Many random Cleveland Browns thoughts in a busy week: While We’re Waiting
January 8, 2016Larry Nance, Jr. on being an NBA legacy and living with Crohn’s disease
January 8, 2016The hiring of Paul DePodesta to serve within the Cleveland Browns front office was one of the most-discussed acquisitions in recent memory, producing countless reproductions of the long-time baseball mind’s resume in addition to commentary as to whether or not the move will, for a lack of a better term, work. According to Jason Whitlock of FOX Sports, not only was the hire a “slap in the face” of long-time football minds, but those football folks are going to be rooting for the Browns’ new paper-and-regression-style of analysis to blow up in their face.
Check out Whitlock on Colin Cowherd:
While one can debate the merits of measuring things like “fear and intimidation,” that staunch, stuck-in-their-ways football folks are rooting against the Browns’ latest tactics shouldn’t be much of a surprise. There is a host of individuals in baseball who, to this day, pan the focus on advanced statistics and “analytics”, attempting to use the caveat of “being old school” when all that truly means is being unwilling to evolve.
Whether or not the Browns succeed in their endeavors from a wins and losses standpoint may not make a difference (outside of a few jobs and the continued heartbreak of fans). If this decision by the Browns ultimately serves to weed out an old way of thinking and ushers in a new, more efficient way of allocating millions to college kids, it’s tough to argue how the league won’t be better off as a whole. Then again, wasting emotion on rooting for someone else to fail rather than focusing on improving your own model is such a football thing to do.
134 Comments
I do think that’s a distinct possibility. I’m optimistic from the number of interviews that they’ve already lined up for head coach that they’re going to find some good football people who want to try this out, but there’s definitely a scenario where all of the best candidates are too set in their ways to really get on board.
Pat I heard someone else say this…what’s going on with DePodesta has less to do with analytics then it does organization. I wish I could remember who said/wrote it but they made some great points using what DePodesta did for the Mets as examples.
I read that somewhere too… I think it was here. Maybe Jacob’s interview with Causey?
Set in their ways? Or maybe those candidates don’t want to be interfered with by a meddling owner and his lawyer/VP of personnel. I think the latter is a more valid reason why you won’t see many proven/experienced people interviewing for either HC or GM.
I don’t know perhaps but I’ve read so much it’s all becoming a blur.
I did not make that statement.
Haha, well I would argue that you just compared the same exact thing and put two different names to it. I would call that scenario as being set in their ways… they don’t want to try a new way of organizational structure, they want to stick with what they’ve always done.
Or the Senior Bowl!
Or, if you want to hear Savage on the radio, he should be doing the Bama side for the NC game.
A meddling owner isn’t a new way or organizational structure if you think it is you must be a huge fan of Jerry Jones. I think Haslam wants to be Jerry North he just doesn’t have the cajones to come right out and say it. He’d rather lay back in the weeds and find scapegoat after scapegoat.
Rooting for the Browns to fail is like rooting for the sun to rise tomorrow.
This thread can officially close for comments now. Nobody will anything more succinct than this.
I agree with everything but that it is “reassuring”. Like you say, it may take a while to get things in place, and for the time being, the people deciding on personnel are a lawyer, a GM who isnt really a GM, and a Head Coach being selected mainly for his willingness to be on board with the new school approach. Yeah, Im concerned. Not that my concern should be a reason for anyone to change their minds or run their football team how I see fit, but there it is
You mean DePodesta couldn’t possibly have been a two-sport athelte?
(he also played baseball at Harvard)
I actually don’t agree that he’s a meddling owner. Does a meddling owner try to do what Haslam is doing, or does a meddling owner make himself the GM (ahem Jerry Jones).
Causey touched on it and ESPN Cleveland’s article also stated just the same. Kevin Kovash is the actual Browns analytic guy.
I heard his interviwe. He was too cowardly even to rail against it, just to say “this is what others are saying”. He’s like some cockroach that desperately wants back in. Go root for Buffalo.
