Longtime season ticket holders Mike Randall of Massillon and Tony Schafer of Sandusky met with Browns owner Randy Lerner for nearly two hours in Lerner's office Tuesday.
Randall and Schafer, aka "Dawg Pound Mike" and "Mobile Dawg" are organizing a protest for the Browns' next home game, Nov. 16 against the Baltimore Ravens. They are encouraging fans not to go to their seats until after kickoff to voice their displeasure with the state of the franchise and Lerner's unwillingness to address them on camera.
Randall and Schafer said they will not cancel the boycott unless Lerner speaks publicly and Schafer put the odds of that happening at "20 percent."
The meeting was set up before general manager George Kokinis was relieved of his duties Monday. Lerner has not spoken about what led to the ouster of Kokinis, hired on Jan. 23.
Randall and Schafer came with an agenda packet that had a photo of Randall and Schafer on the cover giving a football to a girl in Chicago. Randall said he got the ball from defensive coordinator Rob Ryan before Sunday's game at Soldier Field.
Randall said Lerner told them he was ticked off about the 1-7 Browns and said, "'I'm going to get this right. If there's somebody else better, I'm going to spend the money and try to get this fixed for the fans."'
The pair also came with ideas and addressed issues at the stadium like the lack of entertainment, the lack of championship banners and retired numbers and the policy of having fans ejected for excessive standing. Randall said Lerner seemed shocked by the latter.
"I told him for the home opener next year I wanted the championship banners up, the retired numbers up and I want this place to rock," Randall said. "Get the Michael Stanley Band to play 'Here We Go Again.' We fought for this history, let's display this history. I don't care if the last championship was in 1964, put it up there.
"I want the crowd roaring. There's all this energy and we lack it. He said, 'I'm on it, I hear you."'
Randall said vice president of communications Bill Bonsiewicz and consultant Bernie Kosar also joined them for a few minutes. Randall, who works in sports marketing, said he offered to come to work for the Browns to improve the fan experience at the stadium.
For Randall, the highlight of the meeting may have been when he and Schafer told Lerner, "There's nothing more important than seeing you hold the Vince Lombardi Trophy in the air."
"He smiled liked I'd never seen," Randall said, adding that he'd spoken to Lerner seven times, including Sunday at Chicago. "He said, 'I'd put it right up in the middle for all of us to enjoy. It would be for everyone."'
Schafer said, "'He said he wanted the whole city of Cleveland to hold that trophy, not himself. He said he'd like the whole city to own the Browns, like in Green Bay. He said, 'I know what it is right now, but I'm going to get it right.'
"He feels he owes it to the city of Cleveland. I believe in him and I trust in him."
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Soooooooooooo!
Are they still supporting a Brown out or are we giving Lerner a second chance???
Accorsi as GM – good move if made.
Schottenheimer – Head coach. VP of player personnel.
Kosar – Offensive Coordinator.
Rob Ryan – Defensive Coordinator, as long as he accepts responsibility and stops telling fans to blindly support a team and it's management who have been failures for the past 10 years.
I too sent fax after fax in the mid '90s in support of the Browns returning to Cleveland. I was active with Detroit's Backers club, The Motor City Maniacs. I spent hours upon hours trying to support Cleveland's NFL football team (or establishment of same).
All we've seen since '99 has been a yearly dose of "We're looking good and making progress as compared to earlier attempts". Boy! If that doesn't sound like those current PC/MAC commercials, I don't know what does! "We have fixed all of those problems from the last version… trust me." Uh, no. We don't trust you. You failed to hire Cowher. You failed to hire Schottenheimer.
Would the fans be up in arms if the current coach's name was Cowher or Schottenheimer? I doubt it.
Fix it.
Michael Stanley Band? LMAOROFLLOL!!!!!!
HOF Jerseys, check.
1964 championship banner? check.
Michael Stanley Band? Bernie Kosar? If the Browns first problem is management, the second problem is fans trying to relive the past. It is not 1985. How many Bellicheck underlings have we wasted our energy on trying to relive the past? Now we have his ball boy. Bernie has done nothing but lead his own life to bankruptcy. God bless him and help him out, but hardly a role model for success!
You've lost 10 years of young fans, start modernizing the team and the image of football in Cleveland and live for the future. New music, new logos mixed with some 50s retro (like the Indians have done), and a new plan for the future. Build a smash mouth defensive team and stop looking for a QB to keep delivering bombs. That is how the Patriots started their current run, and the Ravens and the Steelers and now the Broncos and Bengals — Defense first, everything else falls in place later.
Cowher is spending time with his family, like a good father and will never come to Cleveland. Schottenheimer did get us to the playoffs a couple of times, But when it looked like we where going to win, he always went to that Stupit Pre-vent-Defense, and lost the game everytime. If he would of let the defense keep playing like they were we would of gone all the way. I don't want to see that again! Good Luck Mr. Lerner you'll need it!!!!!
whoopie! randy met with a couple morons and thinks they represent all browns fans. michael stanley band??? please.
Why in the world did Kosar, of all people, pop in for a few minutes? Best guest is somebody mistakenly told him there would be an open bar.
Is it any wonder the Lerner Family has been able to get away with just about anything? These two morons Mike Randall and Tony Schafer have got to have the combined IQ of a pet rock. Sorry if I'm dating myself. Would it be more helpful if I changed the term "pet rock" to "mood ring?" Probably not.
By the way, nice touch by that opportunist schmuck Randall. The guy actually had the balls to ask Lerner to give him a job in the PR department. Man oh man, what a massive putz. And this time I'm not even talking about Lerner.
By the way, if Randall's novel ingenius idea to really, really excite the folks is to bring back the Michael Stanley Band, then may I also suggest they bring back The Ghoul. He could blow up Froggy at halftime. And maybe bring back Gib Shanley to announce the games full-time. Who cares if Shanley is dead. Obviously, this Randall dufus has the smarts to get around this meaningless death thing. Dead? Irrelevant.
Linc
"When I was a boy, my grandmother had one of the first television sets in the area. In 1948 I turned it on one Sunday afternoon and found some guys playing a game. I had never seen a ball that wasn't round and what the hell was second and six? It turned out I was watching Otto Graham, Marion Motley, Lou the Toe, Dante Lavelli, Mac Speedie and THE Cleveland Browns.
Things were wonderful until Art Modell, who fired the best coach in history, and the best running back in history in about twenty minutes. I was happy with the 1964 Championship which was won with Paul Brown's team, but then it was thirty four years of .500 football interspersed with a couple of teams that John Elway put to rest.
Lately,it has been ten years of .350 football and a team that lays itself to rest. What's the difference between Art Modell and Randy Lerner? Art Modell left. Randy Lerner won't.
It has been forty five years of meaningless football and I'm a little tired of it."
P.S.
And, don't get me started on the Indians!