Lofton: Browns’ new GM will ‘evaluate what’s going on in that building’

The Cleveland Browns did the expected Thursday in firing Sashi Brown, the executive vice president and general manager who has presided over a team that has won only one game since he was promoted to the job after the 2015 season.

It was on Brown’s watch that the team passed on quarterbacks Carson Wentz and Deshaun Watson in the last two drafts.

‘You don’t hire somebody unless you give them some type of power’

What came as a bit of a surprise, however, was Browns owner Jimmy Haslam also announcing that Hue Jackson, the coach for the 1-27 stretch, would remain on the job for next season. Hall of Famer James Lofton, for one, thinks the new GM should have a say over who coaches the team.

“The next general manager is going to evaluate what’s going on in that building,” Lofton said on the SiriusXM Blitz. “You don’t hire somebody unless you give them some type of power to make a change here or there, whether it’s how you run the training camp, the draft or whatever. And most general managers, at the bequest of the owner, hire and fire the head coach.”

‘Where did it go so wrong for all the other high picks that they selected?’

Whoever is the next GM must do what many predecessors have failed to achieve: find a successful franchise quarterback.

“When you talk about the Browns and you talk about the lack of success in acquiring a quarterback, as I look at it, at just in a broad picture, the last great hope was Tim Couch,” Lofton said. “And he had some success early on. So where did it go so wrong for all the other high picks that they selected? Was it Year 1? Was it Year 3? Was it the supporting cast around him? I mean, why is it that nobody at the quarterback position has been able to flourish?”