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If you hate the Cleveland Browns rebuild, ignore this: Podcast

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  • @wargograw said:

    It’s never been tried. So while we can’t provide you a stripped down team that has had success, you also can’t provide a team that’s stripped their team down and NOT had success. 

    Browns ?

    What we're seeing is BELOW expansion team quality.

    Remember, Billy Beane, for all the "money ball" hype, never won a title.

    @furious-styles said:

    Browns ?

    What we're seeing is BELOW expansion team quality.

    Remember, Billy Beane, for all the "money ball" hype, never won a title.

    Theo Epstein has done very well using the same principles.

  • Can somebody name one team that has stripped down(like the Browns have) then gone on to win a championship OR have "sustained" success....????......I already know the answer, which is no.....but I could name a 100 teams that have improved w/o stripping down.....one team please(and it should be a LOT more than one, if it's the "right" way to do it)

    Please....someone....show me the precedent that says stripping down is the way to go.....

    Gumby once posted the stat for 1-15 teams and what they did the next year.....the very worst of them all won 4 and most won more than that.....so, will we now be the worst 1-15 team ever?....yes......and this is some type of proof that stripping down is better?(please)

    I would like to build up my savings account....perhaps emptying the account is the best way to start...???

    and when all this "youth" comes of age at exactly the same moment, how will we afford to retain them?.....just curious....

    We are building an unbalanced team....with very suspect players....and will continue to set records for ineptitude in drafting. FA acquisition, talent evaluation, game planning and coaching.....<<<<<<<and I dont think anyone can show me where this statement is wrong either......

    Last year we were gonna "gel" and cream our jeans as we watched this team grow,,,,,,then it was gonna be this year.....but, wait, now it's next year?....is the 3rd year when we stop looking inept?.....then how many years till the playoffs?.....and is someone gonna tell me 5 year rebuilds are the way to go?......oh man.....

    @mudfly said:

    Can somebody name one team that has stripped down(like the Browns have) then gone on to win a championship OR have "sustained" success....????......I already know the answer, which is no.....but I could name a 100 teams that have improved w/o stripping down.....one team please(and it should be a LOT more than one, if it's the "right" way to do it)

    Please....someone....show me the precedent that says stripping down is the way to go.....

    In the NFL? Closest I can come is the Colts. Didn't have to strip much with Manning on the shelf for a year, but it won them the Luck lottery. Also think if we look hard, and honestly, at Bill B's approach with the Browns of the early 90's we'd see strong elements of this approach... and that it was working.

    MLB? Not enough room to list all the teams. But best example in recent history are the very scary Houston Astros.

    @mudfly said:

    Who wants to work for a company that is the worst in the industry?

    We've been the worst for at least 14 of 18 years now. Congratulations... you've identified the exact reason your whole take is screwed up. Can't attract the best FAs when you're at the bottom... can't even make vets stay with you. No one... except maybe Joe... a loyalist if there ever was one.

    You've "jumped"... you're now too far gone for me to elevate you. You decided when the FO chose the non-"one-football-guy-at-the -top, one-decider" approach we were destined to fail. It was the exact same moment I climbed aboard and embraced our new approach. Our chosen approach is simply not your style.

    The next bit is for you... the last is an optional refresher...

    @tour2ma said:

    1. In the 2014 draft we only took 5 players because a full need assessment was not completed and scouting was incomplete. Delays in filling both staff and FO positions were the cause. Rather than guess, picks were limited and accumulated for 2015.

    2. Prior to the start of the season by and large, I think even to the point of forming a consensus, that we here believed that we had improved our depth at least in part by picking more starter level talent. Only 2 rookie names appear under Pet's name: Shelton and Johnson.

    Instead of the 2014 approach in 2016 we stocked up on picks and cast a wide net trying to shore up our WR. We seemed to have missed biggly, but we ID'd the nedd and took a series of low cost shots. We did not "punt" like Farmer did.

    @nickers said:

    Which still boggles my mind , as to why we hired harvard boys instead of real football people to procure talent..

    See below... plenty of football people in our FO. And remember... we've bounced from "football guy" to football guy for almost two decades. I love that we are off that trampoline.

    @tour2ma said:

    No... Sashi is not the judge... not "The Decider"... and he is not polling 10 scouts. Stop trying to put him into the "weeds". This is consensus driven, organizational decision making, not the hierarchical dictate-driven system of Paul Brown or Bill Polian that you have stuck in your head.

    • He has two heads of Scouting to produce two boards: one draft, one FA.
    • He has an Analytics group to produce the same two boards.
    • He facilitates the merging of the boards with Cap input to develop a Player Personnel Strategy.

    In the first two activities, he won't be in the working sessions. On those he'll get progress reports. He will sit in the independent meetings to formulate each group's final board. He may or may not participate in these, but to the extent he does it will be to drive the process, not its product. He will take a ton of notes.

    In the third activity, the merger process, he'll not only be in the meeting, he will drive it, run it looking for:

    • unanimity, either pro or con, which he will test for "groupthink" error.
    • general, but not strong, agreement that he needs to flesh out.
    • strong disagreement to probe.

