Browns failures, blame game: First to go could surprise

Kevin Stefanski and Andrew Berry have been talked about but Paul DePodesta’s future is also up in the air

Usually, when an NFL team crumbles and isn’t very good, the first head-to-roll is one of the coaches. Or two.

The 2-7-0 Las Vegas Raiders have already let go of three of their offensive assistant coaches. The New Orleans Saints and New York Jets have fired their head coaches after disappointing starts.

There are at least five other coaches on the hot seat this season.

The Cleveland Browns, sitting at 2-7-0 themselves, will most certainly be firing some folks when the final gun sounds in Week 18 against the Baltimore Ravens. We are not talking players mind you, although that is a given, but front office people as well as coaches.

Is head coach Kevin Stefanski safe? Or will his five-year tenure be the anomaly that Browns fans aren’t used to?

Stefanski was last year’s NFL Coach of the Year, his second designation in five seasons. Normally such distinctions would make a coach safe. But the NFL is a “what have you done for me lately” league. The only thing billionaire owners care about is winning. They become embarrassed at owner’s meetings and public gatherings when their ballclub is the butt of so many gags. They want positive results. Consistently.

Stefanski is an offensive mind but the offense of this year’s offering is the largest problem area. He was given the keys to a $230 million quarterback, Deshaun Watson, and has not gotten him to play at his previous three time Pro Bowl level whatsoever.

All of those signatures written in ink on the Declaration of Independence were a huge deal because if the infant United States faltered, every single man who signed the document would have been tried for treason against the mother country of England, and subsequently hung.

The same is true with the Watson trade. Every person who agreed with the trade is responsible for its failure to bring elite status to the Browns’ offense.

So, expect heads to roll after this season. They normally do. If the current employment generates dismay, failure, inconsistency, embarrassment, malfunctions, and collapse one year after being so successful the year before, then changes must be made. They must.

The Browns won 11 games in 2023. They threw the final game which means they could have captured 12 wins. They placed second in their division. The head coach and DC were honored by the league as the best the NFL had to offer. Cleveland qualified for the playoffs. They featured seven Pro Bowlers, one All-Pro, plus the Defensive Player of the Year.

How does a franchise go from the above scenario to a total collapse?

A look at this year’s schedule doesn’t see much as far as any probable win streaks. Maybe six wins? Five? Definitely a last-place finish in the division.

Who is the first to get fired? Maybe it is Chief Strategy Officer Paul DePodesta.

After 20 years in Major League Baseball, DePodesta came to the Browns in 2016. He was touted as an analytics guru who focused on the intangibles in sports instead of simply gazing at key stats.

He was the inspiration for the character Peter Brand played by Jonah Hill featured in the 2011 movie “Moneyball.” Brad Pitt played the real-life GM of the Oakland A’s Billy Beane and hired Brand to be his analytics guy who suggested hiring undervalued players who could produce and save the club money in the process. DePodesta’s name isn’t actually used in the film, but the entire premise was the system of analytics.

And since DePodesta’s hiring, the Browns have followed the analytics trajectory to a tee.

Analytics is about seeking out information and being sort of ruthless about having a process on that. And the Browns are pretty ruthless about going to take value where they can get it.

This year, Cleveland was considered the most analytically advanced organization in the NFL. They are known to use analytics in decision-making and have produced more advanced quantitative work than any other team.

This is all due to DePodesta. Under his guidance, the team uses his information for situations such as going for it on fourth down, to kick field goals instead of summoning for a punt, what plays to call around the center field stripe, and the trading process during the NFL college draft.

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Cleveland has attempted the most fourth down attempts this year with 21 and converted 13, also the most. But it should be noted, of the Top-10 teams that have attempted the most fourth down attempts, all of them except the Philadelphia Eagles have losing records. In fact, most are the worst teams in the league.

DePodesta does not have a fancy office at the Berea complex. In fact, he isn’t even located in the State of Ohio but works out of his home in San Diego, California. No other NFL club has spent as much money on players than the Browns since DePodesta’s tenure began in 2016. Yet, no division titles, two playoff seasons, three playoff games played with a single win, and not even close to looking like a Super Bowl contender.

