DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Highsmith and Wolf Are Out

Highsmith is not "Analytics Guy"

Just wonderful.

Highsmith being gone does not surprise me. I thought Wolf may have had a chance to stick around.

I was hoping Highsmith and Wolfe would both stay

This is potentially very risky. I'm with you, I felt like Highsmith was already on the outs regardless of who would be hired but you lose two people that have been working, presumably, on player evalauations, prepping for the combine, draft, etc.

But so has Berry, just for the Eagles. So have the scouts. You're losing the executives/managers of the process.

I going to hope the scouts stick around through the draft and will assume they all know Berry from working with them before. Perhaps this says more about what Berry thought of Wolf and Highsmith than anything else? I wouldn't be suprised if a team would scoop them up pre-draft just like BB did with Lombardi.

j/c...

Interesting. I would not mind Wolf sticking around.

Perhaps he's butthurt that he's not a GM before Berry?

I have no qualms about them leaving. EVERYONE needs to be on the same page. If they have a different philosophy, then it's best they go. Different philosophies has been a staple here, hence the turnover and continuous losing.

I suppose the title of this thread should not include Elliot Wolf at this time.

Thanks, Chris Mortensen!

So much for the scouts staying huh?

Goodness - this is starting to go just like a lot of people anticipated.

So on top of being 32 year old GM, with no experience, having to deal with Kareem, Odell, egos, 1st year HC, pushy owner, starved fanbase, morbid history, 0 culture, having multiple coaching positions to fill, etc. Berry can add having to hire a start at square one with building a scouting department before the draft. . . .

Literally the director of Scouting just left. Lol

"my philosophy on football is different from theirs"

Subtext in my opinion: analytics wins out over football guys. Hope not.

Well we can't have anybody that has SB rings associated with their careers here mucking things up..

Nah, they'll be in Vegas. Depo likes to keep racking up those frequent flier miles.

If that makes you feel better inside.

Depo has a ton of power in the organization. He's the de facto whatever you want to call it. He has Haslam's ear. And while many have Haslam's ear, his voice seems to be the loudest. And since Haslam is the root cause of this steaming pile of mess we all root for, no amount of purple font will help change the reality of the situation. You have a first time GM, first time head coach, and a data guy all reporting to the worst owner in professional sports. Who the hell cares if they're on the same page. They're probably reading the wrong damn book.

There is nothing good about this situation. Alignment is some stupid buzz word the owner came up with so he could hire people that support his every whim. It's so dumb it's astonishing.

All Haslam needs to do is hire good, competent people, respect the chain of command and let them do their jobs. Honor the chain of command when soliciting feedback and get out of the way.

This is going to be a disaster.

You can rack up a lot of frequent flier miles commuting from San diego to Cleveland and back. Over 2000 miles each way.

Well the running theme is that even though Depo has been here since January of 2016, outlasting Sashi, Dorsey and is now headed into his third FO here...... and the fact he is one of only three people that report directly to Haslam along with the HC and GM.... that somehow he isn't an equal part of the latest three headed monster approach of running the Browns. Just ask them.....

I don't think he has day-to-day operational power, but I would definitely agree that in no way is his voice silenced now.

I think his situation is kinda like Shanny's was where he's a smart guy that understands things on a level others don't know is even there, and had a lot of "I told you so's" of how stupidly things were being done and as a result of that, he's just actually getting listened to now.


It's interesting watching this thing take shape, and it's funny to me to watch the "football guy" vs "analytics" debates raging; as if making decisions without as much information as you can gather is ever a good thing, or as if not having guys that can recognize real talent can't coexist with information. It will be interesting to watch how the team brings the two together, and which guys from the old guard are willing to embrace using new tools in their jobs.

There are a few things I'm certain of. People like Haslam don't keep people around that they don't trust and believe. He obviously trusted Depo more than Sashi. Sashi is gone and Depo is here. He obviously trusts Depo more than Dorsey. Depo is here and Dorsey is gone.

This will be the third regime which Depo has been kept. A voice Haslam obviously listens to and has continued to listen to since Jan. of 2016. He is one of the three voices Haslam will be listening to on the same level as both the GM and HC this year under the new system by having equal time in meetings with Haslam.

I'm not making some outlandish claim that Depo is going to be running things. But I'm also not going to act what I feel would be foolishly by pretending he isn't on the same footing as the GM and HC either.

Usually a scouts contract is through the draft. They aren't going anywhere, at least until after the draft. I doubt any quit. That wouldn't be very good for the resume.

I am shocked that the guys that were hired by the previous GM were not retained under a new GM.

You don't have a clue.

I seriously doubt the Browns are paying for him to get to work and back any more then they pay any other employee.

We were told for over a year by some fans that Andrew Berry wasn't a football guy. Will those same fans say the same thing for the next year+ that Berry still isn't a football guy?

Jake has that right.

LOL at the exploding heads.

IMO, Jake sounds like an idiot. That's a mediocre DawgTalkers-level hot take right there.

We went 1-31 with rosters that were precisely constructed and tuned to fail (in order to stockpile ammo to then bring in talent). We go from Kizer et al to Mayfield et al. We go from whoever we have at RB to Chubb and Hunt. We go from Corey Coleman et al to OBJ, Landry etc.

To turn around and say, "see, they didn't acquire talent" is a lot of things... none of which can be construed as intelligent, accurate, etc.

I'm not saying Dorsey was perfect. His selection of Kitchens was egregious, and that alone made him vulnerable to criticism. Some of his picks failed (Corbett). He let Avery walk for less than we used to get him.

But to turn around and say we didn't address talent is absurd. And to hear it from a reputable media person is really disheartening.

He also forgot the last part of that train of thought.

Between DePo having Haslam's ear and re-hiring Berry, we've replaced the previous regime with pieces from the one that put us in that talent quagmire to being with.

I don't have a clue, you said they will retain the scouts, yet the head of the college scouting department was just canned. . . . hmmmm

I didn't really get the point of the Jake Burns post either. It seems like he didn't think it through.

The Jake tweet sounds like it was born out of frustration.
I get tired of the hand-wringing from both sides... and I suppose I should stop adding to it. I'll take some accountability for that.

There are just some things that make my blood boil (irrational and inconsequential as it may be).


I hope the new guys work out. I really do. I think I'm liking Stefanski. I'm not too enthused about bringing Berry back, but there were enough mitigating circumstances from his previous stint (and his previous stint is the entirety of why I don't like him) to at least give him an honest shot. Perhaps he was the "smartest guy in the room" and did have the balls like Shanny did to bust his way out. Who knows.
I'm at least giving each new hire the chance to prove that they belong in their positions.

I agree. No one was complaining about a lack of talent last year.

It was more general incompetence.

The point is we were "right there" and Dorsey failed. With everything he had to work with, he couldn't build a winning team and there are some people who think he did a good job.