Mike Pettine wasn't the Browns' first choice -- or their second or third. Illustration by Mark Matcho

LAST MAY, Mike Pettine took a seat in a classroom at the Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia, where the NFL was holding a symposium for assistant coaches and deputy executives who held grander aspirations. Pettine had just turned down a contract extension with the Jets -- where he had been the defensive coordinator under Rex Ryan, a man whose shadow had threatened to become an eclipse -- and joined the Bills instead. "I wanted to prove that I could do this on my own," Pettine says today. He pulled out his notebook and soon found himself wondering how much further his solo dreams might take him.

At the front of the classroom, Charley Casserly, the former Redskins general manager, was talking about the practical mechanics of building a football dynasty. His lecture, in effect, was a step-by-step guide for new head coaches and GMs: You got the job, now what? Casserly walked through the first week, the first month, the first 100 days, and Pettine took careful notes, listening the way only certain men do, those rare and often delusional men who believe that one day they will be in a position to apply the lessons of greatness.

Only eight months later, Pettine was hired to be the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, and he has been consulting those Wharton notes like maps. In some ways, reading them now feels unreal, as though he's woken up in a different man's life; he was coaching Pennsylvania high school kids as recently as 2001. "There have been days when I've had to pinch myself a little," Pettine says. But Casserly's teachings have given him no guidance for the all-too-real challenge he has faced in his calamitous opening weeks: How do you get past the feeling that you were a choice of last resort for a team that can't make up its mind in a city that so quickly does?