Photo by Nick Cammett/Diamond Images via Getty Images

How much say-so DePodesta has within the organization remains dependent on who you talk to. He seems to have a firm grip within the walls of Berea. What he gives the team is data that backs up decisions being made. Nobody can make correct decisions all of the time no matter how great they look on paper, but the idea is to make justifications for those decisions.

There are plenty of free agents signed that haven’t panned out. Already in this year’s draft several players weren’t even retained on the final roster.

During training camp this year, it was discussed that this year’s roster was one of the best anyone could remember. Several coaches were let go and their replacements were heralded as being some of the best to ever coach their positions.

How much was DePodesta involved in the Deshaun Watson trade? Certainly, his spreadsheets paid a huge portion of the decision-making trend. Why did the Cleveland brass get Watson from an analytics position and the salary cap standpoint? What was the analytics that said to pay a single guy $230 million whether he plays or not, or has diminished skills? Apparently, analytics didn’t have a barometer for how off-the-field situations could contribute to a person’s downfall and the effectiveness of the fact that Watson hadn’t played in two years.

It has been pointed out how Stefanski, owner Jimmy Haslam, and GM Andrew Berry all align. But where does DePodesta fit into this alignment?

DePodesta’s role is to help this franchise on the margins. He is to provide a way to out-analytics the Browns play above their talent level.

But this year the foundation of the team is a complete disaster. The offensive line, once a Top-3 group, has given up the most sacks in the NFL with 46. Jerry Jeudy is ranked #43 in receiving yards, but there isn’t another Cleveland wide receiver listed in the Top-75 of the league in any statistical category. The most yards by a Browns running back is Jerome Ford’s 269 yards which ranks him #42. When your punter’s total yardage outdistances the entire yards by the offense, everyone knows the season is a bust with half the games left on the calendar.

The flop that was the Watson trade now seems to be very real. He has played in just 19 games and missed 32. His play has diminished, and the club owes him a ton of money this year, the following season, and the year after that.

If the Browns front office will need to admit that bringing Watson to Cleveland is indeed a bust, even if that admittance is just in-house and never discussed outside their complex walls. The Watson decision has left the Browns thin on talent with all the high draft picks that they sent to Houston who are now leading their division and are on a slow ascent as one of the best teams in the AFC while Cleveland languishes as a bottom-feeder. Somebody has to be accountable for all this.

DePodesta just maybe that man.

If the front office would comprise a firing list, that order might look like this: 1) DePodesta, 2) Berry, and 3) Stefanski.

Contract terms could be a bit sticky as DePodesta signed a five-year extension back in 2021. and the combo of Berry and Stefanski signed the same this offseason.

This team was in the playoffs last year. It had the appearance that the franchise was on its way to being a contender year after year in the same fashion that those 1980s Marty Schottenheimer teams were with solid rosters and a deep bench. The squad appeared to have improved going into this season with several weaknesses fixed.

And now? They are on track to draft in the Top-5.

There’s an argument that both DePodesta and Berry could be given pink slips. Berry seemed to have the magic touch on a high percentage of his free-agent signings, but after players have hit the field and haven’t fulfilled their expectations the sentiment has changed. Guys like DT Dalvin Tomlinson and S Juan Thornhill were brought in to solve specific issues, but have contributed to the problem with sub-par play. WRs Jerry Jeudy and Elijah Moore are nowhere near their draft status of being taken in the first and second rounds, respectively.

And Berry has whiffed on many draft choices: Anthony Schwartz, Jedrick Wills, Richard LeCounte, Demetric Felton, Harrison Bryant, Jordan Elliott, Cade York, Perrion Winfrey, Siaka Ika, and Tommy Togiai to name a few. Since Berry’s first draft in 2020 and a total of 38 players selected, only six are starters, three are on the practice squad, seven listed on IR, and 14 (37%) are no longer with the Browns.

That means one in three players drafted are eventually cut. This year alone, sixth-round LB Bookie Watson and seventh-rounder DE Jowon Briggs were both released on the final cutdown.

But the Watson debacle is too much to ignore. Ownership cannot overlook it while at the same time keeping a fanbase content.

And as far as DePodesta’s influence with “Moneyball” which thrust the analytical principles of sabermetrics into the mainstream, of the four Major League Baseball clubs he worked for before joining the Browns, none won the World Series. The “Moneyball” A’s ballclub featured in the movie never won the World Series and in fact the team is no longer playing in Oakland.

Off with somebody’s proverbial head.