Tag: Paul DePodesta

Cleveland Browns analytics department named best in football by experts

In an episode of the Establish the Run podcast, hosts Adam Levitan and Mike Leone and guests ESPN’s Seth Walder and Sports Info Solutions’ Matt Manocherian named the Browns the best analytics department in football.

The Cleveland Browns front office was praised as the best analytics group in the NFL. In an episode of the Establish the Run podcast, hosts Adam Levitan and Mike Leone talked to ESPN’s Seth Walder and Sports Info Solutions’ Matt Manocherian about the future of analytics and how it will change football. The episode covers an array of topics from practical applications to speculative fields. The group briefly discussed which organizations had the best analytics departments before unanimously agreeing on the Browns.

The Browns have heavily invested in their analytics department over the decade. Jimmy Haslam hired Paul DePodesta as the chief strategy officer in 2016. Under DePodesta’s vision, the Browns hired head coach Kevin Stefanski and general manager Andrew Berry. The organization has completely embraced data analysis as a tool of the trade.

Berry and Stefanski have turned the Browns from one of the worst organizations into a perennial playoff contender. Andrew Berry has helped usher in the age of analytics. It’s not just the media and insiders who believe in the analytics department. NFL teams have shown a strong interest in Browns’ front office members over the past few years. Assistant general managers Catherine Raiche, and Glenn Cook interviewed for the general manager role with multiple organizations this offseason. The Minnesota Vikings hired, former Browns’ vice president of football operations, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah as their general manager.

The organization has built something special in its front office. The Browns will continue advancing the state of analytics in football, and the league will follow.

Jimmy Haslam says Browns wants to get an extension done with Paul DePodesta

No deal yet, but the team wants to get one done

Early in June, the Cleveland Browns extended Kevin Stefanski and Andrew Berry, locking up two of the organization’s most important pieces. Owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam were asked on Saturday about the other part of the brain test Paul DePodesta and if they had extended him as well.

“Paul has not. We’re working through the situation with Paul. It’s a little bit different because he lives in San Diego, but we’re comfortable Paul will remain with us in some very important fashion for the long term.”

Cleveland’s culture shift with this brain trust in charge has been significant as they look to build a consistent winner year after year. Not a ton is known about DePodesta’s role with the team, but if he is trusted, then I am all for him being here as long as the other two.

The Browns will have their first padded practice of the year on Monday as the preseason gets closer.

Browns, Paul DePodesta agree on 5-year contract extension

Alignment was a keyword last offseason. Paul DePodesta, Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefanski are aligned in almost every way including, now, their contract lengths.

As news broke that the Cleveland Browns came to a long-term contract extension with running back Nick Chubb, another Browns extension got lost in that shadow. Team owner Jimmy Haslam shared with the media that Paul DePodesta has signed on for the long-term as well.

DePodesta came to the Browns out of Major League Baseball which created quite a stir at the time. DePodesta and Sashi Brown, then-general manager, ushered in a strong analytics bent to the Cleveland organization. While those two were aligned, Haslam pushed for the hiring of Hue Jackson as the head coach outside of the recommendation of DePodesta.

Surprisingly, the Browns chief strategy officer was kept on after Brown was let go and John Dorsey was brought in. Last offseason, DePodesta joined the team’s ownership group in seeking alignment with a new head coach and new general manager. With his recommendation, Kevin Stefanski was hired to coach the team while Andrew Berry was brought back to run the front office.

Now, not only are all three aligned in philosophy but also with their contracts:

 

There were some concerns that DePodesta’s contract was coming to an end last year but had not been brought up until now. Continuity, both on the field in in the office, has rarely been present in Cleveland since the team’s return in 1999. Now, with the three biggest decision makers aligned in almost every way, the Browns have continuity that fans have craved for years.

Report: Browns tied for most “analytics staffers”

Not surprising, a new report shows that the Cleveland Browns are tied for the most staff dedicated to analytics.

