DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Evaluating John Dorsey as CLE GM

So when Dorsey said “I flexed my muscle and got the guy I wanted” he was:

a. Parroting the corporate pr release.

b. Saying how it would work in a perfect world.

c. Telling it exactly how it was.

Hue Jackson is in the lake.

And hopefully Haslam is exiting the swamp.

Ugh ... have to say - seeing Fells play for Houston and doing so well, and knowing what hot garbage we had at TE this year .... it does piss me off.

hope you meant TE. While Mayfield was not great, hot garbage is a little much, me thinks.

Hot garbage is over board ..... but Bake was the reason Njoku was rendered useless ...

I did mean TE. Baker wasn't good either - but he wasn't as bad as our TE's.

Baker's throw certainly put Njoku in harms way .... but that doesn't deflect from one area of talent evaluation Dorsey did a horrible job with.

I think if you looked at how we ranked at both the TE and QB position in 2019, you'd find those rankings to be pretty close.

Maybe.

But we had a QB who was one of the top 12? 15? in the NFL in his rookie season. Every reason to have faith in him before the start of the 2019 season...... The TE's? went from at least an average group of performers in 2018 to crapolla in 2019.

If Baker is a bust - D+

If baker is a bust it’s an f

All the way. You miss on the first overall pick and you fail. It's pretty simple.

ESpecially with it benign a quarterback

Can’t mess that up

He got us OBJ and VG...LOL!

Agreed

Dorsey failed to get the Browns into the playoffs
And he failed to get rid of the Browns perception
Around the league
He was by far the Browns best GM since Butch Davis but that's not saying much
Every GM has failed flopped in Cleveland
Theres no argument in that.

Being the best GM we've had in years isn't saying much.

And I would argue against Dorsey being the best.

I would be surprised if he ever became GM again.

I still say Phil was the best (change my mind )

I would vote Phil as well.

You might be right, but I wouldn't be confident betting either way.

I'll repeat what I said earlier. It was Dorsey's coaching hire that opened him up for criticism and made him vulnerable. Haslam approached him with a reduced role, because Kitchens had to go, and there's no way I'm giving Dorsey another shot at HC decision (whether it's retaining Kitchens or trying to hire the next guy). Dorsey wouldn't accept a reduced role, and here we are. Believable situation, and I don't really blame anyone involved (even Dorsey, to a degree). I wouldn't want to be even more under Haslam's thumb and in line with other execs in the org (like DePo and the new coach).

It sucks, but I get why we're down both a coach and a GM.

This is very well true. A better HC hire and a playoff birth and Dorsey may still be here. Aside from some player acquisitions, the actual GMing Dorsey did was pretty bad.

With a playoff berth I don't see how anyone could make an argument to give him the boot.

Last season wasn't just bad, it was monumentally bad. In spite of our issues throughout the season, we still had the opportunity to squeak in to a wild card spot the last couple weeks. The teams we needed to lose, lost... all we had to do was play competent football. The universe was practically trying to force feed us a play off berth! The Browns were a fussy 2 year old.. every time the playoff baby food airplane was coming in to the hangar, they'd spit it out, clench their jaws, and flip the whole baby tray!

Dorsey is out for two reasons. His hand selected pick of Freddie as head coach and his inability to swallow a little pride and allow Depo, a nerd in Dorseys eyes, lead the coaching search.

Sorry John, Haslam gave you the magic wand, and you come up with Freddie Kitchens as your head coach?


I like Freddie. I think he is a grinder, and works hard. He just isn't a head coach in the NFL.


There is nothing wrong with being a good assistant coach. Most everybody here would take that job and that pay.

The more I look at this roster, the more doubts I have now about King Johnny.

Baker looks like he could still be a bust.

He was right on the money with Nick.

He hired the worst head coach in NFL history and that's saying something.

Zeitler and Peppers look a lot better than OBJ and Vernon right now.

He didn't hire Hue

Hue didn't have the talent Freddie did.

Zeitler, Vernon, the 16th pick, and a 4th.

Freddie also had more wins in his first 4 games than Hue did in his first 34.

NFL talent disparities aren't as big as people make them out to be. There are what, 200+ college programs feeding 32 NFL teams? Even fringe NFL players are very good football players, and that 2017 team had a lot more "real" players than some want to admit. We can list them if anybody is interested.

Now, that being said, Freddie clearly had a better team to work with, so how people want to sort that out is anybody's guess. I'll take the guy who won 6 games his first season and then didn't even have the chance to show improvement in season two, over the guy who won 1 game his first season and then had to cash in his promise to jump into Lake Erie because he did worse in his second season. Good riddance.

