Hue Jackson not letting analytics run the Cleveland Browns
By Thomas Moore
The Cleveland Browns are embracing analytics during their latest rebuild, but the football people are still making the right decisions.
There was much hand-wringing when Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam stepped to the podium in early January to announce that Sashi Brown would be taking over as executive vice president of football operations.
The pearl clutching continued a few days later with the hiring of Paul DePodesta as the team’s chief strategy officer.
Much of the misplaced concern centered on the notion that the Browns would now be run by what amounts to faceless robots worshipping at the altar of analytics, rather than football men with dirt under their fingernails, sweat on their brow and tight-fitting coaches shorts.
The anti-analytics crowd – or more accurately the crowd that simply makes no attempt to understand the role that analytics is now playing in Berea – have had an easy time over the past few months. With each and every move the Browns have made, the story has written itself that “analytics” was the sole reason. (Bonus points for those who worked in a Moneyball reference as well.)
It has been clear from the beginning that analytics will be a tool that Brown, DePodesta and Jackson will wield during the latest rebuilding efforts, but it will be far from the only tool in their respective toolboxes.
That point was driven home by Jackson on Tuesday following the first day of the Browns three-day veteran minicamp.
With training camp coming up in July, Jackson revealed that he plans to have the players in pads more than the team’s sports science staff recommends.
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“(We plan to use pads) on quite a few days,” Jackson said. “The sports science staff got kind of mad at me and we had a very candid conversation. They told me that I should double-check my padded days schedule and I said no. I know how to take care of my football team. We are only going to build our football team through playing football.
“Good football teams play real football. They line up and they go after each other and then come out again the next day. I have to be smart enough to know when it is enough because that is part of being a head coach. I’m going to trust my football instincts on that one and see if we can get our football team to be the best it can be.”
It is hard not to like Jackson when you hear him say things like that. While he is clearly willing to listen to what the analytical side of the team has to say and incorporate it into his planning, he will still let football principles form the foundation of his decisions.
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It is still early and there will most certainly be disappointment down the road for Jackson and the Browns, but so far everyone seems to be working to strike the right balance between the old and the new when it comes to building a football team.