Analytics and the Cleveland Browns became a strong connection when the team hired Paul DePodesta and Sashi Brown a few years ago. Brown is long gone but DePodesta’s influence remains including the hire of Andrew Berry as general manager.

After one very good season, the word “analytics” is no longer a curse word for Browns fans. Instead, fans are hopeful that the new direction builds on the work of Brown and his predecessor John Dorsey.

The alignment (a big buzzword during last year’s general manager and head coach search) between DePodesta, Berry, and head coach Kevin Stefanski is evident. Based solely on the content of their words, it is often hard to tell which of the Browns leader has spoken.

A recent report by Seth Walder of ESPN shows just how deep the Browns roots in analytics run as they are tied with the Jacksonville Jaguars with seven “analytics staffers”, as Walder describes them:

 

One name missing that will jump out to many is Andrew Berry’s. Key is to note that Walder’s criteria is based on the employee’s primary job being related to analytics and that does not fit Berry.

The list has names that some Browns fans are used to hearing including DePodesta’s most notably. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is considered an up and comer while Ken Kovash has been with the Browns for over eight years, which may set the record for length of employment with the team since the Browns returned in 1999.

While Walder notes his information is limited to what is available to him, it is interesting, but not surprising, to note the Browns setting the standard with resources publicly known devoted to analytics.

Trading up for a linebacker shows Andrew Berry will go against the grain

The Browns and GM Andrew Berry coveted Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah enough to break character and trade up in the 2021 NFL draft

The Browns aggressive trade up in the second round of the 2021 NFL draft to land an off-ball linebacker in Notre Dame’s Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah appears to break character for GM Andrew Berry. The Berry regime values more draft picks and has largely rendered the off-ball linebacker as the least important position on the field.

Yet Berry could not resist the temptation to trade up from No. 59 to No. 52 to select Owusu-Koramoah, who many projected the Browns would select in the first round at No. 26. Berry anticipated the question in his post-draft interview and acknowledged it was a special exception to the guidelines Cleveland typically follows.

“I guess I would push back on the notion that we do not value linebackers,” Berry said. “It is an important position on the field. In Jeremiah’s case, we did think the fit was really good schematically, but we just thought the overall player was a high-quality prospect. I hesitate to use the words ‘special’ because again, we have to see how it all plays out.”

The Browns moved up without giving up an actual pick. They dealt No. 59 and No. 89 (third round) to the Carolina Panthers for No. 52, but the Panthers also included a later pick, No. 113 overall. The Browns traded that pick in a separate deal with the Detroit Lions, who selected Purdue LB Derrick Barnes. Cleveland picked up a 2022 fourth-round pick in that deal as well.

Browns chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta explained the against-the-grain move in his own presser.

“The rules that we do have in place are very flexible, and they are meant to try to give us the latitude to be aggressive when situations arise that we feel could be advantageous to our club, especially short term and long term,” DePodesta said.

It’s an erudite way of saying they were willing to break character to land a player they really wanted. That’s how much these Browns valued Owusu-Koramoah.

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Paul DePodesta on the Browns landing Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah: ‘Sometimes the board falls your way’

Cleveland chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta on the Browns landing Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah: ‘Sometimes the board falls your way’

Cleveland Browns chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta knows the team got a little lucky in landing Notre Dame linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah in the second round of the 2021 NFL draft. Owusu-Koramoah was a popular projection for the Browns in the first round, but somehow he lasted all the way to the No. 52 overall pick.

The Browns aggressively traded up to land a player in the middle of the second round that they would have selected in the first round. DePodesta acknowledged the good fortune in his video conference call with reporters after the pick.

“There was a lot of pacing going around upstairs once we got to about pick 42, 43, 44 just trying to figure out if there was a way we could make it happen,” DePodesta said. “Sometimes, the board falls your way.”

The Browns gave up their first third-round pick, No. 89 overall, to move up seven spots to land Owusu-Koramoah. The Carolina Panthers also included a fourth-round pick in return. It’s a move nobody expected to happen, including the Browns braintrust.