    This is when his notes will come out. He'll use them to:

    • surface dissenting views he heard in the pre-meetings to test what he now hears... especially if unanimity is now all he is hearing.
    • develop general agreements in to solid positions all can live with, i.e., form consensus.
    • facilitate strong disagreement discussion to develop the each side's understanding of the others position and see if there's hope for consensus and recognize when there is no hope.

    Consensus may come in many forms. In the discussion one side might "win over" the other... as in "convince", not "beat". More likely would be adjusting a player's grouping on the final board... as in "if he falls to us here," or "if he accepts this lower offer."

    But sometimes consensus will not be reached; a significant divide will persist. The default position for that case should be to pass on a player and in his stead go after a consensus choice.

    I guarantee you it will not be Sashi mulling a split-decision case over and then taking it to Jimmah. Simply is not Sashi's role and he knows it. He also knows it's not Jimmah's role.

    Jimmah? His can be any role he wants it to be, but hopefully he's learned his limitations. And the above process is our greatest hope that Jimmah remembers lessons of the past.

    The above process means that when the full Player Personnel Strategy (including budget) is presented to Jimmah by Sashi and the departments heads, if/when Jimmah asks, "Why is Player X (who he just read Mel Kiper rave about on the flight to Berea) is so low on our Board?" The group can respond, "WE don't think he's worth the higher pick/offer because..."

    ... and ...

    @tour2ma said:

    Nah... we don't have a single "the one". But there is the "old dogs, new tricks" thing and someone who has been "the one" would have the most trouble adapting to a consensus approach. That said I think consensus applies to our cross-functional approach more it does within a given department.

    In a department I would first and foremost want to avoid "group-think". I would want independent voices championing, or campaigning against, individual players. Not to the level of pound-on-the-table, at least not as a constant diet, but I would want clear positioning on every assigned evaluation. Then I can evaluate my evaluators on a rotating basis, culling those with substandard track records. It's really no different than turning over rostered players. And while I doubt it's an revolutionary approach, it is one I would be sure was ingrained in my org.

    So I think the question is: what was Ron Hill's track record? It would seem to not be one that will be missed. Same for the dismissals that preceded him... at least that's the hope in the majority of cases. But some dismissals are certainly also influenced by the extent that they, including Ron, played well with others, i.e., knew when to stop pounding the table. Or in an extreme case aired their minority opinions outside the building.... ours of which has been pretty air tight... aside from the whole "wreck this league" bit now a couple years gone by.

    Harder to let go of things when you've been the one.

    The italicized bit is one of the things that excites me. We are creating a scouting group the same way we are a football team.

  • @tour2ma said:

    Well... they are NOT the people evaluating talent or drafting players... so there's that.

    Really, who do YOU think is doing the drafting?

    @orion said:

    Really, who do YOU think is doing the drafting?

    See above, if you've not already...

  • @mudfly said:

    Can somebody name one team that has stripped down(like the Browns have) then gone on to win a championship OR have "sustained" success....????......I already know the answer, which is no.....but I could name a 100 teams that have improved w/o stripping down.....one team please(and it should be a LOT more than one, if it's the "right" way to do it)

    Please....someone....show me the precedent that says stripping down is the way to go.....

    In the NFL? Closest I can come is the Colts. Didn't have to strip much with Manning on the shelf for a year, but it won them the Luck lottery. Also think if we look hard, and honestly, at Bill B's approach with the Browns of the early 90's we'd see strong elements of this approach... and that it was working.

    MLB? Not enough room to list all the teams. But best example in recent history are the very scary Houston Astros.

    @mudfly said:

    Who wants to work for a company that is the worst in the industry?

    We've been the worst for at least 14 of 18 years now. Congratulations... you've identified the exact reason your whole take is screwed up. Can't attract the best FAs when you're at the bottom... can't even make vets stay with you. No one... except maybe Joe... a loyalist if there ever was one.

    You've "jumped"... you're now too far gone for me to elevate you. You decided when the FO chose the non-"one-football-guy-at-the -top, one-decider" approach we were destined to fail. It was the exact same moment I climbed aboard and embraced our new approach. Our chosen approach is simply not your style.

    The next bit is for you... the last is an optional refresher...

    @tour2ma said:

    1. In the 2014 draft we only took 5 players because a full need assessment was not completed and scouting was incomplete. Delays in filling both staff and FO positions were the cause. Rather than guess, picks were limited and accumulated for 2015.

    2. Prior to the start of the season by and large, I think even to the point of forming a consensus, that we here believed that we had improved our depth at least in part by picking more starter level talent. Only 2 rookie names appear under Pet's name: Shelton and Johnson.

    Instead of the 2014 approach in 2016 we stocked up on picks and cast a wide net trying to shore up our WR. We seemed to have missed biggly, but we ID'd the nedd and took a series of low cost shots. We did not "punt" like Farmer did.

