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Cleveland Browns (12 Viewers)

beer 30 said:
He ain't coming back after this mess, why the heck would he?

And really, do we have to have a GM? I mean we could just wing it right? We kinda did that (Dorsey aside) for a while. Jimma wants to have his hands in it all, GM by committee.
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Agreed on JD not coming back.

We're not losing any ground/momentum yet by not having a GM in place.  Wolf and Highsmith and the scouts are still out there doing their due diligence and preparing for the draft.  We have a Cap guy in place for FA.  A structure is still in place to keep the wheels moving during the search.  I'm not overly concerned about not having a GM right now.  If they need to search/interview to ensure they have the right guy, so be it.  I'd like to think Wolf would be an ideal candidate - but he doesn't have any relationship with Stefanski.  Berry is still in play, and could be the guy.  Or maybe there's someone from KC or SF that they want to talk to, so things are quiet until after the Super Bowl.  That's fine.  Player Personnel is still in tact.  I'm sure Stefanski has talked with them to share a vision of what he's looking for/needs in players.  I'm okay with the long game right now.

 
daveR said:
Does anyone else fear that we're reprising the "no head coaching experience"  yet again?
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Stefanski may be a first time HC, but he is far and away different than Freddie.  Stefanski has at least 10-12 years in the same organization and has worked his way up to OC prior to becoming the HC.  He's seen good coaches and bad.  He's seen how to handle things and what not to do.  He's studied intently under Kubiak last year and picked up a lot of good information.  I see Stefanski more as a Junior HC, rather than a first time HC.  He has some experience in the league.  He knows how to handle his business, and comes highly regarded from coaches, players, and front office personnel.  He's not as vanilla as Freddie was, who barely had a cup of coffee as an OC - or any other coaching capacity.  If we're going with a "first time HC", I'd rather be a guy like Stefanski.  No worries here.

 
BREAKING

Five minutes ago.

------------

Charles Robinson‏Verified account @CharlesRobinson

A source tells Yahoo Sports the #Browns are close to an agreement to make Philadelphia #Eagles VP of football operations Andrew Berry the next general manager of the franchise. At 32 years old, Berry will control the 53-man roster, making him the youngest GM in NFL history.

9:23 AM - 27 Jan 2020

-----------

We'd better get a GREAT personnel guy to make the picks.  Let Berry do what he does best but he wasn't/isn't the greatest player evaluator.

 
Man is every Cleveland beat writer just doom & gloom, 24/7? I mean I get it, we all do but jeez, listening to Ruiter you'd think we just hired the captain of the Titanic.

Get tired of the same old narratives with this team. Due in large part to the decisions they make but it just gets old.

 
beer 30 said:
Man is every Cleveland beat writer just doom & gloom, 24/7? I mean I get it, we all do but jeez, listening to Ruiter you'd think we just hired the captain of the Titanic.

Get tired of the same old narratives with this team. Due in large part to the decisions they make but it just gets old.
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This group may not work, but we don't need to play wait-and-see with anyone at the top of Browns media. They're wrong. This is their career...they work inside of that building - and they don't understand how any of this works.

 
Eight points to chew on.

My take away in red.

Charles Robinson‏Verified account @CharlesRobinson 33m33 minutes ago

  1.  From what I understand, the #Browns offered the GM position to Berry late last week and the two sides went to work on the contract. The 5-year deal dialing in the same length as HC Kevin Stefanski was of chief importance to Cleveland - making sure the two were tied together.
  2. I've been told by a #Browns team source that even before #Vikings exec George Paton pulled out of the process, it was essentially unanimous inside the building that Berry was the right choice for this job and situation. That said, Paton definitely impressed in his interviews.
  3.  About Berry & Stefanksi: I spoke to multiple sources around the league who told me that Berry did a significant amount of the leg work for the #Browns on Stefanski last year and was a driving force in his candidacy in 2019. Berry is a BIG believer in Stefanski, which is huge.
  4.  Interesting about Berry: He has a varying swath of #NFL personnel men who are believers in him. Bill Polian, Tom Telesco, Howie Roseman, Scott Pioli, Ryan Grigson, Paul DePodesta, etc. It's an interesting group because his supporters are not clones of each other whatsoever.
  5. . With Berry in the fold, #Browns will focus on this current roster, free agency and the draft, then turn toward shaping the personnel staff as the org moves ahead. I do think it's possible that Eliot Wolf and Alonzo Highsmith could remain if their role makes sense going forward
  6. . As for the current #Browns roster under Berry, I doubt he's going to arbitrarily flush talent. I wouldn't expect some huge retooling. That said, I'd bet he and Stefanski will spend ample time shaping up their shared culture goal. There are bound to be some guys who won't fit.
  7.  A benefit for the #Browns with Berry: he spent seven years in scouting with the #Colts, but he has ample experience doing contracts and in pro personnel. He's going to bring strengths that cut across the entire organization. That's going to help keep everyone on the same page.
  8. With Berry's addition, #Browns fans can rejoice in having a GM, head coach & chief strategist working together. I don't think DePodesta's role will really change now that they have this alignment. Berry, DePodesta & Stefanski should be able to act as extensions of each other.
 