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Kwesi Adofo-Mensah: ‘I Still do not’ know what the word analytics means in football

New Browns VP of Football Ops Kwesi Adofo-Mensah explained his take on analytics and how the Browns will use the vaguely defined term

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah played basketball at Princeton and was a commodities broker before pivoting his professional career to the NFL. The Browns new VP of Football Operations was hired by GM Andrew Berry, another Ivy League grad, and joins Paul DePodesta — one of the godfathers of the numbers-driven models in baseball — in running the Cleveland football franchise.

Naturally, the term analytics is going to come up quite a bit. Yet in his press conference during the week, Adofo-Mensah downplayed the notion.

Adofo-Mensah was asked about the different connotations, both good and bad, associated with the word “analytics”. In his answer, the young VP explained the brain trust’s decision-making process and how that relates to the vague term.

“It is so funny, before I came into the NFL, I never heard that word and never used that word, and now that I am in the NFL, I still do not,” Adofo-Mensah told reporters via Zoom. “At the end of the day, we are trying to make good decisions. These are uncertain things that we are trying to figure out so we try to be evidence-based, I would more say. Look, coaches and scouts have been evidence-based in the NFL for a long time. Every quality control coach is evidence-based. They come up with a probability. I do not necessarily think that this is some new thing. I think we are just applying it, using different methods and also using it across football operations.”

Adofo-Mensah then explained how they use their process to make decisions.

“We are trying to win on the margins and so we are trying extricate every little winning possible advantage we can find across football operations and use the evidence to support that. I think that (coach Stefanski) Kevin, AB, DePodesta and everybody in this organization are aligned in that sense. I do not think we believe it is more than it is and I do not think we believe that is less than it is. I think we just believe that it is an important facet and something that can help us, and we are going to use whatever to help us.”

Adofo-Mensah comes from a similar approach used in San Francisco, a process that led the 49ers to the Super Bowl.

DePodesta: Andrew Berry has ‘final call’ on Browns draft choices

DePodesta: Andrew Berry has ‘final call’ on Browns draft choices

With a new front office regime and coaching staff all working together for the first time, sorting out who makes the decisions in the Cleveland Browns draft room is a potential issue. Browns chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta tackled the issue of the chain of command for draft decisions.

In his conference call with reporters this week, DePodesta provided some clarity and definitiveness with his answer. GM Andrew Berry will have the final say.

“Like I said, I think everything that we have done to date in the way we operate is just try to be as collaborative as possible,” DePodesta explained. “I do not think this is about anybody having veto power over anyone else. We know that in this environment, AB has to make the final call.”

While continuing to stress the collaborative nature of the Browns front office, DePodesta made no bones about it. He concluded his answer this this statement,

“I think it is pretty clear next week that AB (Berry) has that control headset on.”

Paul DePodesta: Odell Beckham trade rumors ‘completely false’

Podesta slammed the door on the rumors from Minnesota

In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Cleveland Browns chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta slammed the recent rumors of the team trying to trade wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. as “completely false”.

DePodesta minced no words. It was the first question asked of him and DePodesta was clearly bothered by the insinuation the team would have any interest in moving on from the talented wideout.

“In short, I will just say it was completely false,” DePodesta stated. “It is frustrating a little bit, obviously. I think it is pretty clear what we are trying to build at this point. We have done an awful lot in free agency. We are excited about what we have a chance to do in the draft, and we are really building around a core of players that we think have a chance to be a championship-caliber core.

The idea that we would take away from that core at this moment just does not make a whole lot of sense and is really not something that we are exploring at all. It is completely false.”

A later follow-up about Beckham met with the same sort of indignant response towards any notion the team is unhappy with Beckham or is trying to move on from the enigmatic WR after just one season.

“I have no reason to believe he doesn’t want to be here. Odell has been very good this offseason. He has been engaged with (head coach Kevin Stefanski). I think he is excited about the possibilities of what this offensive system could bring for him, and we are excited to have him.”

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