The Browns’ young GM/HC combo of Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefanski, both of whom were hired in January 2020, appear to have the team headed in the right direction. Although much of the current roster was constructed by former GM John Dorsey, the Browns finally got back to the postseason with Berry and Stefanski at the helm, and they look poised for an extended run of competitiveness.
Berry and Stefanski are signed through 2024, and so is the man who is largely responsible for their hirings, chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta. As Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal writes, DePodesta was given a five-year extension in 2020, which club owner Jimmy Haslam just revealed yesterday.
“It lines up with [Berry and Stefanski],” Haslam said of DePodesta’s contract. “That makes all the sense, and we’re super excited about that. Paul’s going to be with us for a significant amount of time. Paul’s not the type, you don’t need to announce something on Paul’s behalf, but he’s going to be with us for a significant amount of time.”
Haslam brought DePodesta on board in January 2016, and his hire was an unconventional one to say the least. He had no previous football experience, having made his name as a Major League Baseball executive with the Moneyball-era Athletics before becoming the GM of the Dodgers. He also worked in the front offices of the Padres and Mets.
His analytics-based approach to roster construction is what initially caught Haslam’s attention, and he has clearly earned the owner’s trust over his first few years in Cleveland. DePodesta has outlasted former executive VP of football operations Sashi Brown and Dorsey, and Berry and Stefanski were the GM and head coach candidates that DePodesta preferred. For the first time in a long time, the organization’s top power brokers appear to be completely in sync, and Haslam has acted to maintain that unified vision.
I’m old school and think analytics are overrated. It’s impossible to quantify the things that really matter: A players passion, determination, willingness to sacrifice and persevere in the face of adversity.
And none of that takes away from how analytics can help
Most of what you said people can’t predict when drafting someone or even when signing an established free agent
Analytics didn’t help the Browns out during Hue Jackson’s time. That’s When Sashi Brown introduced it to the league.
disagree. Sashi started a change that has resulted in the team they have now. maybe it didn’t work out in those years, but that doesn’t mean the approach hasn’t worked out overall.
If you think a 3-36 record is good, ok.
It wasn’t the record as much as the process. That record & approach got them Myles Garrett, Baker Mayfield, and Nick Chubb…yea I consider that to be not good, but genius
If you think completely rebuilding a team doesn’t come with some garbage years, you’re an idiot
People have been using analytics since way before Sashi. Like, wayyy before Sashi
I wouldn’t say analytics are worthless but it seems too many coaches think of them as some kind of magic bullet that will suddenly make them look like geniuses.
I agree, but I think most people would say that the approach needs to be tempered with both.
Baseball is also unfortunately easier to figure out with analytics than football is, because so many of the factors influencing the outcome of a single play are independent of each other and you can isolate them individually (e.g., having a great 1st baseman does nothing to influence your pitcher’s control over forcing contact or pitching a ball). It doesn’t mean that it can’t be done, just that there are fewer ways to do it.
Football has too many factors that can influence an individual actor on any play to be as easy to figure out as baseball (a great outside linebacker can make create pressure that gives a cornerback relief in coverage, which has to be noted instead of just looking at the individual corner). This doesn’t mean that analytics is useless in football, it means that it is much different and in my estimation less useful conceptually than it is in baseball.
It seems like DePodesta has figured out though how to apply what he wants to and do it successfully, even with all that in mind. That’s why I’m impressed by his work. He seems to have balanced his prior approach in the MLB with an NFL appropriate one, or found out how to make it work. Either way, he deserves credit, while also noting the success of the Dorsey led regime in Cleveland.
No but they can measure his athletic ability, tendencies, areas he neeeds to improve on, etc.
Jonah Hill looks different here
We’ll see. They could still follow the 76ers trajectory. If u r bad enough long enough, u start stockpiling some high draft picks.
That’s what they did under Sashi Brown. The Jags are already cashing on that too as an honorable mention, albeit with an incompetent GM and a probably incompetent coach.
Dolphins also went this route. People can hate on what sashi brown did but he acquired a ton of picks for Dorsey to use.