Bracie Smathers said:
My take away in red.

Eliot Wolf and Alonzo Highsmith could remain
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Agreed, I think retaining the best of the personnel department is a priority. Talent eval wasn't an issue the last two years. Management was. So, (try to) improve management and keep the eyes for talent. I'll be disappointed and (probably) skeptical of the potential solutions should either or both of them leave.

 
daveR said:
Does anyone else fear that we're reprising the "no head coaching experience"  yet again?
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yes. 
 

i realize there is a whole contingency that believes all failed coaches are “re-treads” but i think some of the coaches we didn’t hire are going to be successful when they get their next chance. 

 
amnesiac said:
yes. 
 

i realize there is a whole contingency that believes all failed coaches are “re-treads” but i think some of the coaches we didn’t hire are going to be successful when they get their next chance. 
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See Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll

 
amnesiac said:
yes. 
 

i realize there is a whole contingency that believes all failed coaches are “re-treads” but i think some of the coaches we didn’t hire are going to be successful when they get their next chance. 
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I'm also fearful that we will return to analytics-based drafting.  There is no question in my mind that draft picks are over-valued on draft day.  That being said, to garner the most value, you must trade down.  Real life, however, tells us that elite players win football games.  When you trade a #1 pick for a couple 2s and a 4, your ceiling on the playing field is "average".  Unfortunately, I think we'll see lots of this.  (Hope I'm wrong!)

 
Peak said:
Slow down....Wolf is still TBD.  Mort with his correction...err...updated tweet.

I'm okay in losing Highsmith, but I'm hoping they can keep Wolf around in some capacity.  I think there has to be a place for him in this organization.
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Thank God.  Who cares about Highsmith?  I thought he already left for the U.

We need a legit pro personnel man in place right now on the brink of the Combine.  Dorsey's scouting staff has done all of the legwork, Wolf knows the language of the reports.  He's been immersed in everything and knows this draft.  Berry's expertise is in negotiating contracts and managing the cap.  He was a scout and played but his proven skills are not in player evaluations.  

In Sashi's era the team was different, DePodesta and Sashi said we lacked talent to compete and said the Dallas (Tex Schram) point system was out of alignment with analytics where they said NFL teams were over valuing top picks based on that system.  They also said analytics proved that more draft picks = better results.  Additionally they said time valuation of draft picks was highly skewed because you discounted future 1st round draft picks by 76%, meaning if you traded your first round pick this year for a future pick next year you got the future pick at a bargain price.

Those three components created the perfect analytic storm for trading down and picking up future picks so Dave is dead wrong by saying they value draft picks ON DRAFT DAY.  No,  just the opposite.  They knew OTHER teams over valued picks ON DRAFT DAY and discounted future picks.  

The big problem was they blew the picks they made after trading down.  Corey Coleman was a colossal bust.  They were/are wrong  IMHO in discounting the value of top picks, meaning top-ten picks.  Their issue was analytic approach to player evaluation which is my main concern if we don't keep Elliot Wolf.  

We drafted players primarily on two analytic guidelines, off-chart measureables and college production.  They used lots of other things but looking at the players Sashi took you see great college production and, outside of Corey Coleman, great measureables.  

The analytic approach to managing the cap to build the team could become an issue because we have too much cap tied up into the WR group and we have rookie contracts that will be up for renegotiation soon and that will change everything.  

Bottom line.  We need to keep Wolf at least until the draft is over.  

 
Bracie Smathers said:
Thank God.  Who cares about Highsmith?  I thought he already left for the U.
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You know it's bad when the U didn't want Highsmith either.   :lol:

Berry also helped the Director of College Scouting find the door in Berea.  

