DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Plan B---- the replacements

My guess is that we do basically nothing.

Yep, I too believe that. They better just put everything on the back burner right now and focus solely on the draft. They don't make any hits there, then wow. Failures on all sides of the spectrum.

I don't know if it is a failure if we don't sign anyone. I think that was partially their intention (although they did offer below the market contracts to our free agents).

I don't think this is true. We offered more to Mack & Schwartz, they just went else where

I don't know if it is a failure if we don't sign anyone. I think that was partially their intention (although they did offer below the market contracts to our free agents).

I think the point being, they were just in it for the money. Hey, I don't blame them. But we need to start looking at Players who want to be here to help build. And that's going to take awhile.

The replacements?

That was a movie released in 2000 about the NFL players being on strike and teams replacing them with scrubs.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0191397/

Appropriate thread title!

People keep overlooking that. NO NFL contract really means anything other than the guaranteed money. The players know it and the FO knows it. Money ball has begun.....

I guess you missed the movie. lol

The problem is this isn't baseball and stats only tell a fraction of the story. And yes, "finding value" as you call it, is all about money. Something we have TONS of but won't even spend to help retain some of our top talent.

Let's see how money ball works out for you in the NFL.

Analytics must show that teams more often than not regret the free agents signings done in the first 24 hours.

Baseball isn't football but money is money. You're looking for the best value. The sport doesn't matter when you're talking business.

Maybe it's because they balance out how they use it to a far larger extent.

I think the point being, they were just in it for the money. Hey, I don't blame them. But we need to start looking at Players who want to be here to help build. And that's going to take awhile.

Hey bro .. been dying to weigh in on this .. saw u questioning/trying to get on board with it when we first made this hire ... almost posted then ...

here's my question ...

Why was dude hired with ZERO FOOTBALL EXPERIENCE? ... exactly what is his worth to us if it's not money ball? ... please tell me ... what exactly does he bring to the table other than the analytics side of it ...

Early on I was trying to make sense of the whole thing. When I'm faced with something I have no control over I try to understand it rather than rail against it. Complaining can't change it, blind faith is foolish, the attempt to understand it is the first order in forming my opinion. That's what you read from me at that time, grasping at straws trying to understand.

In that quest I tried to find information on Paul DePodesta. I did find a video of him explaining his non-traditional approach. In the video he does not talk about numbers. He talks about the decision making processes.

It's obvious the Browns have been doing it wrong for a long time, even before Haslem. We've missed on so many high draft picks it ain't funny anymore. Something has to change. But what exactly?

In that video I posted the first thing he talks about is what he calls "the naive question" which is: "If we weren't already doing it this way, is this the way we'd start?" In an organization like the Brorwns where so many things have been done so wrong for so long, that question has to asked about every decision making process throughout the entire building.

Right now I think that's what he's brought to the table at this point in time. His title here is Chief Strategy Officer.


"To put the role in a nutshell, the Chief Strategy Officer owns the decision-making processes of the organization. The strategist does not necessarily make strategic decisions, but designs and manages the process by which they are made. The strategist must then align the compendium of all decisions made throughout the organization such that all members understand strategy, and can make operational and tactical decisions in a manner consistent with the organization’s strategy.

Moreover, the strategist ensures that all decisions are made in an information-rich environment. Appropriate competitive intelligence must be gathered and understood by the right people. That’s why DePodesta’s experience as an Analyst is so important for his upcoming job.


As Chief Strategy Officer, DePodesta will own the strategy-making process from end to end. He will evaluate intelligence and make sure the right information is in the right hands. He will guide the process of formulating strategy. He will assist in articulating strategy to the Browns organization so that others can make good decisions. He will ensure that executives know how and when to execute strategic action (that’s why they are called executives!). And he will make sure that the Browns’ leadership learns from experience, reviewing the results of past decisions and tweaking the process so that future decisions are better made. Link


That's a lot to do when you consider the job likely has to start at the top and work it's way down. In the short time he's been here I doubt he's progressed to the point that we lost 4 of our free agents due to his analytic numbers saying it's the right thing to do.


"DePodesta was not hired because of analytics. The immediate assumption when DePodesta was hired was the Browns would be a full-bore analytics team, a "Bill James comes to football" kind of thing. DePodesta and Brown both admitted that is not the case. "Paul is not about analytics," Brown said. They will welcome information from analytics, which will be one tool in judgments, but it's part of what they do and not all of it. DePodesta's role is more global, if you will. His role, Brown said, is about vision and strategy." Link


I used those quotes above because I don't pretend to know exactly what a Chief Strategy Officer does and can't put those quotes into my own words that would explain it more clearly.




Money ball will not work in football the way it works in baseball ... WAY TO MANY VARIABLES in football ... good luck finding USEFUL STATISTICAL COMPARISIONS with all the variables in the "football analytics" ...

