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May 7, 2015Writer D.H. Lawrence once said, “I want to live my life so that my nights are not full of regrets.” He would undoubtedly have understood the plight of the NFL General Manager. A 21st century version might sound more like this: “For three nights each year I want to conduct my team’s NFL drafts so that the other 362 nights are not full of regrets.”
Imagine working endless hours for an entire year, studying the hearts and minds and bodies of a thousand college athletes to determine which very few to select under the bright national spotlight. An impossible task. The GM is neither a mind reader nor a clairvoyant, but that’s pretty much what everyone expects him to be, a mind reader and a clairvoyant.
And no matter what he does, it’s almost impossible to come away from the process with a true sense of completion and accomplishment, like playing in a championship game and then having to wait two or three years for the final score to be announced. There’s always that nagging post-draft edginess over someone who’s been selected … or over the one that got away.
No wonder General Managers look for ways to systematize the process, to bring some semblance of order to the chaos of trying to figure out what some twenty-two year-old college athlete will be like two or three years from now.
And it’s not like it happens once in a lifetime and then you live happily ever after. You know, like courting and marriage. It’s ongoing. It’s relentless. The day after the 2015 NFL draft concluded, the erstwhile draft expert panelists were assembled for an in-depth discussion of, what?! The 2016 NFL draft? You gotta be kidding.
Ray Farmer and the Cleveland Browns entered the 2015 NFL draft with ten picks in seven rounds. They came away with twelve players. How did they decide on those twelve? In his press conference prior to the draft on April 23, Farmer made it pretty clear what the team’s strategy would look like when he said, “… you think about best player available. You think about what needs [you have to address], but need shouldn’t outweigh taking the best players for today and tomorrow … Do I really need to add somebody at some position on the offense to drive competition? All of them. It’s always about trying to find the best players to make your team better. There’s not one room in our building that doesn’t require another player to try to push that competition better.”
Mike Pettine, showing that he and Ray Farmer are calling plays from the same playbook, was quoted by Andrea Kremer of NFL Network as saying that, where there are two players close in ability, “need” would be a tie breaker.
No one in the Browns’ organization has acknowledged any shift of philosophy or strategy when it comes to the draft, but that doesn’t mean a shift hasn’t occurred. From the standpoint of someone who has held a magnifying glass on this subject for decades, who even once called Pete Franklin to extol the virtues of what Chuck Noll was, then, still doing in Pittsburgh (Pete was totally bored), it does seem to be the case that recent remarks of the sort quoted above represent as definitive a statement as we’ve seen in Cleveland football in decades. In the past, the Browns have certainly given lip service to the “best player” strategy, but, by and large, it was a strategy within their strategy of drafting for need. And it was usually a desperate need.
If the Browns have, indeed, adopted such a philosophy it shouldn’t surprise anyone. If you conduct a simple search for how other teams approach the draft, the best teams, almost universally, adhere pretty closely to best player, and they’re pretty up-front with their approach. Pittsburgh since Chuck Noll, Baltimore under Ozzie Newsome, Seattle under Pete Carroll and John Schneider, Green Bay for who-knows-how-long. Of course they don’t take out full-page ads to promote it. After all, what if (gasp) everyone used it?
Of course, best player available is not a simple panacea, it’s just a beginning, a framework. Deciding on a ranking of players, top to bottom (your draft board), is heavily dependent on a well-defined team style of play and priorities, on your scouts, on your coaching staff and on the GM to interpret scouting results and resolve conflicts. Bottom line, in order for any draft strategy to work, you have to be able to judge talent.
But once you have your system in place, once you’ve defined your weights and measures, what about draft day … when you’re on the clock? Don’t some of those internal pre-draft debates ever resurface? Aren’t there temptations to diverge from the plan, just this once?
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In their May 2, post-draft press conference, Ray Farmer and Mike Pettine gave some answers that offer further definition to what the Browns did in this year’s draft and where they’re headed in the future. As usual, questions about quarterbacks got more than their fair share of attention but, for that reason, those questions reveal the most about the Browns’ team-building philosophy. Here are some excerpts from the transcripts released by the Browns.
