The Plain Dealer's Tony Grossi and the Canton Repository's Steve Doerschuk
are the latest Cleveland Browns beat writers to provide confirmation that the
Cleveland Browns and Team President John Collins intended to relieve Phil Savage
of his duties prior to an explosion of media coverage and fan backlash on
Friday.
BerniesInsiders.com was the first Cleveland-based media source to confirm an
ESPN.com story by Chris Mortensen on Friday afternoon. We were joined several
hours later by WTAM reporter Casey Coleman and ex-Brown Hanford Dixon. On
Saturday, Pat McManamon of the Akron Beacon-Journal confirmed that the Browns
intended to relieve Savage.
Doerschuk's synopsis
can be found here, whereas Tony Grossi's statements were made during
a brief telephone chat on Cleveland Live.
The BI confirmation is not mentioned by the moderator of the Grossi chat.
Cleveland Live, like the Browns Official Site, considers BerniesInsiders.com a
competitor and typically does not link or acknowledge stories published here.
The Canton Repository: "On Friday, Browns President John Collins appeared
ready to part ways with Savage amid a dispute over office logistics. According
to sources familiar with that strange day:Savage indicated his brief run with
the Browns was over and made preliminary moves to get his affairs in order. Head
Coach Romeo Crennel regarded a Savage departure as unacceptable and said so to
Collins and owner Randy Lerner. Lerner acknowledged the harm in losing Savage
and alienating Crennel."
Tony Grossi: "Phil Savage thought he was fired, let's put it that way,
whether John Collins thought he was or not, Phil Savage had every reason to
believe he was fired"
In other media-related news, the Plain Dealer's Bud Shaw becomes the first
columnist from the team's primary paper to recommend that Collins
be relieved of his current duties.