Cleveland Browns new approach a refreshing change

Jan 13, 2016; Berea, OH, USA; Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam (left) and new head coach Hue Jackson talk during a press conference at the Cleveland Browns training facility. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports /

The Cleveland Browns are taking a fresh approach to rebuilding the team and it is giving other teams cause for concern.

The Cleveland Browns have been known for one thing since returning to the NFL in 1999 – and it is not winning.

Through three different owners, seven different head coaches and even more front office personnel, the results have been the same as the franchise has posted 13 seasons with double-digit losses and only one playoff appearance.

All that losing and continual rebuilding led to the coining of a phrase familiar to Browns fans everywhere: the Same Old Browns.

Say what you will about owner Jimmy Haslam, who started yet another rebuilding plan after firing head coach Mike Pettine and general manager Ray Farmer after the 2015 season, but under his direction the Browns are now taking an approach that is anything but the same old Browns.

Rather than go the traditional route, Haslam promoted Sashi Brown, who has more than a decade of NFL experience, to the role of executive vice president of football operations, and hired Paul DePodesta, who has more than two decades of front office experience, as chief strategy officer.

Together they landed head coach Hue Jackson, who was being actually being pursued by other teams. That group then brought in Andrew Berry, who despite being just 28 has almost seven years of experience, as vice president of player personnel.

And in perhaps the biggest change of all, instead of giving Browns fans more agita, the new hires are actually making other teams uncomfortable.

According to Mary Kay Cabot at cleveland.com, personnel executives from other teams have their knickers in a twist over the idea that the Browns may actually be on to something:

"But top execs — football purists who have paid their dues for decades in some cases — lament that the Browns passed on opportunities to hire some of the best talent evaluators in the business such as Jaguars director of player personnel Chris Polian, Chiefs director of football operations Chris Ballard, Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin, Falcons assistant general manager Scott Pioli, Cardinals vice president of player personnel Terry McDonough, Packers director of player personnel Eliot Wolf and others."

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Those are all names that fans have certainly heard off, but who on the last is someone who the Browns really missed out on? Just because Polian and Wolf share the same last names as their fathers doesn’t mean they are successful.

For example, Polian has been with the Jaguars since 2013 and during that time the Jaguars have posted a record of 12-36. And Pioli was a disaster in Kansas City as yet another failed member of the Bill Belichick coaching tree.

If executives from other teams are taking notice of what the Browns are up to and are concerned about it, then that may be a sign that the Browns are on to something here.

Does that ensure the latest plan is going to be a success? Or course not. Every front office and coaching staff that comes to town has a plan for how they are going to be the ones that finally turn this mess around, and every one of them fail for a variety of reasons.

The Browns are trying to break the seemingly never-ending cycle of losing and despair that has defined this team since 1999.

If nothing else, the new approach is a sign that they may not be the “same old Browns” for much longer.

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