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It's probably not a big surprise that Mike Holmgren was less than impressed by the latest developments in Berea.

(Plain Dealer file)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Before there was Jimmy Haslam, Joe Banner or Michael Lombardi there was Mike Holmgren. The self-proclaimed "Big Show" rode around Berea in a golf cart for three years (2010-12) flashing his Super Bowl ring while wearing Tommy Bahama shirts.

Like so many that came before him, Holmgren watched the losses pile up, failing to turn the Browns into a winner despite proclamations to the contrary. He brought fans the unimpressive trio of Jake Delhomme, Colt McCoy and Seneca Wallace at quarterback. He also tabbed Pat Shurmur as his head coach.

After numerous failed moves, Holmgren was shown the door in one of the first moves owner Jimmy Haslam made after taking the reins from Randy Lerner. The rest of his staff soon followed.

It’s now 2014. There have been more empty promises. And things have been shaken up again inside the Berea walls. Banner, the former CEO, has been asked to leave. He will take Lombardi with him as Ray Farmer was promoted to general manager Tuesday morning.

As the news of the dramatic shakeup was surfacing, many people around the league were trying to digest what was happening in Cleveland. Reactions came from everyone, including Holmgren. The former Browns president was a guest on Sports Radio KJR – AM 950 in Seattle with Dave “Softy” Mahler where he shared his thoughts on the surprising changes.

“I talked to a couple of guys today and I asked do you think I could get my old job back? They said, ‘yeah do it. Phone them.’ I’m going, ‘yeah I’m going to phone them.”

Mahler moved on, asking Holmgren a question about how his time in Cleveland came to an end and how the perception of the Browns' organization could impact the team in the future.

On hearing the news:

“A couple of things struck me. Tom Heckert, who was my general manager, now in Denver and all the people that were executives that we brought in, they all have good jobs. I mean they’re good, vital guys in different organizations in the league. We had a really good management team I thought. Take me out of the equation. The guys I hired were really good and went on to get other jobs. My question to Mr. Haslam when he came in, I said, 'why can’t we stay? Do you feel you have to make a change?' He said, 'well it’s start over'…he gave me something so I said, 'OK.' I enjoyed coaching more than I enjoyed the executive part anyway. I thought, ‘well we have good guys in positions here that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. What happened when he hired Joe, he came in and anybody associated with me was on borrowed time. Then they eventually let everyone go.

I’m stunned because in this business, it’s not like other businesses. A lot of the owners who are friends of mine, I know, who I was involved with when I was acting as Randy Lerner's surrogate at the owners meetings often, they’re billionaires in the oil business. They’re billionaires in cable television or whatever it is. But the football business I always thought it was kind of unique and while they could certainly afford to do this – and not many people can – to actually run the business part of it, to run the football business, I think it takes – you have to be trained to do that I think. When I tried to explain these types of things to him and how good the people were that were in place, once he hired Joe Banner then Joe came in and let everyone go. Continuity in an organization is so important. You have to weather the storm with a couple of tough years if you have good people. But they have never done that in Cleveland. Every two years they blow everything up and blam off you go.”

Whether it’s hard to overcome the negative perception about the owner and the team being a mess:

“I think it is particularly in free agency and things like that and also attracting a coach. Look at how long it took them to hire a coach. You can listen to the people saying, 'well we were taking our time, we wanted to get the right guy and da da da da da' but the fact of the matter is I think guys honestly were nervous about going in there given the management structure and so on and so forth. I don’t know that but that is how I feel and that’s how I think. That’s hard to overcome.”