Get Excited Somewhere Else: John Dorsey

[Ohdang]

John Dorsey gets fired from the Chiefs and then they win the Superbowl a few years later. John Dorsey gets fired from the browns who are loaded with talent...

 

[Jack Brickman]

John Dorsey gets fired from the Chiefs and then they win the Superbowl a few years later. John Dorsey gets fired from the browns who are loaded with talent...

 

[macbdog]

John Dorsey gets fired from the Chiefs and then they win the Superbowl a few years later. John Dorsey gets fired from the browns who are loaded with talent...

'And with the 1st pick of the 2022 draft, the Cleveland Browns select....'

 

[Randolphkeys]

I have read recently that teams in need of a GM and head coach are looking at Dorsey with the understanding he will bring in one of "his guys" to coach, like Eric Bieniemy.

Overall I think Dorsey did a great job turning the roster around, I thought Eliot Wolf was the weakest link on talent evaluation, and Dorsey just stuck by "his guys" no matter what.

Wish him well with the Texans, the Chargers, or wherever he lands.

 

[Bob_The_Cat]

I have read recently that teams in need of a GM and head coach are looking at Dorsey with the understanding he will bring in one of "his guys" to coach, like Eric Bieniemy.

Overall I think Dorsey did a great job turning the roster around, I thought Eliot Wolf was the weakest link on talent evaluation, and Dorsey just stuck by "his guys" no matter what.

Wish him well with the Texans, the Chargers, or wherever he lands.

Dorsey is good at evaluating talent but basically sucks at everything else a general manager is required to do. This includes picking head coaches, building an organization, working well with others, holding people accountable, etc.

I'd be leery of hiring unless it was as something like Director of Player Personnel or a similar role. Otherwise, given his stops at KC and CLE, he seems to be a guy that just wears people out after a few years.

Reid's coaching tree has had quite a bit of success so that's not as concerning as a guy coming from the Pats, but I'd still be a little leery of hiring an OC from a Reid-coached team. There's just no telling how much actual influence Bieniemy has with what's going on and that's why I'm glad we avoided him. I think in terms of Stefanski's history in Minnesota it was a little easier to identify where he was having an influence even as a position coach.

 

[Douglar]

Dorsey was a crusty old football f*ck. He was about as crusty and profane as they come. His talent evaluation process clashed with the team's analytics group like plaid and polka dots, and that added to the over all team disfunction. That was a problem.

Dorsey had some good moves his first year, but took a lot of bad character gambles, and after 2 years, most of the moves that looked good at first had started to turn curdle. Gambling on bad character only works if you don't play that game too much. Most of the time, those guys have a bad rap for a reason & the more losers you stock line the locker room, the less likely you are to win at that game. Dorsey had a chair reserved at that green felt table. At least we still have Hunt, but the team paid a price in the locker room last year for the other choices.

I'll give Dorsey credit for not selecting next Trent Richardson at the top of the draft. That was a plus, considering the Browns first round history. Second round choices were more iffy. Chubb was clearly a winning pick at 35, but how much of that was luck, considering that they picked Austin Corbett at 33? And Greedy Williams ? Why would you pick an injury prone corner to play opposite Ward? That was another bad gamble.

Trading Peppers, Kevin Zeitler & 2019 Pick17 for Odell Beckham Jr. & Olivier Vernon seems great at the time, but 27 games in, it doesn't look like it was a win for the Browns in the short term or the long term. Maybe it was break even? Maybe? If it wasn't for the the OBJ drama and loss of cap space and Vernon's creaky knees. Peppers? He isn't lighting the world on fire, but on a team desperate for average defenders in the secondary he would be playing big minutes. OBJ never gelled with Baker. Loss of Zeller on the line was painful in 2019. The Browns were lucky to get Wyatt Teller this year to fill that hole last summer. Pick 17 could have been Dexter Lawrence or Marquise Brown. Both would have filled big needs on the team and may have been better than they Vets we got instead. OK, it's looking like a terrible bust of a trade.

But move where Dorsey sawed off the plank that he was standing on has to be Freddy Kitchens. Crusty old GM making a crusty old school coaching decision. It's like he didn't think coaching mattered.

 

[Randolphkeys]

Dorsey is good at evaluating talent but basically sucks at everything else a general manager is required to do. This includes picking head coaches, building an organization, working well with others, holding people accountable, etc.

