A man known for firing employees perhaps too quickly has a new employee whom it will be harder to fire.
Via wkyc.com, the son-in-law of Browns owner Jimmy Haslam will join the team as an executive vice president. And so JW Johnson will move his family to Cleveland and assume an active role in the team.
Per the report, a spokesperson for the Browns confirmed the move, explaining that Jimmy and co-owner Dee Haslam hope “to make it more of a family business, very much in line with the structure of other NFL franchises.”
It’s not as if the Browns, 1-31 over the past two seasons, will be any worse as a result of the move. And the Haslams are right; NFL franchises largely continue to be family-owned businesses, albeit hardly Mom and Pop operations.
That’s one of the reasons why nepotism seems to be so widely tolerated in the coaching ranks. It’s hard for ownership to apply a do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do approach when what ownership does is hire their own family members with the obvious goal of grooming them to take over the business at the appropriate time.
Otherwise, when the appropriate time comes, the only option is to sell the team.