    @nickers said:

    Which still boggles my mind , as to why we hired harvard boys instead of real football people to procure talent..

    See below... plenty of football people in our FO. And remember... we've bounced from "football guy" to football guy for almost two decades. I love that we are off that trampoline.

    @tour2ma said:

    No... Sashi is not the judge... not "The Decider"... and he is not polling 10 scouts. Stop trying to put him into the "weeds". This is consensus driven, organizational decision making, not the hierarchical dictate-driven system of Paul Brown or Bill Polian that you have stuck in your head.

    • He has two heads of Scouting to produce two boards: one draft, one FA.
    • He has an Analytics group to produce the same two boards.
    • He facilitates the merging of the boards with Cap input to develop a Player Personnel Strategy.

    In the first two activities, he won't be in the working sessions. On those he'll get progress reports. He will sit in the independent meetings to formulate each group's final board. He may or may not participate in these, but to the extent he does it will be to drive the process, not its product. He will take a ton of notes.

    In the third activity, the merger process, he'll not only be in the meeting, he will drive it, run it looking for:

    • unanimity, either pro or con, which he will test for "groupthink" error.
    • general, but not strong, agreement that he needs to flesh out.
    • strong disagreement to probe.

    This is when his notes will come out. He'll use them to:

    • surface dissenting views he heard in the pre-meetings to test what he now hears... especially if unanimity is now all he is hearing.
    • develop general agreements in to solid positions all can live with, i.e., form consensus.
    • facilitate strong disagreement discussion to develop the each side's understanding of the others position and see if there's hope for consensus and recognize when there is no hope.

    Consensus may come in many forms. In the discussion one side might "win over" the other... as in "convince", not "beat". More likely would be adjusting a player's grouping on the final board... as in "if he falls to us here," or "if he accepts this lower offer."

    But sometimes consensus will not be reached; a significant divide will persist. The default position for that case should be to pass on a player and in his stead go after a consensus choice.

    I guarantee you it will not be Sashi mulling a split-decision case over and then taking it to Jimmah. Simply is not Sashi's role and he knows it. He also knows it's not Jimmah's role.

    Jimmah? His can be any role he wants it to be, but hopefully he's learned his limitations. And the above process is our greatest hope that Jimmah remembers lessons of the past.

    The above process means that when the full Player Personnel Strategy (including budget) is presented to Jimmah by Sashi and the departments heads, if/when Jimmah asks, "Why is Player X (who he just read Mel Kiper rave about on the flight to Berea) is so low on our Board?" The group can respond, "WE don't think he's worth the higher pick/offer because..."

    ... and ...

    @tour2ma said:

    Nah... we don't have a single "the one". But there is the "old dogs, new tricks" thing and someone who has been "the one" would have the most trouble adapting to a consensus approach. That said I think consensus applies to our cross-functional approach more it does within a given department.

    In a department I would first and foremost want to avoid "group-think". I would want independent voices championing, or campaigning against, individual players. Not to the level of pound-on-the-table, at least not as a constant diet, but I would want clear positioning on every assigned evaluation. Then I can evaluate my evaluators on a rotating basis, culling those with substandard track records. It's really no different than turning over rostered players. And while I doubt it's an revolutionary approach, it is one I would be sure was ingrained in my org.

    So I think the question is: what was Ron Hill's track record? It would seem to not be one that will be missed. Same for the dismissals that preceded him... at least that's the hope in the majority of cases. But some dismissals are certainly also influenced by the extent that they, including Ron, played well with others, i.e., knew when to stop pounding the table. Or in an extreme case aired their minority opinions outside the building.... ours of which has been pretty air tight... aside from the whole "wreck this league" bit now a couple years gone by.

    Harder to let go of things when you've been the one.

    The italicized bit is one of the things that excites me. We are creating a scouting group the same way we are a football team.

    @tour2ma said:

    In the NFL? Closest I can come is the Colts. Didn't have to strip much with Manning on the shelf for a year, but it won them the Luck lottery. Also think if we look hard, and honestly, at Bill B's approach with the Browns of the early 90's we'd see strong elements of this approach... and that it was working.

    MLB? Not enough room to list all the teams. But best example in recent history are the very scary Houston Astros.

    We've been the worst for at least 14 of 18 years now. Congratulations... you've identified the exact reason your whole take is screwed up. Can't attract the best FAs when you're at the bottom... can't even make vets stay with you. No one... except maybe Joe... a loyalist if there ever was one.

    You've "jumped"... you're now too far gone for me to elevate you. You decided when the FO chose the non-"one-football-guy-at-the -top, one-decider" approach we were destined to fail. It was the exact same moment I climbed aboard and embraced our new approach. Our chosen approach is simply not your style.

    The next bit is for you... the last is an optional refresher...

    Instead of the 2014 approach in 2016 we stocked up on picks and cast a wide net trying to shore up our WR. We seemed to have missed biggly, but we ID'd the nedd and took a series of low cost shots. We did not "punt" like Farmer did.

