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

Except it is true Mac....you don't listen. Moneyball doesn't apply because in baseball, teams can spend what they want. Some like the Yankees can spend as much as they want. Teams like the A's or Indians don't have unlimited funds. They have to make their money count.

In the NFL, you have a salary cap and a minimum as average over 3-4 seasons. That minimum might be close to 90%. Every tam has to spend the money.

Depo isn't trying to do things cheaper as he did in baseball because they had to do it that way. He is simply applying the same things he did in baseball to help us find better players, or call better plays, or give us a better idea of knowing what other teams run in various situations.

Because you gave a prime example of what's so wrong with debate these days. Just because someone gives examples of how things could work out the opposite way you are presenting them, you make dumb comments like "they're unhinged".

I have said all along that they have a chance to succeed. I've actually never said anything contrary to that. But we have quite a few who seem to object and often times deny there is any validity in the opposing opinions of how many things that can go wrong. Of obvious factors that could turn this into a disaster. And you call those with an opposing opinion unhinged?

Mmmmm hmmmm.

Seems valid to me, Peen.

Just a little different slant to consider. I welcome more analytics if it only does one thing: Makes us stop doing the crap that gets us beat; our losses seemed so similar, so deja vu, and some of that was more of the same. We didn't seem to learn from a loss. One of the first rules of triage is first, stop the bleeding. The things that beat you don't have to be the biggest things, littler stuff will do.

Avoiding the same mistakes seem valid to me at every level.

j/c...

Update...

Update to the update...

Good for them. I'm glad they are apparently landing on their feet.

Looks like the Seahawks are getting the package deal, too.


I know that they're paid just fine and everything, but I do always feel a little sad when people get swept up in FO changes. By all accounts, these 2 guys are tops in their field, but that doesn't mean diddly when their boss gets tossed and the new boss is on their way in. Again, not much sympathy for people that are getting paid out the nose (and still getting paid by us now), but a little sympathy.

Good to hear egis. Best of luck to them.

The Seahawks are a model franchise and just hired two guys the Browns didn't want. LOL

I think the Browns wanted Wolf to stay from what I understand.

The Browns didn't want them? Can't find anything that ways the Browns didn't want them.
And two years before, the Browns, a craptastic franchise, hired the same two employees from a model franchise in Green Bay. Also, nothing that says the Packers didn't want them.

Weird.

I agree. Both have their talents. I don't like to see anybody left high and dry.

It's that way in almost any business. You know that, and you didn't berate anybody. When the person at the top leaves for whatever reason, the new person has those on his or her coattails. Not to mention we may have offered a position to both. Maybe the same positions, I will stipulate to you they not have been. We don't know.

It's been that way for centuries. At least we don't chop off heads anymore....well...at least in a civilized society.

I like Rish. He has been acting weird lately. Give him a pass.

I think we would have kept both, but for the same reasons Berry left, they left.

It's how it works. Both are talented guys who have worked in the FO for a long time. They want upward mobility. They want to be GM's.

In any business, if you are passed over without a interview, it is time to go. That isn't bad on you or them.

It is what it is.

Are you seriously saying with the regime change the Browns wanted to keep those two from the previous regime? Really?

If the Browns wanted them to be here, they would be here. Unless of course they were fed up with Haslam's house of rotating cards.

You'll probably know better than I and I'm probably wrong, but weren't those two here before Dorsey? If they were then that means they weren't really married to "that regime".

They were both hired right after Dorsey.

GOtcha, thanks!

They also employed Ryan Grigson for the last two years.

My point is a bigger one.

Dorsey, Wolf, and Highsmith were an accomplished, experienced, well thought of trio. Haslam could have and should have rolled with them but that would have meant the end of Depo. Instead he chose Depo, Stefanski, and Berry...a collection of inexperience in all positions.

I think that was a foolish choice and that this won't end well.

So its better that they didn’t want anything to do with this org ...

Weird.

No. It's the "facts of life" of the NFL. It's like musical chairs when you were in kindergarten, but tens times busier.

All that experience and they did a crap job. Apparently experience isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Other than Freddie, what's the crap job they did?

Depends who you ask around here...

Do you believe they missed on the #1 pick or is Baker a franchise quarterback?
Ward and Chubb are fine.
I believe Corbett, Chad Thomas, Callaway, Genard Avery were all poor selections. Most of the 2018 draft is no longer here.

They weakened the offensive line as opposed to strengthening it.
Trading away Zeitler and Peppers created holes that were not filled.
A 3rd rd pick for Tyrod Taylor.

Oh yeah, and Landry is overpaid.

It was a constant staple in my criticism of Dorsey, he didn't have a plan, he just added a collection of players without having any real direction. Perhaps it would have been great if he stays here as a lead scout or something, but putting him in charge of running a franchise, no thanks. We were heading for disaster.