I'd be leery of hiring unless it was as something like Director of Player Personnel or a similar role. Otherwise, given his stops at KC and CLE, he seems to be a guy that just wears people out after a few years.

I'm in no way saying the Browns made a mistake letting him go. My point was simply to update RCF that his name is in the news again, especially franchises that are in a tailspin. The Texans and Lions have reportedly already reached out.

Just keeping tabs. Wherever he lands I want to see what his plans will be. Our roster has a lot of "his guys" and trades can be arranged.

 

[Bob_The_Cat]

I'm in no way saying the Browns made a mistake letting him go. My point was simply to update RCF that his name is in the news again, especially franchises that are in a tailspin. The Texans and Lions have reportedly already reached out.

Just keeping tabs. Wherever he lands I want to see what his plans will be. Our roster has a lot of "his guys" and trades can be arranged.

Yeah for sure. I didn't take it that way. Just how I would feel about Dorsey if I was potentially someone looking to hire him. My guess is a team does interviews on his background and has doubts, but he charms them in an interview with his "aw schucks football guy" persona which buys his a couple of years.

 

[Lee]

I'm in no way saying the Browns made a mistake letting him go. My point was simply to update RCF that his name is in the news again, especially franchises that are in a tailspin. The Texans and Lions have reportedly already reached out.

Just keeping tabs. Wherever he lands I want to see what his plans will be. Our roster has a lot of "his guys" and trades can be arranged.

I think he is a better fit in Detroit. The Texans have no QB decision to be made, and the Lions have a very difficult one to make if moving forward with Stafford a borderline top 10 QB but he is starting to age.

He will be a good switch for the Lions for 4 years or so until he wears out his welcome, I think Houston can turn things around much quicker and should go after someone young and upcoming.

 

[Randolphkeys]

I think he is a better fit in Detroit. The Texans have no QB decision to be made, and the Lions have a very difficult one to make if moving forward with Stafford a borderline top 10 QB but he is starting to age.

He will be a good switch for the Lions for 4 years or so until he wears out his welcome, I think Houston can turn things around much quicker and should go after someone young and upcoming.

Reports of Dorsey in Detroit with local product Robert Saleh:

NFL coaching rumors: Detroit Lions interested in Robert Saleh, John Dorsey

The first rumors of the Lions’ job searches have emerged.

www.prideofdetroit.com

 

[The Wizard of Moz]

Probably my least favourite part of these GM discussions is that while the GM is here, anyone critical of them are labeled pessimists or haters or whatever. They’re annointed as the one true king GM and any talk to the contrary is a bigly contrarian take

Then the second they are gone, the narrative does an entire 180 and he was always terrible and anyone who dares suggest he did some good is holding onto the past, not giving the new GM a chance etc

We’re already seeing it with Berry where sentiment is overwhelmingly positive that this is “the guy” and all others were false prophets. But if Berry is fired at some point the narrative will immediately shift to how bad he was to basically validate it

I was never even a big Dorsey guy, but price is moving sentiment on this one, not vice versa

 

[Out of the Rafters at the Q]

Dorsey is good at evaluating talent

Is he?

Again, thanks for Baker, but after that, he drafted Ward who a lot of people had as the consensus pick (Bradley Chubb was really the only other option at 4). After those two picks, the only other player he hit on is Nick Chubb, who exceeded everyone's expectations, including Dorsey's, because Dorsey took Corbett two picks ahead of him.

2018: Austin Corbett, Chad Thomas, Antonio Callaway, Genard Avery, Damion Ratley, Simeon Thomas.
2019: Greedy Williams, Sione Takitaki, Sheldrick Redwine, Mack Wilson, Austin Seibert, Drew Forbes, Donnie Lewis

In what world is this a good talent evaluator? Not only is it a piss-poor job of evaluating talent, but he went through a good chunk of the assets we had stockpiled at a blistering pace.

