Report: Cleveland Browns to hire Andrew Berry as VP of Player Personnel
By Thomas Moore
The Cleveland Browns have filled their top personnel job with the reported hiring of Andrew Berry as vice president of player personnel.
The Cleveland Browns will reportedly hire Andrew Berry as the team’s vice president of player personnel – the club’s top personnel job in the restructured front office.
The hiring was first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter:
Browns are hiring Colts pro scouting coordinator Andrew Berry as VP of Player Personnel, per sources. This is the Browns' top personnel job.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 27, 2016
Berry just completed his seventh season with the Indianapolis Colts, where he served the past four years as the Colts’ pro scouting coordinator. He spent his first two years with the Colts as a scouting assistant before being elevated to pro scout in 2011.
Berry will work with executive vice president of football operations Sashi Brown and head coach Hue Jackson as the team prepares for the 2016 NFL Draft and continues to rebuild a roster that finished 3-13 last season.
A three-time All-Ivy cornerback at Harvard and a 2008 preseason All-American, Berry had a tryout with the Washington Redskins, but injured his back in minicamp and had to give up his dream of playing in the NFL.
Berry had an offer to join Goldman Sachs, but could not resist finding a new role in the NFL when the Indianapolis Colts called.
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“It was a difficult decision, from the aspect that I’d spent my time in the summer at Goldman Sachs and the career opportunities and support I had received there I thought were really nice,” Berry said in a 2009 article in The Harvard Crimson. “But at the end of the day, I felt compelled to take the job with the Colts because that’s where my passion [was]. From that point, once I saw everything fall into place, it was pretty easy to pull the trigger.”
Berry quickly moved up the ranks with the Colts, something that his former head coach expected from his star player.
“Andrew’s really special,” Harvard head coach Tim Murphy said in the same article. “For my two cents, he’ll be running an NFL team in 15 years. At 37 years old, he’ll be running an NFL franchise. I have no question.”
Berry, Brown and chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta are all Harvard men, so if nothing else the Browns front office has gotten smarter since the end of the 2015 season.