A lack of personal responsibility is the theme from this episode. Corey Coleman shows no personal responsibility. He clearly is not playing well, yet he takes not responsibility for his poor performance.
What is concerning it that Coleman was a 2016 first round draft pick. Teams need to really evaluate a players personal and psychological make up before investing millions of dollars in them. Teams are often blinded by talent.
Coleman’s statement to Hue Jackson is very concerning: “Why am I running with the second team?” “If you don’t want to play me, why don’t you just trade me?” In addiction treatment we suggest people look at “What is my role in this situation?” Coleman does not see his role in his demotion. He does not seem to connect the dots – that his poor performance, lack of effort and lack of improvement are behind his demotion.
Additionally, the Browns organization needs to look at what was their role in this situation. In therapy, we often suggest that people look back on a situation, job, or relationship and ask themselves, “What were the early warning signs that there were serious problems?” The Browns need to learn from this situation. What were the early warning signs that Coleman would not pan out? What could they have done as an organization to help make changes along the way?
The same situation could be developing with Antonio Callaway. GM John Dorsey and Coach Jackson want to believe that Callway had not been smoking marijuana when he was pulled over at 3:00 AM. They expect that now he is the NFL, he should just stop smoking. Perhaps Callaway has stopped, but this is doubtful. Will the Browns look back on this situation in a few years and see this as a continuation of the problems that caused Callaway to drop from a first round pick to a fourth round pick?
Gregg Williams during the preseason game displays the same behavior he did with the Rams in 2016. He yells and threatens, yet never gives specific instruction or examples. He does not take any personal responsibility for the defenses poor performance. He is not asking himself what he could have done differently that could contribute to a better defensive performance. We will see more and more of this in the weeks to come.
The cancer that was evident in the first episode is a bit less this episode. The patient is a little better, but the cancer is not gone by any means.