DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Sashi hired by Ravens

https://www.nfl.com/news/sashi-brow...sident-following-retirement-of-dick-cass

Following 18 years with the team, Baltimore Ravens team president Dick Cass is retiring and Sashi Brown will be his successor, the team announced Friday.

The transition will become effective on April 1, with Brown, who spent two years as the Cleveland Browns executive vice president of football operations, mirroring Cass' responsibilities of overseeing all areas of the club, which includes player, coaching and staff personnel, corporate sales, communications and business, per the team's announcement.

The 45-year-old Brown was the Browns' EVP of football operations from 2016-17 and for the last three years was the president of Monumental Basketball, which saw him oversee myriad obligations for the NBA's Washington Wizards and the WNBA's Washington Mystics.

The 76-year-old Cass bids farewell to a Ravens organization he helped build into one of the NFL's most consistently successful.



During Cass' time with the franchise, the Ravens won Super Bowl XLVII, produced five AFC North titles, made the playoffs 10 times and advanced to the AFC Championship Game three times.

Going forward, Brown, head coach John Harbaugh and general manager Eric DeCosta will be the "top leadership trio under Bisciotti," per the team release.

Coming off an 8-9 season in which they were ravaged by injuries, the Ravens will look to turn things around in 2022 with plenty to check off on the offseason to-do list, not the least of which coming to terms on a new deal with quarterback Lamar Jackson and restocking their ranks in the 2022 NFL Draft, which takes place April 28-30, or roughly a month after Brown takes the reins.

They better keep Sashi away from the war room come draft day.
The Ravens are already in a state of decline.
Sashi is just adding to it

Sweet \0/ now we will have something to read about until April.

Best thing he ever did for us was to not hit "send" on a fax machine.

There's something quaint about them still using fax machines.

The Brock Osweiler trade was pretty genius at the time. It netted us Nick Chubb.

Anyone remember telecopiers?

One of the worst Browns GMs since the return. Him and Farmer were
Ridiculously awful. But the homers were full on board with Sashi.

I will forever thank him for that.

After all these years someone in the NFL is finally going to give him another shot. It probably won't end any better than it did here.

I'm not sure how I can fully grade him as a GM. He gutted the team in two years, but I never saw what the plan was on how he would have used the accumulated draft picks. We saw what Andrew Berry did with his draft picks. It's still hard to tell what Sashi would have done.

It's not normal to completely gut a team and then rebuild it. I can't compare what Sashi did to someone else. Using the "rookie contract" as a strategy to assemble a team where the contracts expired at the same time was something I wanted to see play out.

Yeah, he wasn't close to the worst and probably one of the better front men we've had. I was sorry to see him go. I think things worked out but the organization took a step back when they hired Dorsey.


I seem to recall a bunch of folks claiming Sashi's NFL career was over and he'd never be hired into a front office job again. Can we get a hand raise from all those folks?

And I think that's kind of the point. He sure knows how to blow up a team. Of course any time you blow up a team and let all your high priced players go, move down to add picks, that is the natural outcome no matter who does it. I mean even the average fan knows if you trade down in the draft you get future picks. Even your average fan knows if you let a player walk who makes 15 mil and replace him with a player who makes 5 mil you're cutting your salary cap and increasing your future cap. None of that is complicated.

What nobody has ever seen is Sashi actually build a team or keep a successful team consistent. It's obviously a gamble the Ravens have decided to take but it's certainly not based on his NFL resume'.

I don't recall anyone saying that. I did say that Sashi had to get a job in basketball because no team in the NFL would hire him. And it was certainly true. I mean if Sashi was so great, why didn't he get hired by another NFL team for years? And I'll say it again, nobody saw any evidence from his time here that he actually knew how to build a team. All they saw is that he was very good at tearing one down to the studs.

I'm not sure hiring a demolition team to build your house is a good idea.

Sashi Brown didn’t get hired to pick players for the Ravens. He got hired to run the entire organization because he is a smart person with a process oriented approach.

I don't think he was hired to blow it all up in Baltimore. Not sure why that's a thing with some people. He's one of the architects who helped build the Browns into the team they are today.

Kinda like in Cleveland.

Except he doesn’t have an Hue Jackson sized anchor fighting against him.

You're going to see some Browns fans head explode when they watch him succeed with the Ravens in the same role he was hired for here.

Maybe everything does happen for a reason... and we had to go thru all this for Haslam to learn how to run a football team.

He simply deconstructed the team and added resources along the way. Which when you trade down in the draft you gain future picks. When you get rid of high priced players you build cap room. If you call that being an architect, well yeah. Most people don't call demolition crews architects, but what ever.

That's because nobody did. But if perpetuating a lie makes you feel better, please continue.

I said it in another thread - Ravens are one of the better run organizations in football. They clearly think highly of Sashi.

I'm not going to rehash what Sashi was brought into Cleveland to do - or how successful he was at collecting draft capital for the person in charge of drafting players to use. Each has their own perspective on those events. Best left in the rear view mirror. Let's focus on the Browns and hope Berry's draft this year is half as good as his draft last year with Newsome and JOK.