I think in the quotes above they dispel the idea that the Browns are out to be a "full-bore analytics team". If you and I know that there are too many variables, and I preach this all the time on here regarding stats, (remember, you taught me), then they know it too. You can spiral down the rabbit hole like Alice into Wonderland if you try to take all the possible variables in football and try to tie them together into something coherent. On top of that, some of the qualities you look for just don't have a number.

I don't think that's at all what they're trying to do. Other teams use analytics too. Before DePodesta got here we already had people working on that because Banner brought it in. Those people will continue to work that angle and the information will be used as one of the tools, not the defining one.



This is just our owner thinking he knows more than anyone else ... thinking he can re-invent the wheel ..

here's what we've seen so far ... and remember the concept were talking about here is FINDING VALUE ...

we've lost 3 very IMPORTANT players on this team and Benji ... everyone of them was OVERPAID ... no doubt ... the reason why they were overpaid ... any one worth a dam is ALWAYS OVERPAID IN FREE AGENCY ... its the nature of the market ...

so we will NEVER FIND VALUE IN FA .... EVER!!!! good luck winning with out ever filling needs with non bottom of the barell FA's ...

Alex Mack was gone and we all knew it. He tried to leave 2 years ago but we screwed him with the tag. Then we told him how much better things were going to be going forward. Then in 2 years we fired another head coach. He took less money to go to a playoff team. You can't blame Mack or this FO for that. They just got here. Mack has been here to wallow in the losing. If I were him I'd have run out of here like my ass was on fire.

We gave Mitchell Schwartz an offer before the combine. He thought he could get more elsewhere so he tested FA. He found he could not get more so he came back but the Browns had taken the offer off the table.

I liken that to you having a car for sale, I offer you $1000. You think you can get more for it so you turn it down. You come back a week later and tell me the best you could get was $700, so you came back to get my $1000. I tell you that ain't gonna happen. Why should I pay you $1000 for a car you can't sell for more than $700?

We made him an offer for more than he signed for. With our offer now off the table that means we'd have had to negotiate another deal. He decided that the difference between his offer from the Chiefs and any new negotiations from us would not be enough to be worth playing on this losing team. The Chiefs lower offer and playing for a contender vs any new offer we'd come up with and playing for a loser. Unless money is the only consideration then it's a no-brainer.

I felt we should have given him the original offer if that's all he wanted. If he wanted more because we suck, then no.

I think Gipson should have already been signed and Farmer screwed that up. That left a lot of bad blood for this FO to deal with. Why we didn't sign him this time I don't know.

I feel both Schwartz and Gipson should have been signed by Farmer. Since he didn't we found ourselves here. With another head coach/GM firing I could see it being hard to negotiate with any player.




OK ... now some are going to say u win by building through the draft ... Hi Vers ... ... and I agree with Vers .. that is how u win ... problem is ... with the VALUE BASED signing method we will NOT KEEP OUR OWN unless there willing to take home count discounts ... I mean why would anyone not opt to go kick the tires when they fulfill there rookie contracts or any other contract for that matter .. and once they kick the tire .. THERE GONE cause we won't pay for them ...

I'm willing to see what they do next year with our FAs. I feel a lot of what happened this time around is due far more to the constant changes and losing than to any "Value Based System" the new FO uses. We'll see.

this is just another bonehead move by our owner ... I'm not even sure i'll watch til he proves me wrong or sells the team .. I watched maybe 25% of our games last year ... I can't remember the last time that % was under 75 or 80% ....

ITS NOT FUN WATCHING US GET OUR ASS KICKED WEEK IN AND WEEK OUT ... I'm an old man .. I only have so many seconds, minutes, hours left ... and I sure as hell ain't going to spend them watching CRAP!!!!!

It kicks my ass too. I schedule every Sunday around the game only to walk away depressed. That's wears on an old man. Hell, after the beginning of '14 I thought I just might live long enough to see the Browns in a Superbowl. Now, I'm not so certain.

Moneyball may not work out the way I think it is .. but very very very early in the process the results are pointing in that direction ...

How do u let 2/5's of your OL walk ... and it was 2 very very good football players .... that sends up some very very bad signs!!!!!!!

and please explain to me if this is a re-build and not a money ball thing ... WHY IS JOE THOMAS STILL HERE? .. IF IT WERE A RE-BUILD WOULD WE NOT BE GETTING a kings ransom for one of the top LT's in football who is winding down his career ...

Dang Bro, you sure are asking me to explain a lot of things to you knowing I don't know crap. I've been thinking now that we've lost two of our best OL, and even though Joe Thomas and Sashi Brown had a talk and they decided he would stay here, I won't be surprised if they talk again and Joe agrees to a trade. It would round things out and make for an absolutely lovely off-season.

and I use the term re-build very very very very loosely ... cause that term assumes there was something to tear down in order to re-build ... we haven't been in that position since our return in 99 ...

WE HAVE NEVER RE-BUILT CAUSE WE HAVE NOT HAD A STRUCTURE WORTH TEARING DOWN SINCE OUR RETURN!!!!!

ddubia - Thanks for taking the time to type all of that out. Especially those quotes. Very interesting.

Diam - glad to see you back