The Browns’ disappointing season produced the firing of Freddie Kitchens and prompted Jimmy Haslam to approach John Dorsey about stripping his power. That led to the constantly retooling franchise having another GM vacancy. The Haslams confirmed the 2019 Browns’ underachievement helped lead to Dorsey departing.
“While John helped greatly improve our team’s talent and we are excited about the core players on our roster, we fully recognized that our team did not meet its potential on or off the field and additional changes in leadership give us the best opportunity for success in the future,” Jimmy and Dee Haslam said in a statement. “As the role of the general manager continues to evolve in this league we felt there were areas that needed to be reassessed. Over the last 48 hours, we’ve had discussion with John about his role but could not come to an agreement on a position that would enable him to remain with the organization.”
The Browns have now gone through five GMs or de facto GMs during Haslam’s seven-plus-year tenure. They will be looking for No. 6, along with a seventh head coach under current ownership.
Here is the latest on the state of the Browns’ front office:
- It is not certain Browns chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta will survive a second regime change during his tenure, but that looks to be the case. Former football operations boss Sashi Brown‘s right-hand man, DePodesta stayed on during Dorsey’s run and is now playing a key role helping Jimmy Haslam find the Browns’ next head coach. The former MLB GM is taking a “very heavy hand” in Cleveland’s latest coaching search, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com notes (video link).
- DePodesta, however, is not necessarily in charge. The fourth-year executive is not currently running the football operation, Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets. This does beg the question as to who exactly is running things at this point.
- Top responsibility may now fall on assistant GM Eliot Wolf. Although Wolf came aboard shortly after Dorsey did and worked with Dorsey in Green Bay as well, the second-generation NFL exec is still a part of Cleveland’s front office, Mike Garafolo of NFL.com tweets. That could certainly change soon, once a new GM or head coach with GM powers arrives in Berea.
- Dorsey received a nice exit package from the Browns. The two-time NFL GM will walk away with two years’ severance, according to Pelissero (on Twitter). This marks the second time in three years Dorsey will be on the market, with the Chiefs having fired him during the summer of 2017.
It always comes down to the owners. Jax won’t make changes, they’ll be sub 500 next year. We’ll be told that the new people in Cleveland will 2-3 years to ‘make their program’. Dallas will hoover around 500. Skins will be bad once again. Bengals, Jets, Raiders et al. Change, change, change, losing teams all have 1 thing in common.
DePodesta can always fall back on his old job of being Jonah Hill in Moneyball.
I can imagine Ron telling Elliot— “get the F out of there with that ownership, they’ll sink your career”! Anyone looking for a good GM should be considering Wolf or Highsmith.
As a browns fan I hate to agree with you, but you are 100% correct. Haslams (both Jimmy and Dee) are both a joke. I can’t imagine Ron Wolf operating under this ownership.
Common Ozzie newsome. Bring the legend back to town.
Cleveland deserves better than the Haslams.
Listening to the talk the last 2 days of coach’s and GM not agreeing on there assistants Might be a good idea to hire a coach that will able to bring his own assistants on board
The Haslams owning a team just shows you what a joke the NFL has become. $$$ is the only thing Godell cares about. Same sad teams but hey if you have the $$$ step up up you can own a team.
Godell works for the owners, the same people (along with the finance committee) that approve the transfer of ownership.
Goodell has no say in who owns a team