BEREA, Ohio — Former Browns Chief Strategy Paul DePodesta owned his part in the failed Deshaun Watson trade in 2022, but stressed he didn’t act alone.
“Those are organizational decisions,” DePodesta said during his introductory press conference as president of baseball operations for the Colorado Rockies this week. “Those are done collaboratively, a lot of people on board, and if you’re a senior leader of that organization at that time, then you own that decision.
“It’s the way I feel about almost all the decisions we made there in Cleveland. I absolutely own them all.”
In holding himself accountable for the Browns 56-99-1 record during his nine-plus years, DePodesta also added with a grin, “I was also calling plays for the Browns.”
DePodesta, who returned to his first love of Major League Baseball where he spent 20 years before joining the Browns, noted that he’s learned from his mistakes. He was in attendance for the Browns 27-20 loss to the Jets last Sunday which dropped them to 2-7, and the organization is in retooling mode.
“I’ve said this now for probably 25-plus years, like, I lost my no-hitter a long time ago,” he said. “Like a long, long time ago. I’m not perfect, I haven’t been perfect. I won’t be perfect going forward. We’re definitely gonna miss again. But hopefully we learn from that, and we learn from both the successes and the failures, and we get better the next time we need to make a significant decision.
“And I do feel like I’ve been able to do that through the course of my career. I feel confident that I’m a lot better today than I was five years ago or 10 years ago or 20 years ago, and I hope five years from now, I’m a lot better than I am sitting here today.”
As for the Watson trade, the Browns surrendered a net of five draft picks, including three first-rounders, to acquire the three-time Pro Bowler from the Texans. In his three seasons, Watson went 9-10 with 3,365 yards, 19 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. But he served an 11-game NFL suspension his first season, and suffered a fractured shoulder in his second season that required season-ending surgery. In 2024, he suffered a season-ending ruptured Achilles in Week 7, which he re-ruptured after the season. He never had a season not truncated by the suspension or a serious injury.
He’s under contract in 2026 with a salary cap charge of more than $80 million, which will be lowered again and spread out over some void years.
At the NFL Annual Meeting in March, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam blamed himself and Dee Haslam for the costly trade.
“We took a big swing-and-miss with Deshaun,” he said. “We thought we had the quarterback; we didn’t. And we gave up a lot of draft picks to get him, so we’ve got to dig ourselves out of that hole.
“… [The trade] was an entire organization decision and it ends with Dee [Haslam] and I, so hold us accountable.”
The Browns will likely draft their quarterback of the future in the 2026 draft, during which they have two first-round picks.
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