Working under Art Modell put enormous constraints on Brown's head coaches. The most imposing of those limits was that Browns coaches were almost certainly forced to cut players who had earned a position on the 45 man roster based on their play but whose salary was too high. The evidence of this is simply overwhelming.
Modell was cheap but he wasn't a fool. With the exception of Tom Skladany and Jack Gregory, Modell usually did not apply salary pressure to the most critical roster positions. Instead Modell likely forced coaches to make do with lesser talented players in those positions that were less visible but nontheless important. In particular backups were systematically diluted year after year to pad Modell's pockets. Modell's self imposed salary cap clearly contrasted with winning teams especially during the 1970's and it's the prime reason the Browns rarely made the playoffs in those years. One need only site the Steelers and recall that whenever an injury hit a key player, a very able backup was ready to stand in. I can recall the excellent Dirt Winston stepping up for Jack Lambert when Lambert was injured and the Steelers more than holding their own. Tony Dungy was a very good defensive backfield bench player and the Steelers defensive line was 6 deep with a great player like John Banaszak in reserve. This contrasts Modell's Browns and that lack of depth in 1978 and 1979 hurt the Browns as the season progressed and those inevitable injuries that every team suffers piled up. It's the only reason the Browns missed the playoffs those years.
As I study Brown's history, one coach who wears very well with time is Sam Rutigliano. The reason I admire Rutilgiano is that he was very creative in coming up with strategies to deal with the realities he confronted. One of those realities was Art Modell. Previous to Rutigliano in the 1970's, the coaches who toiled under Modell, when forced to cut superior players, stuck with conventional wisdom when selecting the players that Modell was in fact willing to pay for. Rutigliano on the other hand, bucked conventional wisdom in several cases. If you have to put a player on the roster at league minimum salary, why not pick a brilliant athlete who for some reason was not appreciated by others? Dino Hall was a perfect example. Hall was way too short and didn't weigh nearly enough, but he was a fantastic athlete and a great football player. Even at 5' 6", Hall made real contributions to the success of the Browns in that era.
I've often wondered what might have been the result had Rutigliano gone with this intuition a bit more often, especially on defense. In particular the 1979 Browns had an offense that was Super Bowl caliber but their defense was so full of holes that as the season wore on, they folded completely as did the Brown's playoff hopes. Perhaps a few undersized defenders who were great athletes might have patched enough holes to get the '79 Browns into the playoffs.