Completely agree with you on Wolf.  He's the guy who's been running the Sr Bowl and scouting in abscence of a GM.  Keep him around for awhile for consistency up through the draft.  Consider it a short term audition, and if he passes and is a fit into the scheme, name him VP of Football Ops/Asst GM or whatever title you want to throw at him.  

 
MAC_32 said:
That he was heavily involved in player eval - if you have literature to the contrary I'd be interested to read though.
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Was probably mixing him with Sashi and his most recent FO role.  

 .... Berry took an opportunity to work with the Philadelphia Eagles under their general manager, Howie Roseman, giving him more exposure to the business side of the organization.

Just 32 years old, Berry has been directly involved in scouting for seven of them, then four between the Browns and Eagles in the scouting process as well as being exposed to more of the business side including contract negotiations and salary cap management. He's also coming at this with an economics degree from Harvard
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Heavily involved in scouting yes, proven expertise in player evaluation?  I'd be interested to see proof.

Its been reported player evaluation is not his strength.  We didn't see proof his first time round.

He has a scouting background and didn't come in as a lawyer like Sashi so he knows more.

Sashi went burnt earth to trim cap.   Cutting Joe Haden, the Mitchell Schwartz fiasco, other guys just wanted out Alex Mack.

Berry spent the last year in Philly studying cap management under Howie Rosen considered one of the best negotiating contracts.   

We don't know how its going to work out but right now he has a solid pro personnel evaluator in place.  

 
Bracie Smathers said:
Heavily involved in scouting yes, proven expertise in player evaluation?  I'd be interested to see proof.
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No one can/will provide that. That's a 4 walls thing inside Browns HQ. 

Bracie Smathers said:
Its been reported player evaluation is not his strength.  We didn't see proof his first time round.
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I've not seen those reports. All I've seen are schmos like Ruiter citing Sashi's decisions as justification for why Berry shouldn't get the job. Was Berry heavily involved with Sashi's team? Yes. Was he the one making poor decisions? No. 

We've all had jobs before with a dumas at the top making terrible decisions. Some of us providing info, assessments, recommendations, etc. to our boss would perform the job substantially better than him/her. Some would be worse. And others would be about the same. The point is good intel may be fed to the decision maker but if they then make a poor decision it then does not then make that intel bad. The previously good intel is still good intel.

My frustrations with many not making ^^^that connection are coming to a boil. Sashi did what Sashi did because it was what Sashi thought was best; not Andrew Berry. Was Berry feeding him good intel? bad intel? something in between? I dunno. None of us know enough about Andrew Berry's work to provide an informed opinion on the hire right now. We'll know more as the months go by and we see his actual decision making in action.

 
MAC_32 said:
No one can/will provide that. That's a 4 walls thing inside Browns HQ. 

I've not seen those reports. All I've seen are schmos like Ruiter citing Sashi's decisions as justification for why Berry shouldn't get the job. Was Berry heavily involved with Sashi's team? Yes. Was he the one making poor decisions? No. 

We've all had jobs before with a dumas at the top making terrible decisions. Some of us providing info, assessments, recommendations, etc. to our boss would perform the job substantially better than him/her. Some would be worse. And others would be about the same. The point is good intel may be fed to the decision maker but if they then make a poor decision it then does not then make that intel bad. The previously good intel is still good intel.

My frustrations with many not making ^^^that connection are coming to a boil. Sashi did what Sashi did because it was what Sashi thought was best; not Andrew Berry. Was Berry feeding him good intel? bad intel? something in between? I dunno. None of us know enough about Andrew Berry's work to provide an informed opinion on the hire right now. We'll know more as the months go by and we see his actual decision making in action.
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Then don't go down that route, just go on objective results and the results aren't good and he was the pivot personnel man with Sashi.

I'll link the report below.

 
Bracie Smathers said:
Then don't go down that route, just go on objective results and the results aren't good and he was the pivot personnel man with Sashi.

I'll link the report below.
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You may lump in Sashi's decisions with Berry, but it doesn't make it fact. It's logic fallacy.

I appreciate the link though. I'll try to remember to give it a listen tonight.

