DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum ...Depodesta inherits a 2018/19 team averaging 6.5 wins per year, the 2020 goal, THE PLAYOFFS!

So their plan was to draft poorly to tank?

I would assume they would have liked to draft better. Obviously. But playing as many young guys as we did we weren't win many games no matter what.

Well 1 out of 32 isn't much. Mission accomplished....... I guess. If one actually believes that was the goal.

I don't see how anyone can look at the evidence and conclude that they weren't tanking.

I'm pretty sure if anyone spent the time combing through past threads, they would see several posts where many here laid out what they thought the 4 year plan was after the first season confirmed we were tearing it down.

You do realize almost anyone can run a crappy draft, trade down in the draft, cut salary and win 1 game out of 32 games, right? You don't need much talent in the building to accomplish that.

Almost anyone can do that. We didn't get to see the hard part. Now we do (except without all the assets the easy part accumulated).

You may want to go and look up what a coupe actually is there fella. Dorsey was the one who refused to work within the structure he agreed to when hired. Dorsey was the one who attempted the power grab. Dorsey's coup ultimately failed and with his departure simply allowed DePo to step back in to the position Dorsey tried to move him out of.

I certainly hope Stefanski can take control of the football side too. There's no one standing in his way.

I think it's hilarious you think they did poorly in the draft on purpose.

I literally said the opposite.

No, but you do need a specific plan to accomplish that. If you look at the first 2 drafts under Sashi, there was a clear and consistent theme to those drafts in terms of the players they did get.

It's coup not coupe. Not replying to you but to the person who suggested it was a coup. Then again, maybe he did intend it to be coupe like coupe de ville.

You do understand that you sound like you believe in a conspiracy theory, right? They were tanking on purpose while at the same time trying to build the team through the draft.

I know in their first draft the consistent theme seemed to be drafting crappy WR's.

Teams that play as many young players as we were playing don't win the in the NFL.

Also, cutting/not re-signing veterans, trading down, taking on bad contracts to accumulate assets, etc. These are all things teams do in other sports when they are tanking.

Year 1 - accumulate assets - trade down, get WR (CC sucked but he was arguably the highest rated WR in the draft that year).
Year 2 - # 1 pick - Garrett, Trade back (Peppers and next year 1st - see Ward, Denzel), Njoku.

Build OL - see Tretter and Zeitler

Year 3 - #1 pick - Get franchise QB.

Seems like plan was fine - not hard to see that Tanking was the plan. Bad first year draft. Year 2 better, Year 3 - never will know.

We'll never know because Haslam knew what they could do and what they couldn't do.

Since when does Haslam know anything?

not hard to see, at all.

The goal wasn't to lose, but it wasn't to win, either.
The goal was to accumulate assets and clear salary space in those first couple of years.... gut the structure to its foundation.. and then in year 3 and on to begin to build.

Win/Lose were were "nice to think about" after-the-facts. You WANT to win, but it wasn't the overarching goal for everything, it was an afterthought -- you stick to the plan of acquiring assets first, second, and last during that teardown phase and then do the best you can with what you have. We did exactly that and because of it Dorsey came strutting in and inherited the best possible situation any GM could hope for. He had stupid amounts of money to work with and an embarrassment of riches in draft capital.

Now, the guys that created that plan are going to get to see it through. Hopefully, they draft better than they did with the WRs - I recall their way of thinking was "If we take a lot of them, we have a better chance of finding one of them". That doesn't reassure me completely, but the rest of their plan has been very sound (albeit frustrating for much of the journey thus far).

j/c:

There was no doubt that the Browns were tanking.

What slays me is that people think that "tanking" in the NFL is a good idea. Seemingly, not one of you can see that football is vastly different from baseball and basketball due to the number of games played each season and the time between each games.

Entrenching a losing culture has long-range negative effects. I have played and coached this game and I'm telling you that the culture you develop on a football team is HUGE.

There are all kinds of folks who trash Dorsey on this board and said he didn't win enough games. He acquired the talent, but overcoming the losing culture takes time. The team improved under him, but it was a process. You can't just go from losing every game to knowing how to learn.

And that is something that I don't think anyone else "gets" on this board. At least that is the impression I get because folks keep beating the "they were tanking" drum, as if it were a good excuse. Tanking is DUMB in football!!!

... wouldn't tanking for more games over a longer period of time be worse on a culture, if anything? More time to develop bad habits. More time for depression to set in.

Tanking sucks. When you've been doing it without trying for a decade, you might as well do it intentionally and build up assets to get the team out of the well worn rut.

At least with putting a time on it, there was light at the end of a tunnel instead of false hope and a never ending tunnel.

Without the extra assets Dorsey wouldn't have been able to add all the talent that he did.

Stop and think about it. Please.