If a person thinks Baker is a bust then John Dorsey is/was a colossal failure.

That's my biggest issue with Dorsey (and personally, I wanted to keep him). His two biggest decisions were to get the right QB in a draft where he could get his first choice, and to get get the Head Coach pick right. He failed miserably at picking the head coach and depending on who you talk to, potentially drafted a dud in Mayfield.

If you don't blame Dorsey, then who do you blame? Most people point to either the coach, the QB or the O-line, and Dorsey had direct influence over what happened to all those positions.

j/c:

The Browns had the worst roster in the league when Dorsey took over. In two short years, the roster improved dramatically. Guys who have played and coached the game talked about how talented that roster was on national tv and in national publications. They are not Brown's homers who emphatically supports one regime and hates on another. They are more objective than we are.

What kills me is people act like two years are all a guy needs to complete the job. The Browns lost 31 games in two years under the previous regime. They lost 13 fewer in the two years Dorsey, Highsmith, and Wolf were here. Not sure how anyone can take a stance that says that they couldn't have kept improving the roster?

Those of us who are supporting Dorsey are not saying he was perfect. We are saying he did not deserve to be fired. We are also saying that replacing him w/the same group of guys who were epic failures is mind-boggling.

Btw------I don't think too many people are calling Baker a bust. I know I'm not. I questioned the pick mostly due to his personality. I also didn't agree w/folks who anointed him as a great qb. I consistently stated that a lot of qbs fall off in their second year. I think this is a huge year for Baker. I think he has the talent, but I have strong questions about his attitude and temperament.

Yet that's all Sashi was given and it was presented that things would get worse before they got better by design at the time of his hire. Plus, he was handcuffed to Hue when the coaching search committee wanted McDermott. Your hypocrisy is ironic.



I don't think anyone has claimed that he wouldn't add talent. The problem isn't adding talent. The problem was lack of a coherent plan for utilizing the talent and general organizational disfunction which he was a major contributor to.

Dorsey got the benefit of Sashi's plan without any of its downside (Sashi only got the downside and a coach he didn't want), but he managed to make his own problems despite more talent at his disposal and being able to add his choice of coaches. Dorsey's problems weren't going away. He's a steamroller, not a work with-er.

Yes, Dorsey used our collected assets to buy a bunch of Dynamite to get the mountain out of our way, but he left a giant mess and sprayed shrapnel every where while he was at it. Now we need some engineers to clean up the mess and construct the best route to where we want to go utilizing the materials at hand.

"Isn't it ironic....don't you think?"



You seriously cannot make this stuff up.

j/c


I see this a lot: Dorsey needed more than 2 years to "fix" the roster. While I agree we need to pick a lane and stay in it, the roster Dorsey inherited wasn't "broken." It was also year 3 and 4 of fixing an actual broken roster.

Some of Dorsey's moves were unnecessary. I mean sure OBJ is the most talented WR on the roster, but was he necessary? I remember myself and one other saying we didn't need him. I also don't think we needed Vernon. We added two very talented players, sure. We also gave up 2 talented players, Peppers and Zeitler and neither were replaced with "better" assets.

It may have been Dorsey's first or second year, but it was year 3 and 4 of the rebuild. We didn't need an overhaul. We needed someone with a keen eye for talent to grab us some much needed top tier talent. Yes, he brought us some talent. But some of it came at a price.

I liken our situation to the Eagles. They had what we did in the front office in Howie Roseman. Then they hired Chip Kelly, he made a lot of "unnecessary" lateral moves, including moving on from Foles for Bradford and McCoy for Demarco Murray. They regressed and Chip was fired. They went back to Howie and hired a first time head coach and a short time later the Eagles won the Super Bowl.

Folks, we're going to be alright. When we win the Super Bowl in couple years will anyone care that Dorsey, Highsmith, and Wolf weren't here?

No, OBJ wasn't necessary. Corey Coleman, Ricardo Louis, Jordan Payton and Rashard Higgins were necessary.

OBJ gave us 4 TDs. Higgins has done the same in a season.

Higgins didn't cost us a 1st round pick, players, and a hefty contract.

We didn't pick Coleman in a vacuum. We also got more picks with the trade down. Coleman hardly played with the QB we drafted him to play with.

OBJ came into a team with high expectations. Coleman came into a team heading for rock bottom. CC still only had one less TD than OBJ his rookie season which he spent mainly with Kessler as the guy throwing him passes and he didn't have Landry to draw attention away from him.

We spent more on OBJ than those four guys combined.

OBJ could still work out fine for us, but I'm not sure what argument you are trying to make with that post.

This is why this place is beyond stupid ...

OBJ played hurt all year ... he had no explosion and that’s a major part of his value ...

