Looks like many more happy days ahead in Cleveland:
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POSTED 11:12 a.m. EST, December 30, 2005
SAVAGE, COLLINS ON THE OUTS IN CLEVELAND?
There's growing talk in league circles that Browns G.M. Phil Savage and President/CEO John Collins are not getting along and that, by extension, the bad blood is flowing between Savage and owner Randy Lerner.
Collins, a previous employee of the league office, was hired by Lerner in May 2004. The scuttlebutt in league circles is that Collin was the fall guy for the Janet Jackson Super Bowl boob flap, and that the NFL steered him in the direction of Lerner.
Lerner, who was still new at the time to the whole ownership thing following his father's passing in October 2002, took a liking to Collins and put him at the top of the organization.
After Butch Davis was run out of town in 2004, Lerner and Collins hired Savage away from the Ravens to serve as the new General Manager in January 2005.
Less than a year later, it's apparently not working out. We're hearing that Collins has concerns about Savage's performance -- which makes no sense to us since Collins, a career marketing and advertising foof, has nothing in his background that would allow him to adequately assess whether the G.M. of a football team is doing his job well.
And there's also talk that Collins quietly is in the process of hiring NFL in-house lawyer Mike Keenan to take over the salary cap management duties, which would displace current cap coordinator Trip MacCracken. The potential move is being viewed as a direct encroachment on Savage's turf, and it's prompting some to wonder whether Savage might soon be leaving the team, voluntarily or otherwise.
Stay tuned.