Both regimes did both good and bad things. Dorsey got a bunch of benefit from their suffering.

I will say that I respectfully disagree and here's why ...


I'm not sure why that would make a difference. As you're still talking about tanking over the course of an entire season. If anything, I would think that losing over the course of 82 games or 162 games would actually be more demoralizing as you're dealing with the losing on a near daily basis. I get that the sports are different, but losing is losing.



I do partially agree with this, but I think this ultimately comes down to coaching. There's a difference between losing and just being okay with it, and losing and trying to still establish goals and benchmarks to try and achieve outside of the actual win/loss column.

When people hear the word "Tanking", I feel like they think the coaches are going out there and telling them to intentionally lose games, and that should never, ever be the case. If that's going on, the coaches should be fired immediately.

Most of these "Tanking" scenarios are the front office essentially putting the team behind the 8 ball for a season or two, while they conduct a strategic rebuild. The coaches and players should still be trying 100% to win, and I feel it's up to the coaches to find smaller, more obtainable goals for players to aim for, to keep them motivated and engaged. I know people think that "moral victory" is a dirty word, but for teams that don't have the talent yet to really compete, that's just the thing they should be striving for.

I remember Ray Lewis or someone saying that when he came into the League, their team was terrible. And the coaches, knowing this, told all the players to focus on doing their individual jobs, and setting individual goals. So that's what they aimed for, rather than win/loss. It kept them motivated and engaged, even if they were ultimately losing. It wasn't telling them, "Oh we lost, who cares", it was "Did you reach your goal? Good, keep at it because the wins will come later when we bring in more people." It's about generating a winning culture, even when you can't ultimately win games yet.

Okay, I will respond.



I think it makes a difference because winning 0, 1, or 2 games in an entire season is devastating. The Tigers had the worst record in MLB and won 47 games. The Oriels won 54. Marlins won 58. Not sure how you feel about math, but how does 47 and 114 compare to 0 and 16 or 1 and 15?

Let's look at the NBA. We both love the Cavs. I think they are something like 16 and 41. They stink. How does that compare to 1 and 31?

I am not asking you to accept this, but I coaches football, basketball, and baseball at various times during my coaching career and there is nothing like losing games in football as there is in those other two sports. I can't speak to hockey or soccer because I never coached them. It's just different.



Coaches never try to lose. Neither do players. I know y'all hate Hue and blame him for everything, but Joe Thomas and others repeatedly said what a great job he did of keeping the team focused and trying to win despite what was going on in the FO.

I don't want this to turn into a Hue argument. He's gone. I accepted it and so has every other Hue supporter. We are not crying to bring him back. He's gone and that's fine.

What I am saying is that when your HC and DC comes out and praises how important Joe Haden is to the team and the FO cuts him about a week later.....you are sending a horrible message to the team. Joe Thomas spoke about how so many young guys looked up to Haden and how the coaches lauded him and then the FO cuts him to save some money right before the season...........it's devastating to the "culture" of the team.

Additionally, Wylie's comments about the FO were very revealing. There was a distrust between the two factions of the organization.

In my opinion, the rift between the FO and the coaching staff was huge. It is also my opinion that the FO's disdain w/the Hue hire adversely affected how they dealt w/him. I do think he tried to cover for them w/comments like "Trust me," but I think ultimately that separation of philosophies did the Browns in.

And again, I don't expect you to agree w/me. But perhaps, we can keep it civil and leave out the namecalling and personal attacks.

After signing a multi year extension with the Browns, Haden played 18 games in 2 years. He was due 11+ million the following year. The Browns asked him to restructure his contract, but Haden said no, he'd rather be released. The Browns also tried to trade him, but apparently there were no takers.

His replacement that season, McCourty, was and is better than Haden.

John Dorsey arrives and calls out the lack of real players. McCourty was disgruntled with those comments.

McCourty was traded along with a 7th rd pick for a 6th rd pick.

Nary a peep about how the General Manager calling all the players "not real" being detrimental to the culture of the franchise.

Imagine if we keep McCourty, draft Bradley Chubb instead of Ward and we don't trade away Zeitler for Vernon...

I disagree. Haden is better than McCourty and has done a pretty good job in Pittsburgh.

Releasing him was a mistake. It certainly didn’t improve the team. He was a team leader, and it sent the wrong message.


I wish Joe never left.

McCourty was better than Haden's final 2 seasons in Cleveland. And there were some folks disgruntled that Haden "quit" on the team his final season.

He wasn't worth the price tag.

I can't argue with you about Jimmy as I am not a fan of his, and he has proven he can't keep his nose out. I don't really even disagree with you when it comes to Berry or Ski. Where I have butting heads with you is Over Depo who will not, is not, and has not interfered or been in charge of Football moves.

