The immediate questions facing the Cleveland Browns can wait. Friday was a day for celebration.
Based on the introductory press conference for Jimmy Haslam, who has agreed to buy the team, there should be a lot of smiling faces in Cleveland. Tony Grossi of ESPNCleveland summed up the local media reaction:.
Haslam's passion and intelligence stood out during the session. Most importantly, Haslam stressed how engaged he planned to be as owner. He will be at the team's Family Night next week. He'll sit in the crowd for the Browns' preseason opener.
These may sound like small gestures, but they are welcome news to Browns fans who grew tired of former owner Randy Lerner's distant approach.
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We did not expect to learn much about the future of president Mike Holmgren and head coach Pat Shurmur on Friday. It's not the time or place for that.
"The league has to have an official meeting in October and until then Randy will own the team," Haslam said. "So it's his team and it would be very presumptuous and very poor form for us to make any personnel decisions or comments."
Haslam went on to say that Holmgren is a "legend" and that it would be the "wrong thing" to comment on any personnel decisions.
We wouldn't read too much into the praise; that's a conversation for another day. There won't be any changes until Haslam is officially in charge, and the new owner can use the 2012 to evaluate his staff.
