Brown out

Clark's poor performance led to his demise

In the NFL, a top personnel man's résumé is easy to figure. You look at his drafts, his free-agent acquisitions and his team's won-lost record. He may not be able to control the wins and losses, but he certainly can control the first two elements.

There was much speculation this week about the events surrounding the departure of Dwight Clark, the Browns' executive vice president and director of football operations. Did he quit? Was he pushed out? Did coach Butch Davis have it in for Clark from the start, two years into the history of the franchise with his $3 million-a-year contract? The simple explanation is that when he was hired 17 months ago, Davis brought in Pete Garcia, his right-hand man from the University of Miami, to be his Boy Friday, to scout out the organization and to eventually be placed in an exalted position.

Soon Garcia quietly became known in the Browns offices -- among the veteran football men imported by Clark and president Carmen Policy -- as Davis' eyes and ears around the place, and thus was an unpopular guy. Garcia wanted Clark's job. And he pulled a neat power play to get it. Earlier this month he interviewed for an executive position in the athletic department at Miami. Now, said a source close to Browns' upper management, Davis had the ammo he needed to force Clark out or to get him demoted. If we don't fight to keep Garcia, the argument went, he could leave for Miami. That expedited Clark's departure. And that's how Davis got the man he wanted to help him run the football side of the Browns, the same way Garcia had helped him at Miami.

But there's an even simpler explanation to all of this: Dwight Clark got himself fired.

The Browns' expansion draft, judged three years after the fact, was a debacle. Jim Pyne, Hurvin McCormack, Scott Rehberg, Damon Gibson and Steve Gordon did next to nothing for the team -- and they were the first five of 37 picks. Clark's first two free-agent classes yielded 23 expensive signees. One player (Jamir Miller) became a legitimate standout; two others, center Dave Wohlabaugh and punter Chris Gardocki, are above average at their positions. Three defenders -- Ryan McNeil, Keith McKenzie and Orpheus Roye -- became solid starters. The rest range from has-beens to marginal contributors.

Ditto Clark's first two drafts before Davis joined the organization. Aside from top picks that Mel Kiper's toddler could have nailed in Tim Couch and Courtney Brown, here are Cleveland's second- and third-round choices in 1999 and 2000: Kevin Johnson, Rahim Abdullah, Daylon McCutcheon, Marquis Smith, Dennis Northcutt, Travis Prentice, JaJuan Dawson.

And one other thing: I always heard from Browns insiders that Clark favored Akili Smith over Couch. True, Couch isn't Johnny Unitas. He may never be. But he's also not laboring behind Jon Kitna and Gus Frerotte in Cincinnati, either.

There is also this impression that Davis and Clark just didn't mesh well. Could be. But who cares? Do you think if Davis went to Green Bay and didn't go drinking with Ron Wolf every Friday night he would have gone to ownership and asked that Wolf be replaced with the inexperienced Garcia?

Davis is a results guy, which he should be. Clark was doing a lousy job. There's no deep, dark mystery here, except that Davis was charitably disingenuous when Clark stepped down on Monday, saying how much he enjoyed working with him and how this came as a complete surprise. Silly and untrue. But for the Browns, this was a day that had to come, whether some slick mover-and-shaker like Garcia was going to get the job or whether someone more grounded in the NFL establishment got it. Now we'll see how good a job Davis and Garcia can do in these tight cap times.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Check out his Monday Morning Quarterback column every -- and you should see this coming -- Monday morning.

 

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