Savage Town

I am a bit late with this, but consider this a formal welcome of Phil Savage as the new general manager of the Cleveland Browns.
Sad to say, but right now I am happier about what Savage isn't than what he is. He isn't Carmen Policy. He isn't Dwight Clark. He isn't Butch Davis. He's not well-known. He's not a figurehead.
He's pretty much what Mark Shapiro and Jim Paxson were as they took the reigns of the Indians and Cavaliers, respectively. He's young, ambitious, but unproven as "the man" in an organization.
He's not Ron Wolf. He's not Tom Modrak. I have a theory about organizational people who have been around too long or have already reached the summit. Sometimes, they lose their edge and grow tired of the daily grind. To draft and recruit and hire and revise and critique and approve and disapprove, you need to have the desire to look past all the "dirty work" to envision the final product. Savage, at 39, is young enough to do that.
Having said that, many of us here in Cleveland have been burned by the young, ambitious mastermind type. Butch Davis was that when he took the reigns of the Browns in 2001. He left as a megalomaniac, seemingly more concerned with coveting power than winning.
In a nutshell, Savage is smart. He has a history of great talent evaluation with the Ravens. As long as he understands his job is to find great talent, get it into Browns uniforms without bankrupting the team, and get back behind the scenes to plot his next move, the Browns are on the way up. If not ... well, let's not even think that way.