"Moneyball" is probably one of my favorite sports movies of all time. It's right up there with "Remember the Titans" and "Glory Road." The nice thing about "Moneyball" is it brought me and countless other sports fans into a brand new way to think about sports...with math. The whole concept of the movie was that a successful baseball team could be created using unappreciated players. By unappreciated, the idea was that teams were utilizing statistics that were overblown. They were ultimately not very helpful in determining a player's actual value to a team. In order to fix this, all new, more accurate statistics had to be created to better gauge the value of a player.
Baseball has been a very statistical game for as long as anyone can remember, so you might think that finding these new and improved stats might not be that difficult. And you might be right. But what about football?
Paul DePodesta was credited with revamping of the Oakland A's that came as a result of Moneyball. A few years ago, Paul was hired as the Chief Strategy Officer of the Cleveland Browns, ideally bringing with him a new way of thinking about the game of football. Previously, a good football player was only determined via their game film and often today that is still the case.
Football is so very different than baseball, with so many different schemes and options. I'm left only to wonder what DePodesta is dreaming up in the Browns front offices. Needless to say, his tenure with the Browns has gotten off to a slow start. The Browns have won only a single game since his hiring and Sashi Brown, the de facto general manager during Pauls first year and a half with the team, has been fired along with other personnel. Still, core members of his coworkers remain among him. With the hiring of John Dorsey as GM, Eliot Wolfe as assistant GM, and Alonzo Highsmith as VP of Player Personnel, people are tentatively saying the Browns front office is now one of the top three in all of professional football.
My hope is that DePodesta remains. At the time of Sashi Brown's firing, Paul and his staff's futures were uncertain. Given that when a new GM comes into a situation with former members of another GMs staff, the old team goes and the new GM brings in his own team. While it is difficult for me to look at the results on the field and point to why Paul should remain employed by the Browns, my belief is that he is intelligent enough to figure out this game and how to beat it. I believe that if he doesn't do it in Cleveland, he will do it somewhere else. I don't know how most of you feel, but I'm tired of former Browns players and staffers finding success elsewhere. I want the talent we have to hit their stride in Cleveland.
One day I'd like to talk to Paul and some of his staff about what they are doing to change the sport of football. It could be something so simple that the rest of us haven't thought to consider it. Maybe there are better drills for players to run at the combine that can better determine their talent. For all I know now, they might not have any idea what underutilized stat or exercise they can exploit to their advantage. This overhaul of the game might not even exist in the same state as it did with baseball. But what I do know is that when the guys in our front office figure out the secret, I want them to do it as members of the Cleveland Browns.