 
When it's all said & done, I'd like to see Haslam say, "The people are in place.  They all have 5-yr contracts.  There will be no more changes.  I'm stepping out of the picture until 2025. Period."

 
daveR said:
When it's all said & done, I'd like to see Haslam say, "The people are in place.  They all have 5-yr contracts.  There will be no more changes.  I'm stepping out of the picture until 2025. Period."
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my understanding is that they all now report DIRECTLY to Haslam.  
 

he’s not going to be less involved, he’s going to be MORE involved. 
 

just watch.  if the Browns aren’t in the playoffs next year, he’s gonna fire everyone again.  because he can’t admit that the problem is HIM.  

 
daveR said:
When it's all said & done, I'd like to see Haslam say, "The people are in place.  They all have 5-yr contracts.  There will be no more changes.  I'm stepping out of the picture until 2025. Period."
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I'd like to hit the lottery and own an actual unicorn. I imagine the odds of both of those things happening are better than the odds of what you proposed.

 
Neil Stratton@InsideTheLeague

Multiple sources tell us #Jaguars Director of Player Personnel Chris Polian is no longer w/the team. Polian has also served w/the #Falcons (as exec scout) & #Colts (as GM). He's a possibility to resurface w/the #Browns; he worked w/new GM Andrew Berry while w/@Colts 

Greg Richards @igglesnut

Not sure if this was one of your sources or not, but this pretty much confirms it. Agent Bob Lamonte's client list which says Polian is the Former Director of Player Personnel of the Jaguars: https://psr-inc.net/clients/

---------------------------------------------------------------

Yes he is Bill Polian's kid so we lost Ron Wolf's kid and 'apparently' are getting Bill's kid. 

Don't know a thing about him other than he's linked to Andrew Berry as a possible Player Personnel guy.

 
beer 30 said:
"he worked w/new GM Andrew Berry while w/@Colts"

So no offensive line picks :thumbup:
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Chris Polian is an American football executive. He was the vice president and general manager of the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League from 2009 to 2011.

On November 27, 2009, he was promoted by Colts owner Jim Irsay to his position. He had previously served in other roles in the Colts football operations. He concurrently extended his contract through the 2012 season.[1] His father was the President of the team, Bill Polian.[2] Both Polians were fired by Irsay following the 2011 season in which the team posted a 2–14 record

2011

1st round pick #22 Anthony Castonzo T Boston College

 2nd round pick #49 Benjamin Ijalana T Villanova

Both are still playing and Constonzo is coming off a very good year, Ijalana was placed on IR but interesting he is playing for the Jags and Polian was with the Jags and he was the GM when Ijalana was taken.

We hired Stefanski for the scheme that suits our current skill positions on offense.  That scheme is highly dependent on zone blocking, both inside and outside zone.  Outside zone  requires tackles with great feet who are athletic enough to flow and perform almost dancer moves quickly.  

This draft is reported to be deep at OT and if we are going to adapt zone blocking we're going to need tackles.

beer 30 said:
Y'all should lighten up and realize I don't have a ####### clue what I'm talking about :thumbup:
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:D

 
Bracie Smathers said:
Chris Polian is an American football executive. He was the vice president and general manager of the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League from 2009 to 2011.

On November 27, 2009, he was promoted by Colts owner Jim Irsay to his position. He had previously served in other roles in the Colts football operations. He concurrently extended his contract through the 2012 season.[1] His father was the President of the team, Bill Polian.[2] Both Polians were fired by Irsay following the 2011 season in which the team posted a 2–14 record

2011

1st round pick #22 Anthony Castonzo T Boston College

 2nd round pick #49 Benjamin Ijalana T Villanova

Both are still playing and Constonzo is coming off a very good year, Ijalana was placed on IR but interesting he is playing for the Jags and Polian was with the Jags and he was the GM when Ijalana was taken.

We hired Stefanski for the scheme that suits our current skill positions on offense.  That scheme is highly dependent on zone blocking, both inside and outside zone.  Outside zone  requires tackles with great feet who are athletic enough to flow and perform almost dancer moves quickly.  

This draft is reported to be deep at OT and if we are going to adapt zone blocking we're going to need tackles.

:D
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See? I rest my case...against...myself :loco:

 
amnesiac said:
cant say i ever recall of hearing of that position before?

what are her duties?
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That is an excellent question.  I also had never heard of the  position before but Stefanski got his start with the Vikings in the same role.  Here is what I found.

