Just a quick PSA to let you all know that Whore of Akron author Scott Raab has written a bitchin' profile of Browns Head Coach Mike Pettine in the September issue of Esquire. It is now available for your reading pleasure online.
Raab travels to Doylestown, PA — Pettine's hometown — to learn the hard-nosed fundamental football culture of the Pettine family, producers of sages on the high school gridiron. He also talks with local reporters, former players, and coaching staff to piece together a collage of the Browns sordid history and a prayer for their future:
His grip is solid, strong. He's sizing you up, too—he's a judge of men, a teacher of football players, and now he is head coach of the Cleveland Browns, the seventh hearty to walk that plank since 1999, when the once-fabled franchise rose staggering from the tomb to feast upon its fans' vital organs. The past five NFL seasons, with four different head coaches, his team has won twenty-three games and lost fifty-seven. His best player is reportedly appealing a full year's suspension—for smoking weed. His rookie quarterback is a TMZ regular—a binge-drinking, Instagramming fool. His own boss is a first-year GM. His boss's boss—the Browns' second-year owner, Jimmy Haslam—faces the possibility of federal charges after a two-year joint investigation by the FBI and the IRS into the Haslam family business.Read the full story on Esquire.com.
His name is Mike Pettine. Pett-in. Pray for him.