On summarizing what was accomplished in the past three days:
Farmer: “In the three days, I think we did a good job of sticking with the plan. We know who we want to be, we know where we want to go, and we know before you build the roof and you put the walls up, you’ve got to build the foundation. For us, that starts up front. We want to be great on both lines, we want to be able to dominate the line of scrimmage and we want to play Cleveland Browns football. That’s Play Like a Brown. I think we brought guys in here that will play like Browns. We’ve got guys in here that will compete and play relentless, chase the ball on defense and be aggressive on offense. I’d say the core of football is about imposing your will on your opponent, and we’re going to try to do those things.”
On if there were common threads running through all 12 of the players the Browns drafted:
Pettine: “We say ‘Play Like a Brown’ and that is something that we truly believe in and we have the words and the tangibles and you can go right down this list. You talk about guys that are competitive, guys that are relentless, guys that are tough. The one that jumps out, as well, and it’s been a theme throughout, is productive. I think there is a lot of college production throughout this list of players that we took.”
On if there will be room for all 12 drafted players on the roster:
Farmer: “We have room for the best players on this roster. I was raised as a scout in a time when I was taught you keep the best 53 guys for your team, regardless of how you got them or where you got them. There will be college free agents who come in here. There will be guys that are fined, that may get released from other teams. You never know where you find players or where they come from. At the end of the day, you keep the best 53 guys and you move on.”
On Bill Polian’s assessment that the Browns are ready to beat teams on first and second downs but not third down:
Pettine: “I don’t see it that way. Defensively, I thought we made some great improvements last year on third down. Some of our bigger issues were on first and second down. Offensively, I don’t see any difference between first and second down and third down, especially when we put three wide receivers out on the field and you have the ability to put a player of Andrew Hawkins’ ability in the slot. The key for us – and one of the reasons that when you start to build through your lines – is you want third downs on offense to be manageable. You want your quarterback to look good? Be in third-and-2 to (third-and-) five. Don’t be in third-and-seven-plus. You want your secondary to look good? You want to get off the field on third down? Get them in third-and-seven-plus. That’s why it’s critical. People talk about how third downs are so important, but what are those third downs? Defensively, if you’ve got them in third-and-long, you’re going to win a heck of a lot more than third-and-shorter. Obviously, the reverse is true on offense.”
On the team’s current QB situation coming out of the draft:
Pettine: “We’re very confident in the guys in that room. We are. We’re very confident in the guys coaching them. I’m very confident in the plan that we’re going to build, and I’m thrilled with the players that we’re putting on the field around the quarterback. I’ve talked about this from the beginning that you want to minimize the importance of the quarterback so he doesn’t have to walk out there and ‘Here’s the whole game. Put it on your back. Go ahead and convert second-and-long. Go ahead and convert third-and-long. Go ahead and bring us back from [down] two scores.’ To me, when you play with leads and you’re in manageable situations, that job gets a lot easier.”
On how the Browns QBs stack up compared to other AFC North QBs:
Pettine: “We go 11 against 11. We’re not just trotting quarterbacks out there at the 50-yard line and they’re thumb wrestling. To me, there are a lot of different ways to win football games and you just don’t force a situation. Do we look at it and say, ‘OK, if we perceive our quarterback room is not the best in the division, what does that mean? Do we call the league and cancel games?’ We’ve still got to play them. I don’t think we can emphasize it enough that we’re going to build a football team. We’re not going to over-prioritize the quarterback position.”
On if there was any truth to the report the Browns tried to move up to Jacksonville to draft QB Bryce Petty:
Farmer: “I called every team at the beginning of the round trying to figure out how could I move up to get the guy I want to get. The inference came because the team that actually ended up taking the player thought we were going to take their player. I never mentioned a name. You never mention a name. There’s not a single trade where you call and say, ‘Hey, so and so from whatever team, I’m interested in Mike Pettine, you mind if I go up to get him’ It’s not that so how would they peg us to take whomever. You … just say, ‘My guy’s there. I’d like to move up to the spot,’ and you work the terms out from that perspective. Yeah, I called a lot of teams. It seemed like I was on the phone all day today trying to figure out can we move up to ‘here?’ If so, what’s the cost? If we’re going to move back, what’s that cost and trying to weigh the two to come up with the right answer for us as a group? I did make several phone calls in that round. How they’d link me to any one player, for me I would probably say that it’s not fair to just guess as to who I’m going to take.”
