I'm seriously digging Dorsey's approach so far | Page 14 |

I'm seriously digging Dorsey's approach so far

Limit his coverage of TEs and RBs... then what should he do? Rush the passer and ruj support only? That is called a defensive lineman.
Or a LB'er.

Yeah I know he'll have to cover. I'm hoping he can get some practice time covering WR's to sharpen his skills. Just try and avoid him covering the tough assignments as much as possible in games when he's in the box.

Like don't have him cover the Leveon Bell, Theo Riddick or Giovani Bernard type RB's.

Better to match him up as much as possible on the 2nd TE's as much as possible and hope he can manage that.

Small steps. Build some confidence that way in his 2nd year and then branch out from there. Develop him into the best he can be.
 
Or a LB'er.

Yeah I know he'll have to cover. I'm hoping he can get some practice time covering WR's to sharpen his skills. Just try and avoid him covering the tough assignments as much as possible in games when he's in the box.

Like don't have him cover the Leveon Bell, Theo Riddick or Giovani Bernard type RB's.

Better to match him up as much as possible on the 2nd TE's as much as possible and hope he can manage that.

Small steps. Build some confidence that way in his 2nd year and then branch out from there. Develop him into the best he can be.

Ah, "match up". Something nobody ever talks about. So was giblet so bad he couldn't "match up" against "anyone"?
 
The whole secondary was bad last year and it doesn't bode well for any rookie. They tend to try to do too much instead of just taking care of their assignment and when there's open WR's all over the field it can cause a lot of ME's.

Do you think playing single high safety, 25 yards off the ball probably slowed his development at all? I think it did to some degree, but also that he should have produce better.

Overall I'm not sure what impacted his lack of production more, but he should have been better.
 
The whole secondary was bad last year and it doesn't bode well for any rookie. They tend to try to do too much instead of just taking care of their assignment and when there's open WR's all over the field it can cause a lot of ME's.

Do you think playing single high safety, 25 yards off the ball probably slowed his development at all? I think it did to some degree, but also that he should have produce better.

Overall I'm not sure what impacted his lack of production more, but he should have been better.

I think the secondary is better.. And should benefit because our strength on the D line.. But , I don't expect miracles out of them...
 
Our secondary personnel is MILES better. We didn't have the #4 overall pick last year and Carrie, Gaines, and Mitchell are definite upgrades. Randall is a massive upgrade over thin air, which is what we had at FS last year.
 
It's clear as a bell, Jay: The Browns weren't too good for Jamar Taylor last year. Now they are. There's no scenario where he would be slotted above Ward, Carrie, Gaines, BBC, or Mitchell. They're all flat out better than him... and he was a starter.

Now he'd be our sixth best corner. Pretty amazing.

Wait... seventh. Randall was a better corner than Taylor last year while on a team playing meaningful games.
 
Big John report...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">it's fun watching John Dorsey after practice. he really does talk to almost every player that walks by. dapped up Jarvis Landry and put his arm around him. same with Ogunjobi. he's got a gravitational pull</p>— Jordan Zirm (@clevezirm) <a href="https://twitter.com/clevezirm/status/1024040659794255873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 30, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Big John report...

<iframe id="twitter-widget-0" scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="true" class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="position: absolute; visibility: hidden; display: block; width: 0px; height: 0px; padding: 0px; border: medium none;" frameborder="0"></iframe>
it's fun watching John Dorsey after practice. he really does talk to almost every player that walks by. dapped up Jarvis Landry and put his arm around him. same with Ogunjobi. he's got a gravitational pull
— Jordan Zirm (@clevezirm) July 30, 2018
<script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The man cares and it obvious,,,
 
Our secondary personnel is MILES better. We didn't have the #4 overall pick last year and Carrie, Gaines, and Mitchell are definite upgrades. Randall is a massive upgrade over thin air, which is what we had at FS last year.

No... we had a FS but you couldn't see him sitting in the Nosebleed seats.
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">That sound you hear are the souls being crushed in numerous corners of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Browns?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Browns</a> media and <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Browns?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Browns</a> Twitter <a href="https://t.co/PwyIPQ77I9">pic.twitter.com/PwyIPQ77I9</a></p>— Tom Moore (@Tom_RedRight88) <a href="https://twitter.com/Tom_RedRight88/status/1025496280196435970?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 3, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
The Browns Are the Most Interesting 0-16 Team in NFL History
New Cleveland general manager John Dorsey takes us through his three-year plan to bring the Browns back to respectability
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/...uild-john-dorsey-baker-mayfield-myles-garrett

It will be interesting to see how the 53 shakes out. Everything Big John says seems to make sense particularly his mention of balance and wanting to be young but not too young. There is just one exception: talk of extending Tyrod. I think the main purpose of that was to tamp down talk of Baker starting early.

