Browns Moneyball approach playing out an

Welcome to the NFL, Paul DePodesta. Thats more like it.A year after the hired the accomplished baseball executive and pioneer of the Brent Burns Jersey Moneyball movement to head their analytics and strategic operations, and a year after yet another front-office restructuring that moved that strategy department on par with football operations, you can finally see some fruit of his labor in the -style trade that the Browns hope is a precursor to an eventual trade for a starting quarterback like (or po sibly ).It comes a year after basically taking a mulligan on the entire 2016 offseason. The Browns let quality players walk for no good reason, unable to get decent outside free agents to come to Cleveland. They traded down and lost out on a bonanza of blue-chip talent in the draft, including potential franchise quarterback . They drafted like 15 players -- including five at one position -- somehow allowing them all to make the team and struggle to win a single game while rotating quarterbacks took turns getting maimed every week.The Browns just might finally be on to something.Last years apparent philosophy, which some in the thought was akin to tanking given the exodus of talent, the gro s lack of spending, the youth of the roster, and the dubious approach that theyd reap a bonanza of talent with all the compensatory picks theyll accrue, felt desperate and arbitrary.DePodesta was just getting his feet wet, was still bouncing around to analytics conferences in Boston with free agency imminent and, being ever pragmatic, it would invariably take some time for him to develop an NFL model with inefficiencies he might be able to exploit. And while I would contend that paying $16 million for a second-round pick -- e sentially what the Browns did taking on Osweilers albatro s of a contract from Houston -- is quite steep, I applaud the effort and the thinking behind it. And I hope it spurs others in generally conservative NFL to see things in a different light Joe Thornton Kids Jersey .Kudos to the Browns as well for wasting literally no time in trying to pay the trade forward, too, immediately calling around the league after landing Osweiler try to pawn off that contract, cash and a late-round pick for a 2018 third-round selection.To recap, the sent Osweiler (who has $16 million guaranteed left on the deal he signed with Houston a year ago) and a second-round pick to Cleveland for a fourth-round pick, ridding Houston of a player they badly wanted gone and putting them in position to land as his replacement. And then the Browns called teams to say they would trade Osweiler, would eat at least half of that $16 million owed to him, along with a late-round pick for a 2018 third-round pick. I spoke to execs for several clubs who had conversations with the Browns and their replies about whether anyone would take Cleveland up on its offer spanned from Get the bleep out of here, to No one will do their new trade but I dont blame them for trying.Nor do Ryan Carpenter Women Jersey I. While $16 million is a steep, steep price to pay to jump up a couple of rounds, considering how little the Browns spent last year, and their difficulty in getting many top free agents to take their contract offers even when they eclipsed all other proposals on the market, and the fact their ever-failing owner Jimmy Haslam is under extreme heat to improve his product, well, if hes willing to spend it, then good for them for doing it.Once some executives had a chance to catch their breath on what went down during a rapid free-agency frenzy on Thursday, I was able to download them for their thoughts. Some of the more forward-thinking ones loved it and thought it was good for the game. I like that trade for both teams, as one put it. But I think the Browns thinking they can trade him to someone else is idiotic. And the problem for them is -- just look at their draft last year -- you can have all the picks in the world but in the end you have to be good at evaluating football players, and not just trade value, to build a good football team. Otherwise, you go 1-15. Ouch. OK, so yeah, there still is a ton of work to be done.A more old-school executive from a more conservative franchise offered the following: I hate that trade. I hate it. Thats not a football trade. Joonas Donskoi Jersey And yet another veteran executive believed the trade skirted the spirit of NFL regulations about in e sence buying and/or selling draft picks/cap space. How is that legal??? one texted me. Teams are going to go berserk.I reached out to the NFL Management Council to see if there were any i sues with the deal and none were raised to me in the reply, and both teams announced the deal which means it was approved. Well see if the league maneuvers to close potential loopholes in the future, but in the present, good on them for going for it, I say. This actually isnt that far removed from what he and did in the preseason after got hurt with Philly sending to the Vikings -- despite having just paid him $13 million in bonuses off his recently signed new contract -- for what became a first- and fourth-round pick. Bradford is better than Osweiler -- hell, everyone except and maybe was better than Osweiler last season -- but the concepts arent di similar. And if weak teams can find a way to attach value to having $100 million in cap space available that they couldnt fill in eight offseasons, much le s one, then so be it as well.As to whether the Browns can get the ultimate payoff they so badly covet -- Garoppolo -- I still like their chances.The -- and those carrying their me saging for them -- doth protest too much for a back-up quarterback to the greatest quarterback in NFL history who actually seems to be getting better each year, and not worse. Given all the second- and third-round picks the Browns have, in addition to first-round picks in the top 12, Bill Belichick could hold out for an array of picks like, say, two second-round picks this year and next, plus a third, and the Browns would still not be depleted. DePodesta and Belichick think very much alike, both are rooting heavily in an economist approach to pro sports, and the Browns and Patriots have already done plenty of busine s together in recent years. Neither team would have to do a thing until just before the draft and a trade could still come together. No one is better than Belichick at playing hardball and then ultimately squeezing for more than he could have hoped for (he would parlay some of these picks into a trade for receiver , for instance, who he really likes and still have plenty left over to move up and down the draft board the next few years).And no team is now better equipped to withstand parting with such a draft-pick haul as the Browns. Even if the Browns dont end up landing an established quarterback from the move, I support their ambition. And even if they end up simply cutting Osweiler, I get where theyre coming from Sharks Blank Jersey . Lets see