Jim Brown and trust

There is no question that Brown's great Jim Brown has earned the trust of Northern Ohio.

By signing Brown to an official role with the Cleveland Browns, Jimmy Haslam hopes to achieve 2 things:

1.  Change the subject in the local community from his legal woes to football.
2.  Transfer some of Jim Brown's trust with the community, earned over the last 50 years to Jim Haslam.

In the press conference in any case, questions about Haslam's legal woes came up, much to the chagrin of Mr. Haslam who would like that we ignore that ominous cloud hanging over OUR team.  I'd argue that the only way Haslam will gain the trust of the local community is first to get through his legal battles with the FBI and come out the other side clean and second, by winning NFL games.

Jim Brown joining the team is certainly good news, but Haslam's still the owner.  After a week in which Haslam fired over 1200 Cleveland based employees of Tenable Protective Services and replaced them with a company from Pennsylvania, my guess is that in spite of the hiring of Jim Brown, Jimmy Haslam on net, lost ground with Cleveland fans this week.