https://www.nfl.com/news/sashi-brow...sident-following-retirement-of-dick-cass

Following 18 years with the team, Baltimore Ravens team president Dick Cass is retiring and Sashi Brown will be his successor, the team announced Friday.

The transition will become effective on April 1, with Brown, who spent two years as the Cleveland Browns executive vice president of football operations, mirroring Cass' responsibilities of overseeing all areas of the club, which includes player, coaching and staff personnel, corporate sales, communications and business, per the team's announcement.

The 45-year-old Brown was the Browns' EVP of football operations from 2016-17 and for the last three years was the president of Monumental Basketball, which saw him oversee myriad obligations for the NBA's Washington Wizards and the WNBA's Washington Mystics.

The 76-year-old Cass bids farewell to a Ravens organization he helped build into one of the NFL's most consistently successful.



During Cass' time with the franchise, the Ravens won Super Bowl XLVII, produced five AFC North titles, made the playoffs 10 times and advanced to the AFC Championship Game three times.

Going forward, Brown, head coach John Harbaugh and general manager Eric DeCosta will be the "top leadership trio under Bisciotti," per the team release.

Coming off an 8-9 season in which they were ravaged by injuries, the Ravens will look to turn things around in 2022 with plenty to check off on the offseason to-do list, not the least of which coming to terms on a new deal with quarterback Lamar Jackson and restocking their ranks in the 2022 NFL Draft, which takes place April 28-30, or roughly a month after Brown takes the reins.

They better keep Sashi away from the war room come draft day.
The Ravens are already in a state of decline.
Sashi is just adding to it

Sweet \0/ now we will have something to read about until April.

Best thing he ever did for us was to not hit "send" on a fax machine.

There's something quaint about them still using fax machines.

The Brock Osweiler trade was pretty genius at the time. It netted us Nick Chubb.

Anyone remember telecopiers?

One of the worst Browns GMs since the return. Him and Farmer were
Ridiculously awful. But the homers were full on board with Sashi.

I will forever thank him for that.

After all these years someone in the NFL is finally going to give him another shot. It probably won't end any better than it did here.

I'm not sure how I can fully grade him as a GM. He gutted the team in two years, but I never saw what the plan was on how he would have used the accumulated draft picks. We saw what Andrew Berry did with his draft picks. It's still hard to tell what Sashi would have done.

It's not normal to completely gut a team and then rebuild it. I can't compare what Sashi did to someone else. Using the "rookie contract" as a strategy to assemble a team where the contracts expired at the same time was something I wanted to see play out.

Yeah, he wasn't close to the worst and probably one of the better front men we've had. I was sorry to see him go. I think things worked out but the organization took a step back when they hired Dorsey.


I seem to recall a bunch of folks claiming Sashi's NFL career was over and he'd never be hired into a front office job again. Can we get a hand raise from all those folks?

And I think that's kind of the point. He sure knows how to blow up a team. Of course any time you blow up a team and let all your high priced players go, move down to add picks, that is the natural outcome no matter who does it. I mean even the average fan knows if you trade down in the draft you get future picks. Even your average fan knows if you let a player walk who makes 15 mil and replace him with a player who makes 5 mil you're cutting your salary cap and increasing your future cap. None of that is complicated.

What nobody has ever seen is Sashi actually build a team or keep a successful team consistent. It's obviously a gamble the Ravens have decided to take but it's certainly not based on his NFL resume'.

I don't recall anyone saying that. I did say that Sashi had to get a job in basketball because no team in the NFL would hire him. And it was certainly true. I mean if Sashi was so great, why didn't he get hired by another NFL team for years? And I'll say it again, nobody saw any evidence from his time here that he actually knew how to build a team. All they saw is that he was very good at tearing one down to the studs.

I'm not sure hiring a demolition team to build your house is a good idea.

Sashi Brown didn’t get hired to pick players for the Ravens. He got hired to run the entire organization because he is a smart person with a process oriented approach.

I don't think he was hired to blow it all up in Baltimore. Not sure why that's a thing with some people. He's one of the architects who helped build the Browns into the team they are today.

Kinda like in Cleveland.

Except he doesn’t have an Hue Jackson sized anchor fighting against him.

You're going to see some Browns fans head explode when they watch him succeed with the Ravens in the same role he was hired for here.

Maybe everything does happen for a reason... and we had to go thru all this for Haslam to learn how to run a football team.

He simply deconstructed the team and added resources along the way. Which when you trade down in the draft you gain future picks. When you get rid of high priced players you build cap room. If you call that being an architect, well yeah. Most people don't call demolition crews architects, but what ever.

That's because nobody did. But if perpetuating a lie makes you feel better, please continue.

I said it in another thread - Ravens are one of the better run organizations in football. They clearly think highly of Sashi.

I'm not going to rehash what Sashi was brought into Cleveland to do - or how successful he was at collecting draft capital for the person in charge of drafting players to use. Each has their own perspective on those events. Best left in the rear view mirror. Let's focus on the Browns and hope Berry's draft this year is half as good as his draft last year with Newsome and JOK.