It makes me aggravated just thinking about it. The Browns are a historic franchise in professional football and to seeing them reduced to that... arrgh.

Anyway, about Dorsey:

I think the book is still not fully written yet. He's been gone what, a couple weeks? We still don't fully know how a lot of the young players he brought in are going to work out. Consider the old rule that you can't really evaluate a draft class until three years later.

There's also the issue of what he brought in vs. what he had to work with (i.e. a lot). Draft picks and cap space are the currency teams use to bring in players and we were stocked with both. Reverse draft order (e.g. picking first in every round in 2018) helps a lot as well.

Comparing the talent brought in when teams are in asset accumulation mode vs asset spending mode always looks different. Same reason why Chris Grant never gets the credit he deserves for that 4 year Cavs run-- he is the one who accumulated all the assets that were later spent by another GM.

It's just another factor to consider. I'm not necessarily saying it means JD did a bad job as the list of names he brought in does appear to be impressive. Which brings up my last point in this rambling mess of a post-- remember that you're building a team, not just collecting talent. I believe that Dorsey was not mindful enough about the "building a team" aspect and that reared its ugly head week 1 vs the Titans and didn't get much better after that. Or maybe you put that all on Freddie... ok, that was Dorsey's pick for head coach and he flexed his muscles to make it happen. Either way, it's on Dorsey.

Agreed. Although, in the end, I still don't think it will look good. I'm interested to see the trajectory especially for Greedy and Mack Wilson.



Clearly, that is tough for a few people on here to understand.

[satire] Well of course it is. [/satire]

No .. Hue was 8 - 8 with the Raiders

I don't have much issue with Dorsey's drafts...there are a few picks I'm sure he'd rather get back...it happens. He did well...but he should have done well with the # of picks at his disposal- and the slot those picks were in in each round.

Outside of the draft? My my my. I think he completely failed at O-line, TE and D-line. He removed from the team good football players and replaced them with guys like D Harris and Kush (I'll give him credit for the chance taken on Richardson)...then made moves like paying TJ Carrie a boatload of money because he just traded McCourty - for not liking JD's stupid comment about "real football players". His "real football players" comment was as ignorant as Freddie wearing the "Pit started it" T-shirt.

So...the guy did well with the bounty of picks he inherited...punted too much of the talent already on the roster at his arrival...and failed to replace those "not real football players" with guys who were any better...and had many of those replacements turn out to be worse...while burning some valuable cap...and then the Freddie hire and management duties of a complete GM. He didn't "leave" just because of the Freddie hire.

I'd give him a C-...which rounded up for the curve in the Browns-history-of-GM-performance...gets him to a B- (not saying much there). If he wasn't gifted the 2nd additional pick in Rds 1 & 2 - resulting in Ward and Chubb - he'd be a solid D...and his choice of Corbett over Chubb et al just might have been a career-ender.

His 3 worst moves

#! - Hiring Freddie Kitchens instead of retaining Gregg Williams. Williams had the franchise moving in the right direction. They played tough, disciplined, hard nosed football. Kitchens as OC allowed Baker to flourish as QB.

#2 - Trading Kevin Zeitler for Olivier Vernon was a horrible trade. Zeitler was the Browns best Offensive lineman that helped to solidify an OLine with weak Tackles. Vernon was an absolute bust. He did next to nothing. Team would have been much better off keeping Emmanual Ogbah at DEnd opposite Garrett. Vernon disappeared in games he played in and was injury prone. Terrible trade.

#2 Drafted Austin Corbett at the top of the 2nd round #33 overall. Will Hernandez was taken 1 pick later and started all 16 games last season for the NY Giants.

Cutting Jamie Collins and not getting anything in return was pretty bad too. But I can't argue with your top 3, especially when the Corbett decision came over Nick Chubb taken two picks later. Imagine not having that extra pick.

Thanks, Brock Osweiler.

Thanks for validating my post even more.

Yeah, it sucks we missed out on Chubb. No, wait, Dorsey drafted Chubb.

No one is saying we missed out on Chubb, obviously.

Imagine not having that extra pick. Imagine not having all those extra picks and Dorsey drafting zero pro bowlers trying to build a team.

King John, baby...Let's GOOOOOoooooo

Why would you direct Diams go to line towards me? Here is your comment.....



How do you know he wouldn't have selected Chubb if he had only of had one pick there?

You see, part of the draft process is to be able to understand what the other teams plan to do with their picks. Evaluating that Chubb would still be there when our next piack came around is part of that process.

Already knowing you had that other pick is part of that process.

Imagine what might have happened if the powers that be before Dorsey came actually tried building a team instead of ripping it to shreds while compiling draft picks?

I mean if you wish to play the "what if" game.