It won't keep him from changing his mind if Baker shows enough, but my perception is that he doesn't expect that to happen and he wants Tyrod to be fully confident in the role. And it is also good for the team to be confident in Tyrod as their leader as well.
 
Dorsey is gonna be a personnel god of Ron Wolf proportions if the Browns go 8-8 and it turns out Mayfield was the ballsiest of brilliant decisions.

If they go 9-7 or better and make it to the playoffs, he's a Cleveland legend.
 
Dorsey is gonna be a personnel god of Ron Wolf proportions if the Browns go 8-8 and it turns out Mayfield was the ballsiest of brilliant decisions.

If they go 9-7 or better and make it to the playoffs, he's a Cleveland legend.


He can solidify that perception by having 2 out standing drafts....
 
The Browns Are the Most Interesting 0-16 Team in NFL History
New Cleveland general manager John Dorsey takes us through his three-year plan to bring the Browns back to respectability
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/...uild-john-dorsey-baker-mayfield-myles-garrett

Actually a pretty good read (for those who can be bothered)

was halfway through my question when John Dorsey put up three fingers: “For a real rebuild, you’ve got to have patience, and it’s going to take about three years.” Dorsey is the sixth Browns general manager since 2009. None of his predecessors lasted for more than three years.


Despite going 0-16 last season and 1-15 the year before, Cleveland might be in a better position than at any prior point during its near-decade-long rebuild. At the very least, the Browns are more interesting than they have been in years past. The Browns entered the spring with $110 million in cap space and a truckload of draft picks, and they pulled off a number of high-profile trades: Tyrod Taylor for a third-round pick, Jarvis Landry for fourth- and seventh-rounders, Damarious Randall for DeShone Kizer and a pair of pick swaps. They took Baker Mayfield, as exciting a quarterback prospect as there’s been in years, with the first overall pick. And even after all that, Dorsey was quick to point out, they still led the league in cap space.

There are still dozens of outstanding questions: When will Mayfield start? Which of their young players can take the leap? Is Hue Jackson the long-term coach? And then there’s the overarching concern that’s been looming over Cleveland for 20 years since the franchise’s rebirth: When will the Cleveland Browns be genuinely good?


Last December, the Browns fired executive vice president of football operations Sashi Brown after a two-year run that can be described as a sort of low-grade football version of the Process, based on analytics and the longest possible long game. Brown’s Browns made forward-thinking, value-accruing moves like taking on Brock Osweiler’s undesirable contract just to snag a second-round pick, hoarding draft picks, and drafting an elite athlete like Myles Garrett with the first overall pick. In that time, they also passed on drafting a handful of quarterbacks, most notably Carson Wentz and Deshaun Watson, who would have been an improvement on, say, Kizer or Cody Kessler or any of the quarterbacks who played for Cleveland over the past two years. And so Brown was out, and Dorsey, fired by Kansas City after overseeing a 43-21 record in his four years in charge, was in.


“Those guys did a nice job in terms of acquiring the cap space. They hurt themselves in that they got too young,” Dorsey said, adding that he likes Brown. The former executive’s full-scale rebuild was rare among NFL teams, which typically try to retool on the fly in the parity-filled league. Dorsey wants the team to remain young, but not too young. As he put it: “That’s the plan I always wanted to do—top five youngest in the league, not the youngest.”


Dorsey also thinks trades are a significantly more valuable team-building vehicle than signing free agents. Terrible teams have to overpay in free agency to convince players to play for them, and all general managers know this. That’s why Dorsey wanted to trade for a handful of veterans—in this case, Taylor, Randall, and Landry—so that players and agents knew before free agency that the Browns would be competitive. “You wipe off the stigma a little bit so all of the sudden, [free-agent] guys are actually excited and you don’t have to overspend.” This haul of free agents includes tackle Chris Hubbard, who signed from Pittsburgh for five years and $36.5 million; T.J. Carrie, a cornerback from Oakland; running back Carlos Hyde, who’ll make $5 million a year for three years; and cornerback E.J. Gaines from Buffalo. Mychal Kendricks, a Super Bowl champion with the Eagles, signed for one year and $2.25 million. Packers role player Jeff Janis is in for $1.25 million.


“I wasn’t going to blow up the cap because guess what: We still have the most cap space in the National Football League. I think we prudently addressed the team in a very selective fashion, without spending crazy and going out,” Dorsey said. “Realistically, in free agency, nine times out of 10 you’re not getting what you pay for.” He didn’t think there was enough competition at every position on the team and so he added at least a piece to each position.


Dorsey is fascinated with modern spending habits of NFL teams. He’s asked his research team to compile a database of each team’s 10 most expensive salaries so he can study how a team with top-heavy salaries operates vs. one with a more balanced approach. He said that the “art of balancing the salary cap is what it’s all about” in the modern NFL, noting that the rising cap has created flexibility for many teams, but has also led to inflated contracts for many players around the league.


There’s a plan at quarterback in Cleveland, and that’s more than you can say of previous years. Plus, the plan seems like a sound one.