I mean I don't know what to tell you. He explained everything he was going to do and was fired during the process. He signed multiple free agents which isn't a "deconstruction." He didn't get to see it thru but his fingerprints are all over this team.

I mean we've spent hours discussing this on the board. No sense in rehashing it. But what you believe isn't a complete view of what was happening here.

No one said you said it. You may or may not have, but there were people saying it. 100%

You can also say their analysis stated those draft classes were potentially weaker vs future years.

What we know is Sashi and his staff was young rookies. They had an unconventional plan. It was either genius or a complete failure.

We can also say Dorsey's drafts were good because they were stronger and it was the plan all along.

We can maybe see Sashi's plan, for a lack of a better word, had some merit. Berry is having success. One of Berry's staff members became GM at Minnesota.

Then again, I am only speculating.

What I'm saying is what happened. If saying that Sashi was a part of the original planning for a tear down and rebuild you are correct. But that's a pretty basic concept. What I'm saying is that he was never here for the rebuild. That means there's nothing on his resume' that indicates he knows how to rebuild or keep an NFL team competitive. The only argument to be made about that are nothing but what ifs. He signed low priced free agents for the most part and sent high priced players out of town. If you think it happened some other way can you explain how our cap space exploded?

We needed high draft picks and multiple draft picks. We needed cap space in order to rebuild. Sashi was instrumental in making that happen. But once again, cutting high priced players isn't complicated. Trading down is a little more complicated. But when you find teams desperate to trade up when you are certainly looking to trade down, that part isn't overly complicated.

That is not even in the same ball park as rebuilding a team.

He does not have rebuilding an NFL team on his resume - or more correctly being part of a FO that did that. But one of the best run teams in the NFL over the last 25 years just chose him to replace their successful President. It might give you pause to rethink your opinion of the guy... or maybe not. I don't care one way or the other. I care about Berry and the Browns.

Yawn.

The fact is we had no choice but to rebuild if we wanted to become relevant. The rebuild was the plan all along. So your contention is that it was Sashi who could see two years into the future as to how strong the draft class would be while these kids were freshmen and sophomores? At least you included statements such as "his staff" and "their analysis". That's probably why some of them are still here.

Once we find out if he can actually do that job well I'll reconsider. So far not even the Ravens know if he can. They certainly believe he can.

So.... one of the best run teams in the NFL has a wildly different perspective on this individual ... and that doesn't make you want to take pause. Only if he's successful will you reconsider your opinion that Sashi is a laughing stock. OK. Being successful with the Ravens will basically mean you hear about him as much as you did Dick Cass. Which is never. So if we don't hear anything about Sashi for a couple years your willing to say you were wrong? Is that about right?

Established organizations that are in place for several years continually have success. NFL Team scouts are looking at kids in high school and college watching their progress. Several years ago I read some interesting articles on NFL scouting wondering what the qualifications were. Some teams' scouting departments are very well structured.

Can they make predictions accurate enough to know two years in advance? I'm going to say "yes" and why not. Good scouting can become a very useful cost-effective tool.

Cleveland is developing this analytical structure. Curious how much of their drafting is analytically based.

Again, I can't say if any of this was created by Sashi. It could have gone exactly how you described it. Seeing how Berry is doing I can only speculate he is carrying out a similar business module Sashi started.

Do you have any idea of the turnover rate in the NFL of HC's and GM's and in the FO? We will see the results of what Sashi is doing on the field. I thought it was me who you claimed twisted everything? I didn't say Sashi couldn't do it or he would fail. I said there is no evidence that supports he can. Huge difference. I'm pretty sure you know that. Or maybe not.

Umm, at this point we can absolutely say which draft classes were stronger.

Exactly. You can apply those characteristics to the future. MLB and NHL work at the high school level. They are lucky to have a farm system to develop future players.

This has nothing to do with Sashi.

It’s not difficult to see the possible projections of players. Peen and I’ve talked about next years QB’s being stronger. Doesn’t mean they will all turn out superstars, but you see the better potential of the overall class or positional class.

Apologies ... being told that it was you with the signature commentating on Sashi I was going off a presumption that you were one of the posters who vilified and laughed at the notion that Sashi was competent and working a plan. If that wasn't you I misunderstood.

You are starting to sound like Hue Jackson.

Oh, this is easy.

As I'm sure you recall, the Browns were mocked and ridiculed for what they were trying to implement under the new DePo/Sashi regime. Sashi didn't simply "stockpile picks". He was trying to help implement a system where the Browns could sustain a good Draft position year over year. They exploited a general League underestimation of the value of future picks. Just about everyone thought the Browns were crazy for attempting such a radical tear down/build up process.

Well, since then we've seen a few teams at least dip their toes in to doing the same thing the Browns did. The Raiders and Dolphins come to mind.

Why did it take so many years you ask? Because it took time for other organizations to see value in the process that he was a part of. It's that simple.

Heck, for all we know the Ravens could have hired him for what he was doing in the NBA and they felt it could have value for them.

I will say I don't want to see Sashi have a whole lot of success in Baltimore for obvious reasons, but he is a skilled individual who will guide the Ravens. It's evident they see him as the person they want at the helm in the Presidents office.

