The most significant departure from the Cleveland Browns this season isn't a player; it's a front-office member. On Thursday, reports indicated that Chief Strategy Officer Paul DePodesta, initially hired by the team in early January of 2016, is heading back to the MLB, joining the Colorado Rockies as their Head of Baseball Operations. While DePodesta's role with the team has always been somewhat nebulous, it's still an important loss, the ramifications of which have yet to be seen.
DePodesta started out in baseball, breaking in with the Cleveland Indians as a player development intern back in 1996. He eventually made his way over to the Oakland Athletics, where his data-based ideas resulted in an organizational paradigm shift under general manager Billy Beane. His contributions were highlighted in the book and movie Moneyball, and he later served as general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, as well as in various roles with the San Diego Padres and New York Mets.
On January 5th, 2016, DePodesta was hired by the Browns as CSO, and presided over the team's 1-31 stretch under Hue Jackson, the hiring and firing of Sashi Brown as Cleveland's Executive Vice President, the Browns' first playoff appearance since 2002, and first win since 1994, and the disastrous Deshaun Watson trade. DePodesta's long-term analytical mindset seemed to be constantly at odds with owner Jimmy Haslem's quick trigger finger and his hiring of football guy John Dorsey as GM in 2018.
DePodesta's role in Cleveland was much more about management, philosophy, and process than about personnel. The public interactions he had were limited, as were reports of his input on certain decisions, but we do know of a few. The first coaching search that DePodesta was part of resulted in Cincinnati Bengals offensive coordinator Hue Jackson being hired. However, it was widely reported that DePodesta favored Carolina Panthers defensive coordinator Sean McDermott, who ended up being hired by the Buffalo Bills a year later. Jackson was disastrous during his tenure in Cleveland, while McDermott has won more than two-thirds of his games with the Bills and has led them to seven playoff appearances in eight years, with two trips to the AFC Championship Game. In hindsight, DePodesta was clearly correct on this call.
Paul DePodesta
Paul DePodesta (Photo: USA TODAY Sports)
DePodesta was also reportedly in favor of hiring Minnesota Vikings quarterbacks coach Kevin Stefanski to replace Jackson, as opposed to promoting interim offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens. Stefanski is drawing the ire of Cleveland fans right now, but he did lead the team to two playoff berths and won two Coach of the Year Awards, while Kitchens was completely overwhelmed as a head coach.
Perhaps the most public of DePodesta's opinions comes out of the 2016 draft, when the Browns owned the second overall pick and decided to trade out of the spot prior to the draft, moving down with the Philadelphia Eagles and enabling them to select North Dakota State passer Carson Wentz. In comments made following the trade, DePodesta implied that he and/or the front office did not feel that Wentz was good enough of a prospect to become a top-20 QB in the NFL. After he threw for 33 touchdowns to only seven interceptions and went 11-2 as a starter in his second year in the league, that comment was looking rather foolish, but the torn ACL that Wentz suffered towards the end of the year, which kept him on the sideline during the Eagles' improbable Super Bowl run, changed everything.
Wentz never regained that form and has bounced around the league as a backup, playing for five different teams over the past five years. Perhaps this one deserves an asterisk, but it looks like it's another correct call for DePodesta.
That's all in the past, though. What matters now is that he is gone, and the visionary behind how the entire franchise has operated for the past decade is no longer running the show. He was a major driving force in hiring Andrew Berry as general manager and Stefanski as head coach. With all the chatter around the temperature of their respective seats and the extremely poor performance of the team over the past two years, there will be questions about what DePodesta's departure signals about Berry and Stefanski.
Will Haslem, now without DePodesta in his ear, finally lose his patience and decide to move on? Will he again turn to a proven traditional football guy similar to John Dorsey? Will the next regime change, if and when it comes, send the franchise in a completely new direction? These questions will all have to wait to be answered. It's also possible that this move doesn't mean a whole lot, and The OBR's Lane Adkins has dropped a few nuggets about DePodesta and his role in Rumor Central over the past few months.
It's difficult to gauge the impact of this move right now, but one thing is for sure: it's significant that such an important member of the organization for almost a decade is no longer here. We'll have to wait and see what that means for the team moving forward. We can all agree on one thing, however, the most important contribution that DePodesta ever made was leading Jack Duffin to become a Browns fan.