Back on November 7, 2025, fans were excited to hear that Paul DePodesta would be moving on, a few months shy of a decade with the Cleveland Browns. DePodesta — portrayed by actor Jonah Hill in the movie Moneyball — arrived in town with the allure of having the secret sauce to cracking the code in football, just as he supposedly did in baseball.
Despite the fact that his success came in an entirely different sport, Jimmy Haslam's ownership group felt they were gaining a competitive advantage over their opponents by embracing analytics at a level not known to NFL football previously.
Alas, there is no substitute for great coaches, fantastic football players, and a winning culture. No computer can create any of those things out of thin air, and the results speak to that fact. The Browns' 59-105-1 record with rosters he played a role in constructing is the third worst, only above the two farcical New York teams who play their games in New Jersey.
When it was announced that DePodesta was headed back to MLB, few Browns fans were sad to see him go. There was always a muddiness to his actual responsibilities, but it's safe to assume he was a major contributor to all of the team's blunders, as well as the far-too-few successes. In fact, the Deshaun Watson trade and subsequent fully guaranteed contract — a transaction now referred to as the single worst NFL history — happened under his watch.
If DePodesta thought that fleeing to another sport would shield him from answering questions about it, he was quickly proven wrong. All told, it seemed like the perfect time for the Browns to embrace a different direction and start anew after another fruitless venture. It's kind of like when an event you really didn't want to go to gets canceled without you having to make up an excuse. Serendipitous, some might say.
The Browns moved on from Paul DePodesta (but not from the mess he helped create)
While appearing on the Rich Eisen Show last week, NFL insider Tom Pelissero made a seemingly mundane admission that will catch the ear of many of those same Browns fans who thought DePodesta's influence was gone for good.
"Paul DePodesta got there 10 years ago. He built out a massive data and analytics department. Those people have a strong voice in everything that the Browns do. There is a lot of time that is consumed once you're on the job with those conversations, and so the interview process is kind of a preview of that. So we'll see what direction their search goes again."Tom Peliserro
Despite DePodesta's departure, the foundation he laid remains intact. While Pelissero was also breaking news on the Browns' unusual interview tactics, the reality that candidates for the head coaching job may be feeling some trepidation about working with this entity that has no one name or face is clear.
Also, as long as the term accountability is thrown around in football contexts, what form of accountability have these employees demonstrated if their tenure has resulted in gobs of futility? Players get cut when they underperform; it seems that the Browns' ownership is too eager to wash away any mistakes made by Andrew Berry and the team of people he has behind him.
The obvious question is: why would a candidate with options choose to work for this organization? The unfortunate reality for Browns fans is that they won't. In the end, Cleveland chose Todd Monken out of group of three finalists who were down to one option — and that was the Browns.
History tells us that the best candidates are not always the ones who were most coveted. It's also worth noting that Nate Scheelhaase, one of Cleveland's finalists who seemed to fit the Browns' prototype the best, was passed over for the more old-school Monken, who turns 60 next month.
But if we're looking at history as a harbinger for the future — as Browns fans — yikes.