    See below... plenty of football people in our FO. And remember... we've bounced from "football guy" to football guy for almost two decades. I love that we are off that trampoline.

    ... and ...

    The italicized bit is one of the things that excites me. We are creating a scouting group the same way we are a football team.

    Andrew Berry is not My idea of Football people.. Hes a dullard...

  • My names Tour & am here to help😉. Some wake at 6am to put the college football hangovers to rest & instead its Quiet Riot's Bang Your Head!! Yes we must Give this Plan Time for results..Mean While- We have watched the Cowboys walk into a lucky Wet Dream Draft. 2 GM's that create rosters that win both on the sidelines in Panthers Dave Gettelman-Just don't get use to keeping aging veterans..Than KC John Dorsey who actually drafted Mahomes & K.Hunt than gets fired then the new genius GM trades with us for Cam-ella Erving..It's damn hard to watch as we sit on a Baseball Guy, Berry & Grigson with a wild fire of coffee fetchers..Rant-diculous is over.but really hard to watch. time to take it out on some pancakes.. 

  • Well that has to be the attitude as opposed to saying we focked up and we really don't know our asses from holes in the ground. And I'm sure these people know a million times more than I do, or we do, about professional football. If and when it works out I'll be happy as a pig  shitt to eat my words.

    Still if I'd been the general manager of the Cleveland Browns for the last decade or so  I don't suppose we'd have been much worse . Just saying.

    😄

    WSS

    @westside-steve said:

    Still if I'd been the general manager of the Cleveland Browns for the last decade or so  I don't suppose we'd have been much worse . Just saying.

    WSS

    No doubt you could do it WestSide..But get this Orangutan Grigson to grow some long Hair..Grigson got so jealous of this pick guess where Zach Banner plays?  

  • I think he’s wrong on that. We did need to strip them bare. Well, maybe not needed to. But it was certainly the best plan. Makes for more long term success. 

    @wargograw said:

    I think he’s wrong on that. We did need to strip them bare...... it was certainly the best plan...Makes for more long term success. 

    @mudfly said:

    Can somebody name one team that has stripped down(like the Browns have) then gone on to win a championship OR have "sustained" success....????......I already know the answer, which is no.....

    @wargograw said:

    It’s never been tried. So while we can’t provide you a stripped down team that has had success, you also can’t provide a team that’s stripped their team down and NOT had success. 

    Brilliant.....its never been done, but we needed to do it cause it leads to long term success....???

    Anyone else wanna try?.....

  • @mudfly said:

    Can somebody name one team that has stripped down(like the Browns have) then gone on to win a championship OR have "sustained" success....????......I already know the answer, which is no.....but I could name a 100 teams that have improved w/o stripping down.....one team please(and it should be a LOT more than one, if it's the "right" way to do it)

    Please....someone....show me the precedent that says stripping down is the way to go.....

    In the NFL? Closest I can come is the Colts. Didn't have to strip much with Manning on the shelf for a year, but it won them the Luck lottery. Also think if we look hard, and honestly, at Bill B's approach with the Browns of the early 90's we'd see strong elements of this approach... and that it was working.

    MLB? Not enough room to list all the teams. But best example in recent history are the very scary Houston Astros.

    @mudfly said:

    Who wants to work for a company that is the worst in the industry?

    We've been the worst for at least 14 of 18 years now. Congratulations... you've identified the exact reason your whole take is screwed up. Can't attract the best FAs when you're at the bottom... can't even make vets stay with you. No one... except maybe Joe... a loyalist if there ever was one.

    You've "jumped"... you're now too far gone for me to elevate you. You decided when the FO chose the non-"one-football-guy-at-the -top, one-decider" approach we were destined to fail. It was the exact same moment I climbed aboard and embraced our new approach. Our chosen approach is simply not your style.

    The next bit is for you... the last is an optional refresher...

    @tour2ma said:

    1. In the 2014 draft we only took 5 players because a full need assessment was not completed and scouting was incomplete. Delays in filling both staff and FO positions were the cause. Rather than guess, picks were limited and accumulated for 2015.

    2. Prior to the start of the season by and large, I think even to the point of forming a consensus, that we here believed that we had improved our depth at least in part by picking more starter level talent. Only 2 rookie names appear under Pet's name: Shelton and Johnson.

    Instead of the 2014 approach in 2016 we stocked up on picks and cast a wide net trying to shore up our WR. We seemed to have missed biggly, but we ID'd the nedd and took a series of low cost shots. We did not "punt" like Farmer did.

    @nickers said:

    Which still boggles my mind , as to why we hired harvard boys instead of real football people to procure talent..

    See below... plenty of football people in our FO. And remember... we've bounced from "football guy" to football guy for almost two decades. I love that we are off that trampoline.

    @tour2ma said:

    No... Sashi is not the judge... not "The Decider"... and he is not polling 10 scouts. Stop trying to put him into the "weeds". This is consensus driven, organizational decision making, not the hierarchical dictate-driven system of Paul Brown or Bill Polian that you have stuck in your head.

