Tony Rizzo wants Peyton Manning to run the Browns: He ‘knows a lot about football’

The Cleveland Browns have major problems to fix, and local radio host Tony Rizzo wants Peyton Manning to be the cure.

The Browns have a quarterback problem, a coaching problem, and a football operations problem, and ESPN Cleveland’s Tony Rizzo believes it’s time to start over. Rizzo wants the Browns to go out and hire a football person, more specifically, Peyton Manning.

“If I were the Haslams, I would go in a completely different direction. I would get somebody in here, football people to run this operation. Not a baseball analytics guy,” Rizzo said, referring to former MLB executive, Paul DePodesta who has been the Browns’ chief strategy officer since 2016.

“I would let these guys finish the year, absolutely. But I would start the process,” Rizzo continued. “I would go after Peyton Manning. I know that Peyton Manning knows a lot about football and is very connected within the league. I don’t know if Peyton would want to come here, I don’t know what his real relationship is with the Haslams, I don’t…but someone like that, a football person.”

Jimmy Haslam, who is from Knoxville, Tennessee, has had a good relationship with Manning since he was quarterback of the Tennessee Volunteers. And Rizzo is right, Peyton Manning knows a lot about football. Although that doesn’t necessarily mean it will translate to being able to run a team. Michael Jordan knew a lot about basketball, but he was a terrible executive.

Peyton Manning has served as an advisor to NFL teams in the past. He infamously convinced New York Jets owner Woody Johnson to hire Adam Gase as their head coach in 2019. Gase was a disastrous hire for the Jets and aided in ruining Sam Darnold until he rehabbed his career with Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco.

But forget about the example of Michael Jordan as an executive, and forget about Manning pushing the Jets to hire a bad head coach. The biggest question is whether Manning would have any interest in taking Rizzo up on his hypothetical offer to run the Browns. And the answer is probably no. Last year, Manning was asked about potentially running an NFL team, and the two-time Super Bowl champion said, “I don’t think that’s anywhere on my radar by any means.”

Peyton Manning has a great gig with Omaha Productions and ESPN. It would seemingly take a lot of money to convince Manning to give that up for something he’s not interested in doing. A lot of money for someone who, yes, is a football person and knows a lot about football, but also someone who has absolutely no experience in running a team, and already has a lot of money.