We are 2 decades in to the new century. It is a new era. The game is changing in rapid fashion. If teams want to be relevant, they have to keep pace...and the Ravens have been one of the trend setters for some time. They have been one of the team at the forefront of analytics and player trends and evaluations. They have been at the forefront of the changes in the QB position with not one, but two QB's who would be considered weapons as runners.

Evolve or lose.

I'm happy for him. And he is going to be the president, not the gm, so he's probably not going to make any immediate impact. And I think what he did here is enough to want him to be that President. It sucked for fans, but he transformed the Browns and put us in position to contend.

And you are starting to sound demented. When it actually became time for the Browns to rebuild, Sashi was let go. For some reason it was felt that there were better people for that part of the job. He had no part of the rebuild. So regardless of your one liner that holds zero value, he has never built or maintained a thriving team in the NFL. There's no way to know if that's a job he can accomplish or not. You have nothing to refute that because it's 100% factual.

He's being hired to do a job he's never done before and it's anybodies guess as to whether he has the ability to accomplish it or not.

From a "Running the Business" standpoint, I would bet that Sashi will be fine.. Just don't let him anywhere near the draft....

What you're saying is your version of what you think happened. The rebuilding process began in Sashi's first year. They told us it was a 4-5 yr process.

I get people thinking he was only here to "tear down" a team but that's not accurate. We had the oldest defense in the league and they weren't good. Outside of swapping the entire franchise with another we were going to lose in Sashi's first year. So yeah, getting rid of players was essential. And a few of those players who started that we released never really played again... if that tells you something.

I don't like to get into the specifics of each pick, Sashi had final say but he wasn't the main talent evaluator. A common misconception. Hue was also the one who controlled the QB room. Which has also been documented. Unlike you, I do consider the moves Sashi made as part of the build. Drafting Garrett, Njoku who are still here. Signing guys like Zeitler, and Tretter. Re-signing Bitonio. Why do you not believe these are important pieces of the Browns build? We also had some very good talent added that's no longer here because of regime changes. Ogunjobi is one of the leaders of the Bengals defense. Zeitler was part of a later trade, as was Peppers.

Of our current team, Sashi's fingerprints are all over this thing. To say he wasn't a part of the rebuild is a fallacy and plain ignorance. Maybe you're going to say of yeah, Peppers he wasn't worth blah blah blah, but that's part of the process. They were pretty straight forward with their plan. The more picks you have the better hit rate. They probably could have told you of the 3 1st rd picks, only 1 or 2 were going to be stud(s).

And also to note, "cutting high priced players" is not a easy a you make it seem.

We can speculate for years what hairbrush between Sashi and Hue and why that didn't work out. But when faced with the facts I don't know how anyone can see this any other way. Especially now that he's been hired again by an NFL franchise. That should be the nail in the coffin for all the conspiracy theories.

The end.

I believe he's being hired for pretty much the same position and duties he was hired to have here, so he does have a year+ under his belt.

I don't see how that is. Balt has a GM.

Sashi isn't being hired to be the GM in Baltimore. Believe this was said already.

That's not what he's saying. He's comparing Sashi's job with the rats to his position here, which was defacto GM among other things.

That is a common misconception. Overall, his drafts were at least good...

Except he wasn't hired to be the GM. Which is the point I made.

This is the post I was responding to that I disagreed with. Here in CLE, he had no GM and was the de facto GM. In Balt, he does have a GM, so he gets to float above a lot of the day-to-day.

Ok. Truce. Browns didn't have a GM and he was to help hire one. The main difference is the final say on the roster. I'm sure the Ravens are satisfied with DeCosta as their GM and not looking to displace him at this time. Whether finding a GM is in Sashi's job description with the Ravens remains to be seen. But all the other stuff he was hired to do here, he's been hired to do in Baltimore. That was the point I was making.

Yeah. My post wasn't intended to be so much as a 'gotcha' but more highlighting that the stuff that got him an early exit here is probably not on his plate now. I bet you see his influence in shifting trends regarding their upcoming drafts (ex. capitalizing on other teams devaluing future picks, creative trades, etc).

So more of an analytics role. Now that the Ravens are turning power over to an analytics guy mac will be devastated.

If I could give you 2 likes (agreeing with both points) I would.

My only disagreement would be that Sashi even got an "early exit".

Sashi was gone because his work was done here, according to "the plan".

We had the most draft assets and cap space in the history of the NFL.

Sashi was defacto GM while he was here merely because another "ass in the room" would only serve to complicate the plan.

Sure, he was over his head in the draft department, but his drafts were worlds better than his predecessor.

Obviously there is something about Sashi that has people trust (starting with Haslam) in his ability to thrive in unique circumstances. That's how he went from lead counsel with the Jags to executing in several high-profile roles in two different sports leagues.

pit..I'm already on record concerning the Ravens hiring Sashi Brown and I'm hoping that he can do for the Ravens what he did for my Browns...duplicate his NFL 1-31 record...

He'll need Hue's help, big time.