    • He has two heads of Scouting to produce two boards: one draft, one FA.
    • He has an Analytics group to produce the same two boards.
    • He facilitates the merging of the boards with Cap input to develop a Player Personnel Strategy.

    In the first two activities, he won't be in the working sessions. On those he'll get progress reports. He will sit in the independent meetings to formulate each group's final board. He may or may not participate in these, but to the extent he does it will be to drive the process, not its product. He will take a ton of notes.

    In the third activity, the merger process, he'll not only be in the meeting, he will drive it, run it looking for:

    • unanimity, either pro or con, which he will test for "groupthink" error.
    • general, but not strong, agreement that he needs to flesh out.
    • strong disagreement to probe.

    This is when his notes will come out. He'll use them to:

    • surface dissenting views he heard in the pre-meetings to test what he now hears... especially if unanimity is now all he is hearing.
    • develop general agreements in to solid positions all can live with, i.e., form consensus.
    • facilitate strong disagreement discussion to develop the each side's understanding of the others position and see if there's hope for consensus and recognize when there is no hope.

    Consensus may come in many forms. In the discussion one side might "win over" the other... as in "convince", not "beat". More likely would be adjusting a player's grouping on the final board... as in "if he falls to us here," or "if he accepts this lower offer."

    But sometimes consensus will not be reached; a significant divide will persist. The default position for that case should be to pass on a player and in his stead go after a consensus choice.

    I guarantee you it will not be Sashi mulling a split-decision case over and then taking it to Jimmah. Simply is not Sashi's role and he knows it. He also knows it's not Jimmah's role.

    Jimmah? His can be any role he wants it to be, but hopefully he's learned his limitations. And the above process is our greatest hope that Jimmah remembers lessons of the past.

    The above process means that when the full Player Personnel Strategy (including budget) is presented to Jimmah by Sashi and the departments heads, if/when Jimmah asks, "Why is Player X (who he just read Mel Kiper rave about on the flight to Berea) is so low on our Board?" The group can respond, "WE don't think he's worth the higher pick/offer because..."

    ... and ...

    @tour2ma said:

    Nah... we don't have a single "the one". But there is the "old dogs, new tricks" thing and someone who has been "the one" would have the most trouble adapting to a consensus approach. That said I think consensus applies to our cross-functional approach more it does within a given department.

    In a department I would first and foremost want to avoid "group-think". I would want independent voices championing, or campaigning against, individual players. Not to the level of pound-on-the-table, at least not as a constant diet, but I would want clear positioning on every assigned evaluation. Then I can evaluate my evaluators on a rotating basis, culling those with substandard track records. It's really no different than turning over rostered players. And while I doubt it's an revolutionary approach, it is one I would be sure was ingrained in my org.

    So I think the question is: what was Ron Hill's track record? It would seem to not be one that will be missed. Same for the dismissals that preceded him... at least that's the hope in the majority of cases. But some dismissals are certainly also influenced by the extent that they, including Ron, played well with others, i.e., knew when to stop pounding the table. Or in an extreme case aired their minority opinions outside the building.... ours of which has been pretty air tight... aside from the whole "wreck this league" bit now a couple years gone by.

    Harder to let go of things when you've been the one.

    The italicized bit is one of the things that excites me. We are creating a scouting group the same way we are a football team.

    @tour2ma said:

    In the NFL? Closest I can come is the Colts. Didn't have to strip much with Manning on the shelf for a year, but it won them the Luck lottery. Also think if we look hard, and honestly, at Bill B's approach with the Browns of the early 90's we'd see strong elements of this approach... and that it was working.

    Tour....the Colts did not strip down anything like the Browns did.....they tanked. Big difference. Here is their record going in and out or their supposed "strip down"....

    14-2 ....10-6.....2-14....11-5....11-5....11-5.....that is a tank, not an example of stripping the whole roster...

    and, if we are to compare our plan to theirs(which you just did), then why did they win 11 games the next 3 seasons.....is that an indication that we aren't doing it right?

    We've been the worst for at least 14 of 18 years now. Congratulations... you've identified the exact reason your whole take is screwed up. Can't attract the best FAs when you're at the bottom... can't even make vets stay with you. No one... except maybe Joe... a loyalist if there ever was one.

    You've "jumped"... you're now too far gone for me to elevate you. You decided when the FO chose the non-"one-football-guy-at-the -top, one-decider" approach we were destined to fail. It was the exact same moment I climbed aboard and embraced our new approach. Our chosen approach is simply not your style.

    Not true.....it was an evolution as I watched them destroy what was left of the team and watched them make bone headed choices, that made zero sense.....and most of my complaints started(in earnest) when we selected Kessler in the 3rd, knowing full well we wouldnt commit to him.....and 4 bad WR's(which I railed against from day one)......and watched them blatantly ignore certain needs which would doom us to failure.....like ignoring the o line, when we just signed an injury prone QB nad drafted a rookie to develop......I watch em cut LOTS of players who would have provided the depth we needed to get through injuries and rookie short comings......its not who we hired, it's how weve gone about building the team....because we did a hell of a lot of demolition that was not needed and intentionally set our selves back too far to reasonably over come it.....we had a 2 mile mountain to climb, that this FO turned into a 10 mile mountain.....then they selected the most difficult path....

