Where Moneyball Goes Wrong for the Cleveland Browns

Weakening the team on purpose makes sense to some degree, but the joke has worn thin on Mr. Haslam, not to mention the fan base.  Is it worth destroying the franchise for draft picks? 

Have the Cleveland Browns forgotten that the objective of football is to win?  They act as though the object of football is getting draft choices rather than winning games.

I'm all about moneyball and trying to build a team by outsmarting the system.  Hence I've been a fan of Sashi Brown and John DePodesta as they have been accumulating draft picks. However, I think they have gone too far, to the point where they are deliberately playing at a miserably low level in order to wind up with the number one overall pick in the draft again.  

I think that indeed you can hire Harvard graduates to trade draft picks, and they can be traded with the same skill that they use to trade stocks, bonds and currencies. Brown and Podesta correctly realized that they can not compete for players on a level playing field with Dallas and New England. Players will sign with those teams even if Cleveland offers literally twice as much money. Management has determined that by tanking the team for about three years and accumulating as much draft capital and salary cap room as possible, in year four and five they will create the highest payroll in the NFL with the most first round draft picks in the NFL, and that team should win.  That's the plan. 

Hence, in 2016 the Browns cut  players like Paul Kruger, Karlos Dansby, Donte Whitner and Craig Robertson that do not have a three or four year horizon with the team.  They also cut Taylor Gabriel out of sheer stupidity, but that's not part of the plan. They would up with the lowest active payroll in the NFL, while paying a huge amount of "dead money" to players no longer with the team.    They didn't try that hard to sign players like Mitchell Schwartz, Travis Benjamin.  Then the trend continued in 2017 as the Browns cut Joe Haden, Josh McCown, Gary Barnidge, John Greco, Stephen Paea, Desmond Bryant, Tramon Williams and Jordan Poyer. The analytics says that it's better to lose games and get better draft picks than to win with short term players.  Draft position is very important, because analytics say players drafted in the first position are worth more than three times the players drafted from the fifteenth overall position.  This of course assumes that your team is reasonably astute at judging talent, which of course is not the case for the Browns. 

Where we've gone off the rails, however, is in not trying to have  a team that can win, and in fact sabotaging the team by leaving holes.  For example, the Browns saved $4 million by cutting Joe Haden (they are paying him $7 million in guaranteed money as opposed to $11 M in total composition).  Maybe you can get another cornerback that plays even better for $4 million (I doubt it), but we didn't even replace Joe.  We just cut him. 

I don't think a football team can turn their instinct to win on and off so easily.  At some point the team is supposed to rally and try to win games, but now the precedent has been set to hope for losses to get good draft position.  I don't think that the human element can break the losing habit so easily.  

If the GM thinks that it makes sense to cut an overpaid veteran, how about proving it by signing a better player for less money.  Is there a four million dollar guy who actually plays better than Joe Haden?  And is he willing to sign with the Browns?  This is where we go too far, by deliberately weakening the team by cutting a veteran and doing nothing to replace him.  

Analytics should be able to observe that it is very hard to get players from the outside to come to Cleveland.  For example, the Browns had to grossly overpay Jamie Collins, Kevin Zeitler and Kenny Britt to choose Cleveland.  In fact, we had to make Zeitler the highest paid guard in the NFL to come to Cleveland, even though he has never been to a Pro Bowl.   Therefore it makes sense to pay extra to keep more players who are already here like Schwartz, Travis Benjamin, Buster Skrine, etc. 

For example, it is fine to recognize that Terrelle Pryor would have been overpaid at $8 M per year, but did we actually get a better player by investing $17 M guaranteed for Kenny Britt?  We sent Mitchell Schwartz packing rather than offering 6 million, and replaced him with a guard in Kevin Zeitler who we had to make the highest paid guard in the NFL in order to get him to come here.  Is that Moneyball?  

What Free Agent is ever going to come to Cleveland now, if he isn't sure that the Browns are serious about winning?   What Coach will coach here?  These are serious, serious problems that the Browns have gotten into themselves by failing to properly account for the fallout from their drastic overall. The Browns are buying themselves a huge disadvantage compared to other teams the opposite of what Moneyball is supposed to do.

The front office needs to be able to look the Coaches and players in the eye and tell them that the team is going to make a bona fide attempt to win games.  It's okay to stockpile draft picks, not okay to deliberately weaken the team to get better draft position