“I just want to see Tyrod do what he’s done in the past. He’s a natural born leader. He’s had an excellent camp so far. I want to see it unfold. There may come a point here where I call his representatives in October and say, ‘Let’s strike something up,’” Dorsey said about a potential extension for Taylor, who has just one year left on his deal. I asked whether it would be a disappointment if they have to look at Taylor long term, which would imply that Mayfield wasn’t pushing him as the starter. “Nah, let’s deal with it when it happens,” he said.


Dorsey wanted an established veteran (Taylor), then a second quarterback (Drew Stanton) who understood his role and could both help the starter game plan on Monday and Tuesday and help the rookie quarterback (Mayfield) develop. While Taylor will be the starter, Dorsey also raved about Mayfield’s quick release.


Despite overhauling nearly every position group, the Browns do have pieces to build around. Defensive lineman Larry Ogunjobi (24 years old) played well last year. Running back Duke Johnson (24) had nearly 700 receiving yards. Josh Gordon, still only 27, is one of the most talented players in the league. Brown, who has been lauded for his drafting ability, assembled a nice chunk of talent that simply failed to win games.



Despite Brown’s departure, the analytics era in Cleveland is not dead. Dorsey used it in Kansas City—particularly athletic testing numbers—and has met routinely with the staff assembled by chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta of Moneyball fame. “You can pigeonhole me as a football guy but I’m smart enough to realize that in the 21st century, you can get measurements off of mathematics—absolutes—and the concepts are valid,” Dorsey said. “I’m going to look at everything because it creates broader thinking. … Paul and his staff, there’s validity to the stuff that they bring. Part of making good decisions is having as much information as you can.” He’s excited about player-tracking data, which will monitor the movement of players on the field and will be shared league-wide this year for the first time. Mayfield, if not a purely analytical pick, is a forward-thinking one. Listed at 6-foot-1, he lacks the size most NFL general managers demand in their franchise quarterback, and he came from an offense at Oklahoma that only an innovative NFL team could utilize in the pros.


Dorsey’s view of analytics—that it should be blended in with traditional scouting methods—is the prevailing view around the league. Most teams now have an analytics department. I’ve spoken with a handful of coaches this month who said they had embraced the movement more in the past year, particularly as younger coaches and executives have begun to populate the league’s top jobs. Dorsey’s timetable for competing is more in line with traditional NFL norms as well—I’ve long argued that a full teardown is a tough strategy in the NFL, where contracts and careers are significantly shorter than in the NBA or baseball.


Dorsey thinks that for 2018, the team has the right balance of youth and veterans, and he’s trying to build on both. He mentioned Garrett’s athleticism and that he loves sending him video of top pass rushers. When he mentioned Arizona’s Chandler Jones as an elite pass rusher, I told him there was footage going around of Jones breaking a sled in practice earlier in the day. “What is he doing? Is he doing MMA stuff? How do you break a sled?” He was more excited, though, for the motivational ammo it could provide. As he pulled up the video on his phone, he said, “I’m going to send this to Myles Garrett and tell him he can’t do this.”


After practice that same day, Dorsey called Jarvis Landry over and told him that when he’s working on the Jugs machine with his fellow receivers, they should grab each others’ arms before the catch to simulate a contested reception. “If that’s what you want,” Landry said, “we’re doing it.”


Dorsey compared this team to two of his previous teams—the 1992 Packers, where he was a scout, and the 2013 Chiefs, where he was general manager. That Packers team improved to 9-7 from 4-12, and the Chiefs team went to 11-5 from 2-14 the previous year. He was short on specific predictions for this year, just saying that he thinks the team will be competitive every week.


I asked him whether, with all of that cap space, there’s a Jaguarsesque spending spree in the team’s future to collect talented players and speed up the rebuild. He said there isn’t and that the Browns are saving a chunk of cap space for the looming possibility of lucrative extensions for homegrown players. “I have to look down the road three years,” Dorsey said. “I’ve always told the players this: If you play well, we’re gonna talk about an extension for you. I have to take care of those guys, because they’ve been in the system. You reward your own guys first.”

So the long—but not too long—game begins in Cleveland. With the upgrades, the Browns are certain to be, uh, better than the 1-31 record they’ve had the past two years, though that’s hardly the point. Rather, the point is in the future.


“It takes around three years, but you want to build every year, get a little bit better,” he said.

“But you have to think long term. Every decision should include thinking three years out. If you’re making a decision now, you’re thinking of 2019, 2020. In 2019, we’ll be thinking of 2021. The equation is balancing everything out.”
 
Big John workin’

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Source: The <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bills?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bills</a> are releasing former first-round pick WR Corey Coleman, who the acquired from the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Browns?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Browns</a>. A few weeks just not enough time to grab a roster spot. He’s looking for another fresh start.</p>— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/1035893962224095234?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 1, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Back
Top Bottom