    And, now, with all this new "talent", we are not doing the necessary things to properly develop it......we picked a SS to play FS, when there we a ton of good FS's to select....and now we've put him on an island......we stopped developing a rookie QB, one year in, to develop another one who looks worse.....and that rookie isnt getting what he needs in terms of run support, play calling and supporting cast......I could go on and on....

    And while you can say Ive gone too far over the edge, I can say you are working way too hard to find the light in a very very dark situation.....

    I would tell you that last season I started my little negative rant thing, and was consistently told I was wrong....but one year later, I will tell you that....so far....Im spot on and almost everything Ive predicted has come to light as being correct....

    wHEN YOU'VE STRIPPED YOUR TEAM TO THE POINT THAT THEY ARE WORSE THAN THEY WERE AS AN EXPANSION TEAM, THEN YOUVE GONE TOO FAR.....and thats EXACTLY what we did.....

    As an expansion team, we were built with dregs, cast offs and some rookies, yet that team was more successful than last years team....and, i predict, this years team too

    When you take a team that needed 10 good players and make it a team that needs 20, how is that the right way????...casting a broad net in hopes of catching a few fish would be fine, if you only need a few fish.....this team needs a boat load.....and the fish they keep pulling in are not the right ones either.......talent evaluation for the draft, FA, trades and in selecting the roster and positions is seriously lacking......seriously......

    So....i see nothing that builds confidence......I dont see pro's lining up to join this brilliant process.....and, soon, you will see the players losing the little bit of confidence they had...

  • @orion said:

    Really, who do YOU think is doing the drafting?

    See above, if you've not already...

    @tour2ma said:

    See above, if you've not already...

    Sashi has final say.  Sashi gave the Eagles Wentz.  Sashi gave the Texans Watson.

  • @canton-mike said:

    Thanks for the thread Tour. I needed this.

    My name is Tour... and I'm here to help.

    @orion said:

    Yes, Sashi and the Harvard Think Tank have a plan.  That's nice and all.  But are they the right people to be actually DRAFTING FOOTBALL PLAYERS?  AND NOT DRAFTING OTHER PLAYERS?  Are they the right talent evaluators? 

    Well... they are NOT the people evaluating talent or drafting players... so there's that.

    @londonbrown said:

    The problem with the fans and this plan is because they stripped the entire roster bare people seem to be expecting them to hit on EVERY draft pick. Or it’s a failure  

    No front office gets it right every time and nor will this one. I’ve always thought  their idea of plan was the right one, I still do, but that doesn’t mean all the picks are going to work. They clearly won’t 

    Bingo... When I have some time I'll look back at our two drafts under this FO compared to the other 31 franchises. I think we'll look pretty damn good.

    @westside-steve said:

    Still if I'd been the general manager of the Cleveland Browns for the last decade or so  I don't suppose we'd have been much worse . Just saying.

    lol... set a low bar much? Would you have been any better?

    @wargograw said:

    I think he’s wrong on that. We did need to strip them bare. Well, maybe not needed to. But it was certainly the best plan. Makes for more long term success. 

    Agree... it was the point of the entire podcast.

    You can (and we did) languish in the 3-7 win hell forever. We never built a nucleus. We stole wins with modest talent and a sprinkling of FAs were could lure thru a combo of money and personal relationships, e.g. hire staff who'd worked with FA's before.

    It's purgatory... neither heaven nor hell.

    @tour2ma said:

    You can (and we did) languish in the 3-7 win hell forever. We never built a nucleus. We stole wins with modest talent and a sprinkling of FAs were could lure thru a combo of money and personal relationships, e.g. hire staff who'd worked with FA's before.

    It's purgatory... neither heaven nor hell.

    this is a very naive and misguided take.  3-7 wins in the modern day nfl is pretty much hell. This is isn't college football.  The 'best' 2-3 teams in this league tend to have an average pythagorean of 12 or so wins and the worst average about 4.  Over much of the last 6 years or whatever, we've averaged about that....certainly not purgatory.  Purgatory is the rams from 2012 to 2015 for example.  

    Additionally, you seem very confused on what the nfl is.  You're speaking of it like it is the nba with your jargon and you're sam hinkie.  My guess is you would be a sam hinkie fan(I am too in some ways).  But the nba is 180 degrees different than the nfl.  Sam Hinkie's approach works great in the nba because because if you have 40-45 win talent in the nba you really are SOL and thats a terrible place to be consistently.  Because when you are winning 40-45 games there are very limited ways to improve out of that area and become elite.  But if you have 8 win talent in the nfl, it's very possible to get to that 11-12 win pythag where most super bowl winners come from with the right moves.  