Hey guys, you should try to interview Greg Bedard and see what he has to say. When scouting, he has this idea that there’s almost no “intangibles” and that somehow everything could be measured in some way shape or form.
As I’ve said before, I don’t see why you need to be an NFL personnel man with twenty years of experience to read scouting reports, work with your department, and develop a draft board. But that’s just me.
He got fired too :-O so maybe everything wasn’t perfect and rosy with the analytics before DePodesta either.
LOL I just saw this:
http://38.media.tumblr.com/9a6a7a90ca423d29dfb57f63d5433e0f/tumblr_n0f7xvkfl11snelo3o1_400.gif
The whole scenario is just f’ing ridiculous. Imagine the Patriots draft room, one of Josh McDaniels staff, not even the OC, texting back and forth with a potential pick, and Belicheck and Kraft saying we gotta go get this guy?
They paid 100 G’s for an independent report that said not to take him and they ignored it. I don’t care if Haslam was duck taped across the mouth tied to his chair, he should have been bouncing off the walls if Farmer made that pick on his own.
Zegura can try to re-write history by repeating what he is told by the people that sign his paycheck. That pick had Haslam and Scheiner written all over it. The whole thing was complete amateur hour.
No disagreement here. But look, you can pay $100,000 for an analytical study and then have your GM and coach argue until they’re blue in the face that you hired them to do a job and you need to trust them and they know what they are talking about when it comes to football. Does an owner who is still very green to the inside operations of a football team decide then to go with the guys he paid to do the job of selecting players? Doesn’t seem too far-fetched to me. But we can agree on this, it absolutely was amateur hour and I really hope the new organizational changes can somehow put a stop to the idiocy.
Also, put it this way… whatever happened last season forced Jimmy Haslam to create more restrictions around how players get selected in the draft. If all he wants to do is make decisions himself, why would he do that? Why wouldn’t he go full Jerry Jones and just make himself the GM? That’s the part that doesn’t make sense to me when I hear that Haslam went rogue and picked certain players himself.
Jerry Jones does whatever he wants and lets you know it. I don’t know what Haslam does for a fact but I do know it hasn’t worked not once, not twice but three times!
No argument here. To date, he certainly has not been successful in his decisions.
I love that show. Brooklyn-99 surprised the heck out of me… I figured it was just going to be an excuse for Andy Samberg to be ridiculous, which he kind of is, but it works so much better than I ever thought it would.
Very good show. I love Chelsea Peretti. I wish I had more time for TV….
Lions just hired Patriots pro scouting director Bob Quinn as their new GM! This is how it’s done.
Thank God for DVRs.
I just wanted to give it a try for once. An experienced GM who knows exactly what he’s doing and has done it before. I’m tired of trying all manner of wonky setups and proving how clever we are by trying to find the next genius. We had a chance to sweep the decks clean and go with experience, go with someone who has done it before, people, who at the worst would probably be mediocre (I’d take Jeff Fisher and a guarantee of a floor of 7 wins, but a ceiling of 9 and maybe some playoffs sometimes in a cocaine heartbeat). Oh well, nothing left to do but hope they know what they’re doing, because yet again, they’re eschewing conventional wisdom for whatever reason (there have been many over the years) and all we can do is hope.
Fingers crossed fortune smiles upon us
I guess we shall see. I’m not as optimistic. This is the guy who works alongside Mike Lombardi. Tough to say how much influence they have on Belichick’s moves.
I’d rather hire a pro scouting director then do what the Browns appear to be doing. Seems like a more logical progression to me. But of course we will see all we are doing is talking, opinionating. I also agree we have no idea what contributions Quinn made I mean you are assuming little. Just to have fun I’ll assume a lot. Time will tell.
exactly. Reminds me of a phenomenal piece i read on Bloomberg last summer. A long piece, but makes the same arguments. data is data. code is code. Use it, or be left behind.
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-paul-ford-what-is-code/