “I will still be in charge of the entire structure we have here, and we’re still taking an analytical approach...but this new GM we’re bringing in shares our ideals and is a better talent evaluator than I am, so we trust him to add more substance to our plan.”