I believe you, bro.

But, what does he do to earn such a big salary?

Are you saying he has no influence? Are you saying he was a fan of Dorsey? Are you saying he wasn't one of the guys who did not want Hue? Are you saying he wasn't on the Stefanski train last year?

Hell, if he has no ties to any of those things........why is he being paid so much to live in sunny San Diego?

I don't agree w/mac, but some things aren't adding up.

His job is Chief Strategy Officer.



Not when it comes to Football decisions like drafting players, trading for players, signing players, etc, etc, etc, In other words not when it comes to what is going on between the goal lines.



He never said anything bad about Dorsey as far as I know.



I'm saying he didn't talk about Hue as that was not his decision to make, so he could have loved him, hated him, or been indifferent about him.



When he was asked his opinion he did say he would have hired Ski last year.



How big is his salary?????? I don't know do you? It may be in the 2 to 3 million per year range but I can't say for sure.



He is being paid so much because he is the CSO. Why are the Browns paying Mike Mossholder, Renee Harvey, Peter John-Baptiste, Mike Nikolaus, Katie Murphy, Will Black, and 100 more folks so much? Because their is so much more to a NFL team than just what goes on down on the field.

I couldn’t agree less ... its simple .. really really simple ...

He has the thief’s ear ... he was a part of the reason KJ got fired ... that affects football moves an awful lot ... he was part of the reason Andy and Kev got hired .. that affects football decisions quite a bit ... is he in the war room making picks .. nope ... but he will be in the war room ... WHY? ... according to some its just to hold Andy’s hand so he doesn’t mess up the process ... ...

Depo doesn’t have near the power as our posts are perceived ... but he certainly isn’t just a process guy ... that‘S just BS and is no closer to the truth than the way our posts (at least mine) about him are perceived ...

To think he had no input on KJ being tossed in favor of his peeps Andy and Kev is complete and utter BS ... common sense tells me that ...

gm ... I’ll quit when u do bro ... ...

Diam,

I won't try and tell you that your opinion is not valid...but KJ did not get fired. He simply did not. He didn't want the new role he was asked to play so he moved on. I understand why he moved on. But he wasn't fired.

Forced out? Maybe. But he'd still be here if he agreed to the new role.

PotAto .. potOto .. tomAtoe .. tomOtoe ...

Semantics bro .. they chopped his nuts off and asked him to “smile and wave boys ... smile and wave“ ... unlike my favorite penguins he chose not to ..

Hasn't also been reported that he's in Cleveland at least twice a week?

If true, that's not an easy commute even if you're in 1st class.

Maybe he's a modern man in a modern world and has embraced the ability to work from home or remotely like millions of other people?

Maybe he's more than just a silly baseball guy and is actually a person of importance in the field of applied analytics and makes spot appearances?

Maybe he has family that have needs in San Diego that they can't get in Cleveland?

There's any number of legit, reasonable reasons for him not being in Berea 24/7 before we get to this accusation that he's not all in on his job.

Plus, do you want the guy involved or don't you (I ask this to everyone)? If you're a person who doesn't want him involved so much, than being present part time should be what you want. If you think he should be here full time, then that means he would be more involved.

Wouldn't you love to have THOSE fequeet flyer miles?

I wonder what the numbers say about that being efficient in terms of time management?

If only KJ would have been more concerned with what was best for the team instead of what was best for KJ he wouldn't have found himself in that pickle.

Depends..

Gotta factor in if he pays for Captains Lounge internet speeds? Or does he chance it with the open wi-fi for plebs?

How many miles is he earning? Is he using Capital One? Is he willing to fly at off peak times? I bet the SOB times his flights to take advantage of 2x and 3x miles promotions. Does he Uber, car service, taxi, or pay for extended parking? Drinking booze at the airport is a black hole... pat down or X Ray? Loafers, velcro, or slippers?

Plus he probably never checks baggage.

Maybe he just likes to collect Captains wings lol

Analytics is Fun!

I don't think that is true. Prove it.

I know he wasn't going to have final say on the new coach, so he took his ball and went home.. But after selecting Freddie as his hand picked coach could you let him pick another?

I know you wouldn't have.


Having final say does have consequences. If you are wrong, it's on you. Dorsey and Sashi are equals. Both were good at one end of the job and bad at the other.

50% failed any test I ever took
except when playing baseball. I was a catcher.. I threw out 39% of runners...that was considered a ++. I hit .268...another + for the position.

Catcher is a defensive first position. If you can't block balls in the dirt and throw out some runners, you can't play the position no matter how well you hit.


So if you can't hit .300 and can't be made a 1st baseman, you best be able to keep some wild pitches in front of you and be able to throw.

You get it, you umped a few games behind the plate. I know you appreciated a catcher who kept you clean.