On quarterbacks coach Kevin O’Connell’s report on Bryce Petty as a developmental prospect and whether he conveyed anything to Farmer:
Farmer: “I think that is probably a fair assessment. Again, I think very few guys, specific to the quarterback position, are not developmental prospects. Everybody is going to have a learning curve to some degree. They all do in my opinion. The league is different. Having some guys who had us and what we felt like what it would be, we had them slated at a certain spot, and at the end of the day, it was actually interesting that that wasn’t our place where we wanted to make that move. Kevin definitely had input, as well as Flip and the rest of our offensive staff.”
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These and other answers by Ray Farmer and Mike Pettine reveal some interesting characteristics about the current Browns’ leadership team. First of all, they are a leadership team, rounding into form as the “Big Two” of the Cleveland Browns. They’re on the same page of the same playbook. They both went beyond the rhetoric to actually define what it means to “play like a Brown.” They’re both only in their second year and, doubtless, they’ve made mistakes, but they’ve given the world their blueprint for success, to dominate the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. “Go ahead,” they seem to be saying, “judge us on that!”
And speaking of mistakes, nobody held a press conference in Berea to announce, “You know, maybe the short wide receiver business wasn’t a good idea.” But they did go out and sign two tall free agent WRs in Hartline and Bowe and then they drafted another one in Vince Mayle. It’s pronounced MAY-lee, by the way, not, as one pundit recently called him, “melee,” as in fracas, or rumpus. Of Mayle, Farmer said, “Big kid, very productive, had a lot of production. I would say he’s a former basketball player; he hasn’t played a lot of football, but we feel like there’s a tremendous upside there. That tremendous upside is what we’re looking for. We know he’s talented enough to play, and we like the fact the he is big, he can run and we’re excited that we got him where we got him.”
Another adjustment the Browns may have made in the draft is in the area of character. You wouldn’t expect Farmer and Pettine to express again their profound disappointment with some of those still on their roster. But examining their 2015 choices, it seems clear they put a higher priority on getting players who will take their professional responsibilities very seriously. In fact, the way the new players sounded in their introductory press conferences, you could hear in their answers echoes of their new General Manager and new Head Coach.
Lots of the comments of Ray Farmer and Mike Pettine have been smart and tough in challenging some of the status quo assumptions of the current football era, like the media’s infatuation with splashy, big-name prospects and glamor positions and, especially, the mantra that the Browns can’t win big without the second coming of Otto Graham.
Here, you have to hand it to them. They’ve stuck to their guns. They’ve declared they’re not going to mortgage their future draft-pick assets or break from their core philosophy of team building to get a quarterback, just so they can say, “We got a quarterback.” Plenty of fans will decry this strategy for now, but, you wait and see. If the Browns, as planned, establish a suffocating defense, if they develop an offensive line that generates one of the best running games in the league and offers some of the best pass-protection this side of the Mississippi, you just might find Cleveland becoming a very attractive place for job-seeking quarterbacks looking to prove they can be “the guy.”
That’s the hope, anyway, for the General Manager. He goes to bed that night after the 2015 NFL draft and the press conferences and the meetings have all come to an end, satisfied that he’s stuck with the plan, a cogent, clear blueprint for success that is sound, because it builds from the foundation up. No quick fixes, no knights in shining armor. Just players with high character who play a tough, relentless, winning style of football, who will represent the long, proud tradition of the Cleveland Browns. And now, at the end of the day, he falls sound asleep.
And at 4:00 a.m. he suddenly opens his eyes and he’s wide awake. “Oh no,” he whispers to himself, “I could have had that guy. He was there for the taking. I waited too long. Big guy … best arm in the draft, lightning-fast release, great character. Maybe he was the one … Damn! … and he looks just like a young Otto Graham.”
7 Comments
Your articles have become, for me, the de facto standard for as thorough, dispassionate and even handed an approach as possible into what this team is actually trying to do. Great work and very much appreciated.
Great writing Richard! Absolutely love the last paragraph – LOL. How insightful and funny.
excellent stuff. Great quote on Petty. I like the way that happens – without saying a player’s name.
“We go 11 against 11. We’re not just trotting quarterbacks out there at the 50-yard line and they’re thumb wrestling.”
I love this. So sick of “this QB has such and such a record against this other QB” and “this QB is going head-to-head against this other QB.” Nonsense. Thanks, Coach.
I thought he said, “we’re not just TROLLING quarterbacks.” WHoops!
But just imagine if it was a game of QBs vs. QBs. I’d put our 23 QBs against every other team’s sole “franchise QB” every day. 23 against 1? I like those odds.
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