    The sam hinkie approach works in the nba because if you get the kind of players hinkie was looking for(and just a couple!) that can be a decade+ run with those playarers.  The nfl is a much different beast-  you don't win with  a couple gems for starters like in the nfl.  You win with a bunch of players.  And the average career length in this league is 3 years.  unlike the nba, you are constantly turning over meaningful parts of the roster....even in 'good' teams.  So the idea of a complete tear down in the nfl is fraught with issues  instantly because once the slate is completely clean and you start building your perfect team it's such a transient league that you never have time to 'get it right'.  

    I do kind of disagree with calling this a 'tear down' though....there wasnt a lot to tear down.  Over the last 6 years we've been about the worst team in the league(avg pythag of 4), so you really cant get much worse. Dont be distracted by last years record- we really werent that bad.  Our pythag was maybe half a win to two thirds a win behind what has been typical.  In the 1 to 5 win category, you're usually dealing with luck and random happenings as the difference makers between things like 2 and 4 wins.

    Winning 1-2 games for back to back years in the nfl is very very difficult.  Just because the way the league is set up.  So is winning 15 games back to back years.  Which is why that sort of stuff pretty much never happens.  So when we win 5-6 games in 2018, some of you will take it as a sign the 'process is working'.  Could be, but more than likely we'll just be reverting back to the mean for bad teams and it won't represent a real improvement.  

    What I see a lot in here are fundamental misunderstandings of how teams get better in the nfl and what can typically be expected in a turnaround in terms of the length of the process.  It's a failure to understand just how transient and dynamic the nfl is on a year to year basis relative to something like the nba.  All these ideas about a '5 year process' and such for our team are insane.  We may be a good team in 2022-23 or not....who knows.  But it sure as hell won't be because of a tear down in 2016 either way.  

  • @furious-styles said:

    Browns ?

    What we're seeing is BELOW expansion team quality.

    Remember, Billy Beane, for all the "money ball" hype, never won a title.

    Theo Epstein has done very well using the same principles.

    @dutch-oven said:

    Theo Epstein has done very well using the same principles.

    no relevance at all to the nfl.  

  • @mudfly said:

    Ill be waiting for an answer on this......a "quality" answer, that is/////

    It’s never been tried. So while we can’t provide you a stripped down team that has had success, you also can’t provide a team that’s stripped their team down and NOT had success. 

    @wargograw said:

    It’s never been tried. So while we can’t provide you a stripped down team that has had success, you also can’t provide a team that’s stripped their team down and NOT had success. 

    this is such nonsense.  We didn't do anything revolutionary by letting some decent veterans go.  Non-sucky teams do that all the time for various reasons.  We have been a typical 4 win pythag team over the last several years....the idea that a 4 win pythag team does something revolutionary by letting some decent but not elite vets go to bring in cheaper younger guys is ho hum.  

    Sashi and company are revolutionaries.  They aren't even thinking outside the box that much.  Not that that's a good or bad thing.....

    In today's nfl, these type of seasons(if we really do go 3-29 over 2 years) are not tolerated.  Even for sucky teams 'rebuilding'(and I hate that word because in the nfl it has a very different meaning than in other pro sports), it's still very hard to go 3-29. 

  • @tour2ma said:

    See above, if you've not already...

    Sashi has final say.  Sashi gave the Eagles Wentz.  Sashi gave the Texans Watson.

    @orion said:

    Sashi has final say.  Sashi gave the Eagles Wentz.  Sashi gave the Texans Watson.

    If that's your take, then I wasted my time searching for my old posts, let alone writing them.

    And you wasted whatever time you spent on them.

    @tacosman said:

    1. this is a very naive and misguided take.
    2. Additionally, you seem very confused on what the nfl is.
    3. The sam hinkie approach ...
    4. I do kind of disagree with calling this a 'tear down' though...
    1. How do you really feel?
    2. Pretty sure I'm not.
    3. No idea who he is.
    4. Did I call 2017 a tear down?If I did, then my bad... to my mind it's the first year of the rebuild.

    You seem to be adept at picking apart an argument... or at least constructing a counter. Care to illuminate the better way?

  • @dutch-oven said:

    Theo Epstein has done very well using the same principles.

    no relevance at all to the nfl.  

    @tacosman said:

    no relevance at all to the nfl.  

    When Billy Beane is brought into the convo, Theo Epstein can be used as a counter to the argument.

  • @orion said:

    Sashi has final say.  Sashi gave the Eagles Wentz.  Sashi gave the Texans Watson.

    If that's your take, then I wasted my time searching for my old posts, let alone writing them.

    And you wasted whatever time you spent on them.

    @tacosman said:

    1. this is a very naive and misguided take.
    2. Additionally, you seem very confused on what the nfl is.
    3. The sam hinkie approach ...
    4. I do kind of disagree with calling this a 'tear down' though...
    1. How do you really feel?
    2. Pretty sure I'm not.
    3. No idea who he is.
    4. Did I call 2017 a tear down?If I did, then my bad... to my mind it's the first year of the rebuild.