----------------------------------------------

Alec Hayes @ayhayes -- what does a football chief of staff do?

birdsafterhours @birdsafterhours -- In all honestly, it may depend on how large the Quality Control/Analytics staff is. You can have a lot of people gathering information but the lead/CoS gains consensus and establishes a cohesive approach to analytics.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the 'general' description of the responsibilities of a Chief Of Staff.

What Are a Chief of Staff’s Responsibilities?

  1. Serving as strategic advisor and counsel to leaders
  2. Assuming day-to-day responsibility for projects and tasks
  3. Creating and maintaining cross-departmental relationships to enable leadership success
...- The right chief of staff has the skill and experience to integrate themselves into an organization quickly and assess issues that serve as barriers to a team or organization operating at maximum effectiveness. By taking on day-to-day tasks, an effective Chief of Staff is building a level of trust with her leader and enabling her boss to focus on larger strategic organizational initiatives...
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More insight from Callie and Stefanski on her duties with the team.

Callie Brownson named Chief of Staff for Browns Head Coach Kevin Stefanski

..."It's very involved in every aspect of a football operation," Stefanski said. "Callie is uniquely situated where she can go interact with football ops or PR or the locker room or the equipment room. She's really the liaison to the rest of the building for me. I'm going to lean on her heavily and already have. 

... ultimately I want to develop young coaches. She's someone that has worked on the offensive side of the ball, worked on special teams, has a great knowledge of the game and I want to let her expand that knowledge and develop her as a head coach."

...Brownson landed her first full-time coaching job in 2018 as an offensive quality control coach under Buddy Teevens at Dartmouth...

...in a position like this, you're not privy to some other position on the coaching staff. You're right outside. You're involved in every little operational aspect that has to do with his schedule and his decisions that he's making," Brownson said. "You're starting at the bare bones of creating a program. It's not just hiring staff, it's 'How do we want to run our offseason program? How do we make sure that this staff is given everything that they need from a programming perspective to then make sure that our guys are prepared and ready to play?' 

"It's the bare bones stuff, and that is something that I'm going to be actively involved in creating with him. Everything from the creative content around the building, the sayings that the players see on the wall and murals, the design is going to be all based off of his vision and being able to be a part of that is an education and experience you don't get in these other positions."
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Sounds like she will be the primary go-between within the organization among Stefanski's staff/coaches and it sounds like Stefanski wants to develop young coaches and she has coached so it sounds like she will assist him in that capacity and from the wording it 'seems' like he wants to groom her as an NFL coach which could be very interesting if this whole thing works out and she sounds like she's got a chance.

Found the Dartmouth tidbit interesting, she didn't go to Dartmouth but coached their so she's got the Ivy league connection.

 
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Sounds like what they used to call a "right hand man".  That is, somebody to offload a lot of stuff onto.

 
Officially announced Joe Woods as DC and Fred Pagac as LB coach.  Both were on MIN DEF staff, as well as Kubiaks staff in DEN - learning under Wade Phillps.  More alignment within the coaching ranks.  Pretty good hires that already know each other, the coaching philosophy and how to coach/teach it on Day 1. 

 
Peak said:
Officially announced Joe Woods as DC and Fred Pagac as LB coach.  Both were on MIN DEF staff, as well as Kubiaks staff in DEN - learning under Wade Phillps.  More alignment within the coaching ranks.  Pretty good hires that already know each other, the coaching philosophy and how to coach/teach it on Day 1. 
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We saw the Niners play a ton of zone but Woods didn't have Denzel and Greedy.

He had Richard Sherman who can't play man.  >>>  Richard Sherman trying to play man as a piece of toast

The big advantage he had was 4-first round picks, three  in the  top-3 selections plus they added DE Dee Ford to create the most dominant D-Line in the game today so they could 'get away' with a corner like Richard Sherman playing zone until that weakness got exposed.

2015 - 1st  round pick#17 Arik Armstead DT Oregon

2016 - 1st round pick #7 DeForest Buckner DE Oregon

2017 - 1st round pick #3 Solomon Thomas DE Stanford

2019 - 1st round pick #2 Nick Bosa DE Ohio State

We need at least one more pass rusher and Dorsey was trying to add another dominant DT.  We're going to lose Randall at FS and Kirko at LB which was already thin so we need a FS and a LB who can play but we've got Myles and corners who can play press-man.

The defense is much more open to change depending on what we  do in FA and the draft and what Woods brings as a coaching strength.   

 
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