Dorsey Had to Go, Plus the Team Must Fully Embrace The Notion of Informed Decision Making
In agreeing to part ways with general manager John Dorsey, the Cleveland Browns gave themselves an opportunity to be a rationally run franchise. It's up to ownership to make the right choices on how to proceed from here to create a united front, but Dorsey not only represented outdated thinking, a too often negative influence and irresponsible risks, but he made himself unemployable in Cleveland.
Even for people who love what Dorsey did in terms of acquiring talent, knowing everything they know about Freddie Kitchens in addition to the details that are slowly leaking out about his tenure as head coach, Dorsey wanted seconds of Kitchens' particular brand of football. That isn't a decision made with the best interest of the Browns mind. It's entirely about Dorsey's vanity and trying to maintain power, potentially at the expense of the team.
Both fans and critics have every reason to be skeptical of anything the Browns do, given the decades of incompetence they've had to endure. Much of what some fear is largely a result of misinformation from sources unwilling to even consider the possibility that an alternate way of thinking could work. Paul DePodesta running the head coaching search could ultimately result in another bad head coaching hire for this team, but it won't be because of his past as a baseball executive.
If he's asking questions, they would seemingly revolve around processes and systems as that's been his focus since joining the Browns. Everyone gets caught up in the term 'analytics' and then treat that as some foreign concept. All it should mean to them is information and trying to find the best ways to operate.
Given what the Browns just went through with Kitchens, that would be valuable information to have. Kitchens has been criticized for an inability to delegate, an unwillingness to trust some of his assistants, going it alone in calls and a woefully lackluster process for gameplanning and getting players prepared each week. Those are all coaching processes. So are things like discipline and determining who should play in a given week.
If DePodesta can get answers that provide insight into a coach's ability to problem solve and how prepared they are to run an organization, that's a huge value. And if he did want Sean McDermott and Kevin Stefanski proves to be a good head coach, he might be onto something in terms of determining who has the skills necessary to handle that job.
Likewise, the notion that analytics or data and information as it relates to helping evaluate players being bad is about two decades out of date. The same way when someone thinking of purchasing a car, new or used, wants information such as what type of gas mileage the car gets, how safe it is, how reliable the model is or the track record the company that produces it has. They might be interested in finding the Kelly Blue Book value for both trying to get a fair price as well as the potential resale value. They may want to find out how difficult and expensive it is to get parts for it if they need replaced because of damage or due to wear and tear.
That information, trying to be more informed to more effectively weigh the pros and cons on an important decision, is analytics. And that's something you don't do every day or every year. It would be reckless and stupid for a team worth over a billion dollars to ignore that data when it comes to drafting or signing players, especially when that's a critical part of what they do all the time. Studying decades of history in data to understand the trends and how athleticism, injury history, production and age could impact a player's career isn't optional. That's the new bare minimum to be competitive.
The idea that teams would use that data instead of watching tape and doing research is also absurd. They do both as tape is another form of data. They do everything to make the most informed decision they can and to make it as repeatable a process as possible. That is what 29 other teams in the NFL do with the two notable teams that either avoid data like the Washington Redskins, or just found out the internet is on computers now in the New York Giants, led by general manager Dave Gettleman. These aren't teams to emulate or imitate. The debate isn't if teams use numbers or not. It's entirely about which numbers they value most and how to apply them when making these decisions.
This gets to Andrew Berry, currently the Vice President of Football Operations for the Philadelphia Eagles. He is someone the Haslams know and adore. He offers the best of both worlds. Berry is young, only 31 years old, which is important because it means he doesn't think he knows everything and is still learning and adapting. He went to Harvard where he earned a bachelor's degree in economics. People who major in economics are taught how to think about every day things differently, not necessarily going by what everyone else has always done. Combine that with the fact he got a Master's in Computer Science. It's safe to say he's smart.
Berry might be an Ivy League academic, but he also happened to be a 4-year starter on the Harvard football team, which is routinely one of the best in the Ivy League. He earned All-Ivy League honors three of those seasons, playing corner. He may be an intellectual, but he also knows what it's like to play the game and what is required to succeed. Berry isn't now nor was he ever was trying to prove he was smarter than the "football guys in the room" as that group was often portrayed. Berry was simply the smartest football guy in the room.
Dorsey, meanwhile, was old and unwilling to adapt, going by what he's always done. And ultimately, that's why he's not here anymore, why he was let go in Kansas City and likely why he won't get another job in the NFL. This is the second time in three years he's been relieved of his duties, because he refused to adapt to a changing football climate and insisted on operating his way. which is outdated and why it's been so easy to first guess many of the choices he's made over the past two years.
Berry's not going to get everything right. He didn't when he was Sashi Brown's right hand man when Brown was the Executive Vice President of the team. Using data is to try to reduce the chances of failure, to avoid buying a lemon. The bottom line is that decision making was at least logical. And if ownership doesn't do what they did the last time, hiring a head coach that was staunchly opposed using data as opposed to his own personal eye test, there won't be a need to compromise with someone closed minded, which should lead to more smart decisions.
There are other people that are capable of doing what Berry does. He's simply the one I'm most familiar, since he was with the Browns for a few years and I was able to see his thought process play out over a couple drafts and free agency as well as smaller things like the waiver wire and the practice squad. It became easier to predict what they were going to do, because there was a trail of evidence in what they valued in players, making some really prudent decisions in that time.
As a result, I'm partial to Berry as the Browns next general manager. Seeing the thought process they had when it came to the draft, acquiring additional assets and creative trades that were unprecedented in the NFL, they were finally operating in a way smart teams were and in the case of the Brock Osweiler trade, they were setting the curve. That trade, which was mocked when it was made, not only resulted in Nick Chubb, has since been copied by the Miami Dolphins on a smaller scale.
The added benefit with Berry is he and DePodesta already have a good relationship, so those two parts of the organization would be on the same page. If they find a like-minded head coach, which it appears they might have in Kevin Stefanski last year, they would have the entire operation going in the same direction. Whether it's Stefanski or someone else they prefer, so long as the Haslams listen to the people they hired to make these decisions, the Browns will have the entire franchise headed in the same direction for the first time since they bought the team.
Regardless of how they choose to get there, one group with a unified sense of purpose has to be the single focus of the Haslams as far as this coaching search is concerned. Everything else they do should be toward ensuring they can be successful. Instead of worrying about the perfect hire, they should be solely consumed with making it as close to a perfectly run franchise around them as possible. If they do that, it's only going to make the hires that fit what they're trying to do perform up to above their expectations.
