Paul DePodesta leaves the Mets and joins the Browns as “chief strategy officer.”
So that’s 3 Ivy League smartasses who have wormed their way in to cashing checks from Haslam, with the former general counsel of the team now apparently having final say on player personnel. A fucking lawyer.
I can’t wait to see what sort of analytics nonsense they apply to selecting the next crop of scrubs for this team, and how arrogant their justifications will be.
Who would want to be GM for this team?
The only other front office executive shifting sports like that I can think of is Bo Schembechler retiring from coaching football to become president of the (baseball) Tigers, and I’m not sure how much personnel input he had there.
I mean, time will tell, but I think you’re under-rating DePodesta in particular. The prior administration ran the Mets into the freaking ground; we had zero hope for either the present or the future.
DePodesta and Sandy Alderson turned the Mets into a World Series team in an entirely acceptable time frame; they did it in a sustainable way that’s likely to keep the team in the conversation for years to come, and - don’t ignore this! - they did it in the context of one of the weirdest and weakest ownership situations in all of baseball.
Now, it’s fair to wonder how well DePodesta’s ideas will translate to an entirely different sport, but it’s not like he’s got no track record of success. This is probably the smartest front office hire the Browns have made in a while, which, I grant you, is not saying very much.
The Saints would be very foolish to let Payton go without big compensation (1 or 2 first round picks or more!). Maybe Payton wants out, but as a Saints fan I hope not.
I’m really interested to see how this plays out. It’s got a couple huge issues. One, the Browns themselves are so awful currently and historically that I don’t know if any amount of brain power is enough to make them good.
Secondly, football does not lend itself to analytics the way baseball does. Baseball has a large number of individual metrics that can be attributed largely to one person. In football, the combined team is an order of magnitude more than the sum of its parts, and it’s tough to quantify the contributions of a single player.
Thirdly, the sample size for football is, again, an order of magnitude smaller. 16 games in a season instead of 162 means that its a lot harder to extrapolate good results.
All that said, I’d love to see better metrics brought into evaluating football players. I’m sick of coaches and commentators saying “he doesn’t look like a quarterback!” as though that means a damn thing.
ESPN is reporting that the Colts were interested in Payton while deciding to extend Pagano’s contract.
Sean Payton just announced he’s staying in New Orleans. Yay!
Lovie Smith out in Tampa. That’s one I wasn’t expecting. http://wgntv.com/2016/01/06/former-bears-coach-lovie-smith-fired-by-the-buccaneers/
Latest reckless rumor mill has it the Eagles want to hire Adam Gase, but Miami is trying to outbid them.
Eagles have interviewed RB coach Duce Staley, interim coach Pat Shurmur, Gase TWICE, with Kansas City OC Doug Peterson and Giants OC Ben McAdoo on deck.
My theory is that Indy saw how many teams are competing for head coaches in what seems like a thin field, and decided to stick with the devil they know.
I don’t understand this. Yeah, the guy was 8-24 there, but there was nothing in the cupboard. It was a miracle they won 6 games this season with that roster, and that was a 300% improvement from the previous year, so it’s fair to say progress was being made. There were a bunch of close games and some fluky shit like shitting the bed in Washington with a 24 point lead. Give the guy a chance!
Current rumor is that their OC was being considered for the Dolphin’s HC, so they fired Lovie to promote him.
There are rumors Jon Gruden is interested in the Eagles HC job. Could just be a stab at a pay raise from ESPN, but were he to actually take the job, could be interesting, if only for having to play against his brother twice a season.
I’m late to this, but I do need to chime in on just this one point. Fox is definitely NOT on any kind of short leash.
The fans, and it seems the organization on the whole, are very pleased with the outcome this season. The final record was far better than most pundits projected back in August, the fact that that 6-10 finish feels like a let down speaks to how big the turnaround was. Most people feel like they gave away 8-8, for a team that was a garbage fire last year that’s actually a feather in Fox’s hat.
The Bears have never been a knee-jerk organization, for better or worse, and the quick hook on Trestman only shows how bad things got so fast. It’s not an indicator of any new trends w.r.t. HC firings.
Both Gase and Fangio are hot HC candidates and that wouldn’t happen is Fox had somehow done a poor job. I’m worried what will happen to Cutler and the reclamation project underway for the defense if either leaves, but Fox will not take the heat for a big regression in the wake of one of them leaving.
This team was as banged up at key positions as any team in the league this year and they are primed for a pretty nice offseason when Forte’s contract comes off the books and they free up the dead money from the Allen, Marshall and Jennings moves ($32M!). Fox will be here a while I think.
PS - Calling it now, Bushrod and Bennett are both getting cut/traded after the deadline to free up another $11.5M.
Chicago Tribune reporting that Gase is now the coach of the Dolphins
Inevitable but unfortunate. I was worried the guy was just a beneficiary of Peyton last time around, but he turned out to be pretty legit. Very good leader, I kind of feel bad for him because the leadership team in Miami is utterly dysfunctional and incompetent. He’s going to be swimming upstream down there.
Hopefully Fangio stays and Loggains can pick up where Gase left off.
Speaking as a Giants fan…
I believe even the best coaches eventually lose their teams, and their players eventually tune them out. I think that happened to Tom Coughlin several years ago. It was time for him to go.
But I think he could still be a valuable asset to any team willing to give a 70 year old head coach a chance.
Rumor has it he’s going to talk to the Eagles about their coaching vacancy.
I doubt he’d take a coordinator position, but he could do some wonders in Indy working with Luck and Pagano.
Rob Ryan joining Rex in Buffalo? The circus will be in full effect.