CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The phrase “He broke all the rules” takes on either a negative or positive connotation based entirely on the status and success of the person to which it applies.

If you’ve failed, it’s because you were too stubborn or too stupid to follow them. If you’ve succeeded, it’s because you were too creative and too original to adhere to them. Success against the grain is a virtue in American life. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Sean “Diddy" Combs all dropped out of college before earning their riches, and their iconoclasm is hailed by every college freshman sick of going to class.

The act of dropping out isn’t the point. It’s that success is its own justification, and it can be applied to every path. In most walks of high-profile American life, success also justifies at least some level of jerkness in business, in entertainment, in politics, in music, in writing. Ask the most successful journalists how they take to being edited. Ask how many columnists have screamed into the phone if someone had the temerity to suggest a word change.

In Hollywood, what does every successful director demand and receive at the peak of his or her powers? Final cut. Once they’ve succeeded, once they’ve proven their skills and made their bosses money, they want power. And they get it. Musicians crave creative control. Artists want to be free, unencumbered by corporate sensibilities.

And bosses? Bosses in America are villains, most often characterized as overbearing and uninformed, asking too much and respecting the worker too little. Who really knows best? The person at the top calling the shots, or the people on the ground, doing the work? The worker. Watch a TV show or movie. Let me know when the boss is the hero.

This is how we view things. No one roots for “the man.” No one roots for the company. We cherish the individual, believe in ingenuity, admire entrepreneurship and tolerate impoliteness while striving for greatness. Much of the time, when success is reached, and especially when success is repeated, we forgive everything else.

So ... why was Browns receiver Odell Beckham supposed to come to voluntary OTAs?

I wrote at the start of OTAs that everyone should relax about Beckham’s attendance. But he only made one of the sessions, and so the story has lingered. It’s not only that obsessing over Beckham’s absence from OTAs is uptight. It goes against how we view success at the highest level.

Team sports are a tricky business, supposedly cohesive groups made of elite individuals. Some of those elite individuals are all about the team concept. Wonderful. But mandating that every special talent subscribes to rules put forth by a boss isn’t just foolhardy, it might be contrary to winning.

On a 53-man roster, you need a few guys who are different. I remember former Indians GM Mark Shapiro saying of Jim Thome that it made your team better when your best player was also your best person. That can work. It can also make your team better when one of your best players is the guy no one can figure out. Let Baker Mayfield lead the Browns. Let Beckham inspire the locker room through his refusal to conform.

Because I guarantee you this ... there are young Browns who will look at Beckham and say, “I want to be that.” And what is that? Someone so talented, so accomplished, someone who holds himself to such a high standard and lives up to it, that he can break the rules.

I’m gonna bust my tail to be as good as Odell ... so I can miss OTAs one day, too.

This isn’t a lesson you’ll read in any coaching manual, but why is anyone other than a coach reading a coaching manual? Just observe American society. Vice wrote a story about Kanye West three years ago that includes a cuss word in the headline, but the gist was whether he was a genius or a jerk. In it, the story explained the “Advanced Genius Theory," which doesn’t actually apply all that well here, but makes a point.

Sometimes, stars are so good, and have succeeded for so long, if we now think something is wrong with them, it’s not about them. It’s that we’ve lost the ability to understand them. West has proven his musical genius. If a football receiver can be a genius about his profession, Beckham may be one.

If you’re still reading, and you’re hard-working and kind-hearted, you may have already started your nasty email. Maybe you don’t want to excuse Beckham. Maybe you believe he’s letting down his teammates. So maybe don’t forgive his absence. But understand it, and realize it won’t ruin the Browns.

Former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer publicly and proudly explained how he treated the best players in his program differently. Hard work and high achievement were used to divide players into status levels, and while some criticized Meyer for that, he viewed it as a fundamental part of his success.

The best earn different treatment.

I heard a major league manager decades ago explain his rule about forbidding players from bringing golf clubs on road trips. When asked what he’d do if his team acquired one of the golf-happy Atlanta Braves aces -- Greg Maddux, John Smoltz and Tom Glavine -- he said he’d let them golf every day they weren’t pitching if they wanted to. Because they knew how to do their jobs.

The best earn different treatment.

If it sounds like I’m trying to spin Beckham’s absence into a plus, I’m not (except that some teams suffered key injuries in OTAs, and guys who aren’t there aren’t likely to get hurt). But it’s not a minus. It’s just different, and different is good. Beckham missing OTAs is certainly not a sign that he’s afraid to work. It’s a sign that he doesn’t think it’s a necessary part of his preparation. (He was in Monaco on Sunday for a Grand Prix. I’d take that over an OTA.)

“Work Smarter, Not Harder” is the business axiom. It’s not “Work Harder Because Everyone Else Thinks You Should Work Harder Because Voluntary Isn’t Really Voluntary."

Beckham got famous four years ago by making a one-handed catch off a bad throw. That specific play was not something he could have worked on with his QB in OTAs back in 2015. But you know what he did work on by himself? One-handed catches.

So when Browns coach Freddie Kitchens said Thursday that Beckham had missed a lot, I think he did sound ticked. I’m not disputing that Kitchens might be peeved. Remember those coaching manuals? It’s part of the job. I’m saying it doesn’t matter that much, because pleasing your boss isn’t the goal.

Succeeding is. And that’s not the same thing. Success can please your boss. But pleasing your boss doesn’t mean you’ll succeed.

Beckham has been arguably the best receiver in the NFL for five seasons. Is he different? Heck yeah. Hard to handle? Of course. A little selfish maybe? No doubt. Does he disregard norms, buck convention, invite criticism, inflame passions and create drama?

Absolutely. Because he’s an American success story.

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