I mean I don't know what to tell you. He explained everything he was going to do and was fired during the process. He signed multiple free agents which isn't a "deconstruction." He didn't get to see it thru but his fingerprints are all over this team.

I mean we've spent hours discussing this on the board. No sense in rehashing it. But what you believe isn't a complete view of what was happening here.

No one said you said it. You may or may not have, but there were people saying it. 100%

You can also say their analysis stated those draft classes were potentially weaker vs future years.

What we know is Sashi and his staff was young rookies. They had an unconventional plan. It was either genius or a complete failure.

We can also say Dorsey's drafts were good because they were stronger and it was the plan all along.

We can maybe see Sashi's plan, for a lack of a better word, had some merit. Berry is having success. One of Berry's staff members became GM at Minnesota.

Then again, I am only speculating.

What I'm saying is what happened. If saying that Sashi was a part of the original planning for a tear down and rebuild you are correct. But that's a pretty basic concept. What I'm saying is that he was never here for the rebuild. That means there's nothing on his resume' that indicates he knows how to rebuild or keep an NFL team competitive. The only argument to be made about that are nothing but what ifs. He signed low priced free agents for the most part and sent high priced players out of town. If you think it happened some other way can you explain how our cap space exploded?

We needed high draft picks and multiple draft picks. We needed cap space in order to rebuild. Sashi was instrumental in making that happen. But once again, cutting high priced players isn't complicated. Trading down is a little more complicated. But when you find teams desperate to trade up when you are certainly looking to trade down, that part isn't overly complicated.

That is not even in the same ball park as rebuilding a team.

He does not have rebuilding an NFL team on his resume - or more correctly being part of a FO that did that. But one of the best run teams in the NFL over the last 25 years just chose him to replace their successful President. It might give you pause to rethink your opinion of the guy... or maybe not. I don't care one way or the other. I care about Berry and the Browns.

Yawn.

The fact is we had no choice but to rebuild if we wanted to become relevant. The rebuild was the plan all along. So your contention is that it was Sashi who could see two years into the future as to how strong the draft class would be while these kids were freshmen and sophomores? At least you included statements such as "his staff" and "their analysis". That's probably why some of them are still here.

Once we find out if he can actually do that job well I'll reconsider. So far not even the Ravens know if he can. They certainly believe he can.

So.... one of the best run teams in the NFL has a wildly different perspective on this individual ... and that doesn't make you want to take pause. Only if he's successful will you reconsider your opinion that Sashi is a laughing stock. OK. Being successful with the Ravens will basically mean you hear about him as much as you did Dick Cass. Which is never. So if we don't hear anything about Sashi for a couple years your willing to say you were wrong? Is that about right?

Established organizations that are in place for several years continually have success. NFL Team scouts are looking at kids in high school and college watching their progress. Several years ago I read some interesting articles on NFL scouting wondering what the qualifications were. Some teams' scouting departments are very well structured.

Can they make predictions accurate enough to know two years in advance? I'm going to say "yes" and why not. Good scouting can become a very useful cost-effective tool.

Cleveland is developing this analytical structure. Curious how much of their drafting is analytically based.

Again, I can't say if any of this was created by Sashi. It could have gone exactly how you described it. Seeing how Berry is doing I can only speculate he is carrying out a similar business module Sashi started.

Do you have any idea of the turnover rate in the NFL of HC's and GM's and in the FO? We will see the results of what Sashi is doing on the field. I thought it was me who you claimed twisted everything? I didn't say Sashi couldn't do it or he would fail. I said there is no evidence that supports he can. Huge difference. I'm pretty sure you know that. Or maybe not.

Umm, at this point we can absolutely say which draft classes were stronger.

Exactly. You can apply those characteristics to the future. MLB and NHL work at the high school level. They are lucky to have a farm system to develop future players.

This has nothing to do with Sashi.

It’s not difficult to see the possible projections of players. Peen and I’ve talked about next years QB’s being stronger. Doesn’t mean they will all turn out superstars, but you see the better potential of the overall class or positional class.

Apologies ... being told that it was you with the signature commentating on Sashi I was going off a presumption that you were one of the posters who vilified and laughed at the notion that Sashi was competent and working a plan. If that wasn't you I misunderstood.

You are starting to sound like Hue Jackson.

Oh, this is easy.

As I'm sure you recall, the Browns were mocked and ridiculed for what they were trying to implement under the new DePo/Sashi regime. Sashi didn't simply "stockpile picks". He was trying to help implement a system where the Browns could sustain a good Draft position year over year. They exploited a general League underestimation of the value of future picks. Just about everyone thought the Browns were crazy for attempting such a radical tear down/build up process.

Well, since then we've seen a few teams at least dip their toes in to doing the same thing the Browns did. The Raiders and Dolphins come to mind.

Why did it take so many years you ask? Because it took time for other organizations to see value in the process that he was a part of. It's that simple.

Heck, for all we know the Ravens could have hired him for what he was doing in the NBA and they felt it could have value for them.