What Paul DePodesta's departure means for the Cleveland Browns

The Cleveland Browns could be losing their Chief Strategy Officer Paul DePodesta to the Colorado Rockies.

Aug 21, 2022; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Browns chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta, left, talks with managing and principal partner Jimmy Haslam before the game between the Cleveland Browns and the Philadelphia Eagles at FirstEnergy Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-Imagn Images | Ken Blaze-Imagn Images

The Cleveland Browns will be without a key member of their organization moving forward.

Chief Strategy Officer Paul DePodesta was shockingly hired by the Browns almost a decade ago after an entire career of working in Major League Baseball.

According to reports, DePodesta will be leaving the Browns to take over the Colorado Rockies and run their baseball operations department. While the deal is not finalized, ESPN’s Jeff Passan believes that it could be soon.

DePodesta’s rise to fame came early in his career with the Oakland Athletics. A young Harvard graduate, DePodesta used sabermetrics to assist general manager Billy Beane in all player acquisitions and contract negotiations.

After that role, he spent one season as the general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers before working in the New York Mets and San Diego Padres front offices.

But the Browns hired DePodesta in 2016 to oversee their strategy. He introduced analytics to Browns football, something that has been widely questioned since his hire nearly 10 years ago.

Beyond that, DePodesta’s role is widely unexplained and publicly unknown. However, reports have surfaced that he has served as a braintrust to Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam on key organizational decisions such as roster construction, quarterback decisions and head coaching hires. 

DePodesta’s role has been widely scrutinized as the team has struggled to find a direction over the last decade. Despite this scrutiny, DePodesta is often seen travelling from La Jolla, California to Cleveland for games – adding to the intrigue about what his role actually entails.

While DePodesta leaving the Browns will be celebrated by Cleveland fans, nobody really ever understood what his role was in the first place.

His departure from football to run the Rockies will undoubtedly raise questions about the job security of Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski and general manager Andrew Berry.

While his exact role in Cleveland was unknown, DePodesta undoubtedly had the ear of Haslam. He led the coaching search in 2020 where the Browns hired Stefanski and Berry.

In Berry’s own words, DePodesta served as a “thought partner” for Cleveland’s football decisions. As the Browns currently sit at 2-6 without a solution at quarterback, DePodesta’s departure could raise some red flags about the future of this regime in Cleveland, especially since he hired them.

With DePodesta running strategy in Cleveland, the Browns have survived plenty of eras. He came in with general manager Sashi Brown and Hue Jackson. He oversaw John Dorsey’s hire of Freddie Kitchens. He’s had his hand in countless quarterback mistakes from DeShone Kizer to Deshaun Watson.

Over the last decade, DePodesta could not fix one of the biggest train wrecks in professional sports. Since their return in 1999, the Browns have not been able to find sustained success – regardless of who was coaching the team. Now, he’ll reportedly be turning his attention to one of the biggest train wrecks in baseball, as the Rockies are coming off another 100 loss season.