Yet U who used to know better tries to compare that acquisition based off this years results to what Higgs cost us based off his career results ...

That’s beyond having an agenda .... its ignorant ...

Then u talk about the CC pick being in a vacuum cause we got other picks ... that makes even less sense than the OBJ/Higgs portion of your post ... its actually not factually true ...

When we picked CC we ALL READY HAD THE EXTRA PICKS ... the CC pick had ZERO TO DO WITH US GETTING EXTRA PICKS .. the argument there would be passing on Wentz got us extra picks ...

And one of your fellow sashiettes liked your post ...

Let me guess ... u also believe that VG IS OVERPAID ...

Why are you trying to compare one of the top WR's in the NFL who played with a sports hernia the entire year to a healthy WR?

And for some reason I thought actual reception yardage were valuable as well. Maybe I'm missing something?

You keep looking at this so myopically. It was the worst roster, but it was also the worst roster with a plan for it to get better. Dorsey had the most cap space, most draft capital and youngest roster core of any other GM. How could he NOT improve the roster? Quit acting like Year 1 of Sashi's teardown is in any way relate-able to Dorsey's Year 1 of the buildup. They are vastly different situations. You don't go into a construction project and call the Demolition crew garbage because the house looked terrible on Day 1 and 2, but looked so much better on Day 3 and 4, when the construction crew started putting things together.


Okay fine, I agree with this. I think they are talented too, and Dorsey did a pretty good job of amassing talent. But please answer me this: Why were we so bad then? Was it the coaching? The Oline? Baker? We had all this talent, yet we regressed have less wins than an interim head coach? What was the problem? And who made the changes that caused that problem?


But he wasn't fired. He quit. Like I was saying in my above post. His two biggest jobs were to nail the QB pick and to nail the HC hire. He failed terribly in at least one of those ventures. But rather than admit a mistake or look to correct it, he appeared to just double-down on it to the point where all the talent on the team basically quit the final couple weeks of the season. Then when it's insisted that he take some help for the hiring of a new coach, since he whiffed so terribly on the last choice, he quit himself.



Which is funny and ironic, because just one paragraph ago you said:



I wish they would have stuck with Dorsey and company another few years, but he did quit. I was hoping they would retain Highsmith and Wolf as well but I think they wanted different situations as well. I was also hoping they would stick with the original regime as well for more than 2 years. Especially when they told him beforehand, "Look, this is a 5+ year plan and the first few years are going to be rough"



I agree with you here as well. It's funny that you mention his temperament though, because I saw similarities between him, Freddie and even Dorsey. I felt all three of them displayed a bit of arrogance last season, like they could do no wrong, and didn't need to change anything, and it came back to bite us.

What I am still asking, and have not gotten a good answer for is, why didn't Dorsey try to take control of the situation, call Freddie in and tell him that obviously him calling plays was not working, perhaps he had too much on his plate? Why wasn't Freddie told to allow the Monken to call plays? To me, this is a failure to supervise and is every bit as big of a failure as choosing the wrong coach in the first place.

I was comparing the two sides because you put them in consecutive sentences in the post I was replying to.

Coleman actually missed six games his rookie season.

OBJ got most of his yards and TDs in the 4th quarter of blowouts. OBJ situational stats link

Coleman also had about half the targets (133-73 on pro-football-reference.com) and as I mentioned earlier they were from Kessler rather than Baker.

But, again, the only reason I posted about the two groups is because you posted a flippant 2 sentence post with them next to each other and nothing else. OBJ is clearly the better receiver, but strictly based on their contributions to the Browns compared to the cost OBJ doesn't look that great. Admittedly the injury played into it. Dorsey's guy wasn't the only one that had to deal with injuries though. Sashi lost the most important player on the team (starting QB), and his backup, the first few weeks of his first season.

Because Dorsey and Freddie were tied at the hip.

Because Dorsey desperately needed to be right on Freddie to one up Depo.

Because Haslam creates a culture where one upping your coworkers is more important than doing what is best for the Browns.

That was actually only one season of Higgins stats (2018) that I referenced. I purposely didn't go with career since OBJ only has the one season with the Browns.

The vacuum I was referring to was the team around the players. The picks were a separate idea, not a "cause."

VG might be a little "overpaid", but I'm not complaining about it. He was probably Dorsey's best move with Chubb a close second.

Was it a strange comparison? Sure, but it was in response to a strange, vague post that appeared to be intended as a shot at the Sashi stint (2 years isn't long enough to call an era) FO.

To me, if Freddie had been called in and told to allow Monken to call plays, and it worked, it would have saved EVERYONE'S job. If it didn't work, Dorsey could have pointed at it and said, "I even tried to give him guidance during the season, it just didn't work out," and it would have saved Dorsey's job. Once again, failure to supervise, and that is on Dorsey.