    You seem to be adept at picking apart an argument... or at least constructing a counter. Care to illuminate the better way?

    @tour2ma said:

    If that's your take, then I wasted my time searching for my old posts, let alone writing them.

    And you wasted whatever time you spent on them.

    1. How do you really feel?
    2. Pretty sure I'm not.
    3. No idea who he is.
    4. Did I call 2017 a tear down?If I did, then my bad... to my mind it's the first year of the rebuild.

    You seem to be adept at picking apart an argument... or at least constructing a counter. Care to illuminate the better way?

    I don't think you understand the definition of adept.  Or you just complimented me.  If it's the latter, thanks.

    On point 4, clearly by 'this' I meant what people in this thread have referred to as a tear down.  Not 2017.  Not sure how one could infer anything else.

    Sam Hinkie is the philadelphia basketball gm who intentionally got as bad as possible and acquired as many 'assets' as possible in a 3 year period in order to give the 76ers the best shot to win big in the future.  The nba of course is a very different league than the nfl in terms of how to build a team to win.  

    in the nfl there is no such thing as a 'long rebuild' or '5 year process'.

  • @tacosman said:

    no relevance at all to the nfl.  

    When Billy Beane is brought into the convo, Theo Epstein can be used as a counter to the argument.

    @dutch-oven said:

    When Billy Beane is brought into the convo, Theo Epstein can be used as a counter to the argument.

    two wrongs dont make a right.

  • @dutch-oven said:

    When Billy Beane is brought into the convo, Theo Epstein can be used as a counter to the argument.

    two wrongs dont make a right.

    @tacosman said:

    two wrongs dont make a right.

    Yeah, whatever buddy.

  • @orion said:

    Sashi has final say.  Sashi gave the Eagles Wentz.  Sashi gave the Texans Watson.

    If that's your take, then I wasted my time searching for my old posts, let alone writing them.

    And you wasted whatever time you spent on them.

    @tacosman said:

    1. this is a very naive and misguided take.
    2. Additionally, you seem very confused on what the nfl is.
    3. The sam hinkie approach ...
    4. I do kind of disagree with calling this a 'tear down' though...
    1. How do you really feel?
    2. Pretty sure I'm not.
    3. No idea who he is.
    4. Did I call 2017 a tear down?If I did, then my bad... to my mind it's the first year of the rebuild.

    You seem to be adept at picking apart an argument... or at least constructing a counter. Care to illuminate the better way?

    @tour2ma said:

    1. Did I call 2017 a tear down?If I did, then my bad... to my mind it's the first year of the rebuild.

    Wait a cotton pickin second there.....are you now giving them a complete flyer on 2016??? and their 14 picks???

    No allowed....sorry

  • @wargograw said:

    I think he’s wrong on that. We did need to strip them bare...... it was certainly the best plan...Makes for more long term success. 

    @mudfly said:

    Can somebody name one team that has stripped down(like the Browns have) then gone on to win a championship OR have "sustained" success....????......I already know the answer, which is no.....

    @wargograw said:

    It’s never been tried. So while we can’t provide you a stripped down team that has had success, you also can’t provide a team that’s stripped their team down and NOT had success. 

    Brilliant.....its never been done, but we needed to do it cause it leads to long term success....???

    Anyone else wanna try?.....

    @mudfly said:

    Brilliant.....its never been done, but we needed to do it cause it leads to long term success....???

    Anyone else wanna try?.....

    Nah, nah, let's try it your way! That worked out so well for us before!!

  • @tour2ma said:

    1. Did I call 2017 a tear down?If I did, then my bad... to my mind it's the first year of the rebuild.

    Wait a cotton pickin second there.....are you now giving them a complete flyer on 2016??? and their 14 picks???

    No allowed....sorry

    @mudfly said:

    Wait a cotton pickin second there.....are you now giving them a complete flyer on 2016??? and their 14 picks???

    No allowed....sorry

    true good point....I think this goes to a point some of you don't fully grasp:  in the nfl, there  is rarely a well demarcated point between 'rebuilding' starts and stops....the rosters are in such a constant state of turnover and fortunes change so quickly that it's silly to look at it like this.  

    I get why it's tempting for fans of bad teams like we are to think like that.  But it's a fake construct.  

    We want to say "oh we suck now but this is neccessary to be good again.  We'll suck this year, and then get a little better in 2018 and go 4-12.  and then improve to 7-9 in 2019.  And keep getting better and move to 9 or 10 wins in 2020.  And then by 2021 we'll be an 11-12 win team and playing for it all".  Things don't work that way.  As if tere is some natural and linear progression with these things....

    look at 2014.  That was a 7 win year after two crappier years before that.  Did it represent a linear uptick?  heck no....and we shouldn't have expected it to.  Instead the year afteir that we were worse, and shitcanned our coach, and now we are supposedly in another 'rebuild'......and honestly it's not even really clear what year of the 'rebuild' this is because things dont work like that in the nfl...as I think some of you guys are hopefully seeing.