 

[Randolphkeys]

Probably my least favourite part of these GM discussions is that while the GM is here, anyone critical of them are labeled pessimists or haters or whatever. They’re annointed as the one true king GM and any talk to the contrary is a bigly contrarian take

Then the second they are gone, the narrative does an entire 180 and he was always terrible and anyone who dares suggest he did some good is holding onto the past, not giving the new GM a chance etc

We’re already seeing it with Berry where sentiment is overwhelmingly positive that this is “the guy” and all others were false prophets. But if Berry is fired at some point the narrative will immediately shift to how bad he was to basically validate it

I was never even a big Dorsey guy, but price is moving sentiment on this one, not vice versa

I'm never in love with the theory that RCF has one unifying opinion. I spend too much time breaking up fights for that to be the case

I do think you have identified the prototypical Cleveland attitude towards pretty much everything - you are supported until you leave, if something goes wrong, fire everyone.

I personally think Dorsey can run a franchise reasonably well... I didn't like the Kitchens hire and I thought Wolf wasn't very good as a talent evaluator. But, he can go ahead and run another franchise. He did a lot of good in Cleveland while he was here.

 

[Out of the Rafters at the Q]

Probably my least favourite part of these GM discussions is that while the GM is here, anyone critical of them are labeled pessimists or haters or whatever. They’re annointed as the one true king GM and any talk to the contrary is a bigly contrarian take

Then the second they are gone, the narrative does an entire 180 and he was always terrible and anyone who dares suggest he did some good is holding onto the past, not giving the new GM a chance etc

We’re already seeing it with Berry where sentiment is overwhelmingly positive that this is “the guy” and all others were false prophets. But if Berry is fired at some point the narrative will immediately shift to how bad he was to basically validate it

I was never even a big Dorsey guy, but price is moving sentiment on this one, not vice versa

I think there was a cult of personality around Dorsey. I know I called it out multiple times early on in his tenure, that any criticism of him was attacked harshly. These are both from June of 2019:

Dorsey hasn't invested draft capital into the OL. The most he's spent was Corbett, who hasn't yet shown that he can play in the league.
Dorsey hasn't invested financially into the OL.
Dorsey traded away one of our best offensive linemen to add to our pass rush.

Dorsey has continued to draft speed and athleticism at "play making" positions (WR, DB, DL). If someone says that Dorsey has made protecting Baker a priority, there's the Dorsey cult of personality again. Dorsey is good, protecting the QB is good, therefore Dorsey must value protecting the QB. You're implanting your own football thoughts onto the man.

I feel one of the biggest reasons our running game was so effective was how good our interior OL was. I'm also worried about how far Kitchens is willing to remove himself from the offense in order to focus on being a head coach and letting Monken do his job.

I hope everything works out perfectly. But there are things to be aware of or concerned about.

I'm not sure I see the same thing around Stefanski and Berry, but that could also be my bias showing. I think people are happy that it's a well-run organization with intelligent decision makers. It feels a lot like the Indians organization to me--we finally have people at the top that I trust to make intelligent decisions.

It probably helps that, for the first time in my life, both of the Browns first and second rounders were the exact player I wanted, and I liked nearly every one of our selections. Even the ones I didn't care for, like Elliott and Phillips, I could at least understand why the picks were made.

 

[Bob_The_Cat]

Is he?

Again, thanks for Baker, but after that, he drafted Ward who a lot of people had as the consensus pick (Bradley Chubb was really the only other option at 4). After those two picks, the only other player he hit on is Nick Chubb, who exceeded everyone's expectations, including Dorsey's, because Dorsey took Corbett two picks ahead of him.

2018: Austin Corbett, Chad Thomas, Antonio Callaway, Genard Avery, Damion Ratley, Simeon Thomas.
2019: Greedy Williams, Sione Takitaki, Sheldrick Redwine, Mack Wilson, Austin Seibert, Drew Forbes, Donnie Lewis

In what world is this a good talent evaluator? Not only is it a piss-poor job of evaluating talent, but he went through a good chunk of the assets we had stockpiled at a blistering pace.

For so many years the Browns were terrible mostly because they horribly failed every single time in the 1st and 2nd round. Now we're going to penalize a guy for taking people who are highly rated, maybe even 'consensus' picks? That seems weird.

-You can't just disregard Baker or Ward because they were "consensus" picks. Baker wasn't the consensus #1 pick by any stretch of the imagination. I can't say Ward was either.
-Chubb was a grand slam.
-Corbett was a big question mark. He had a pretty turbulent start here, but he's started every game this year for the Rams. Perhaps our staff just sucked and couldn't develop players?
-Wilson has played pretty well relative to where he was drafted

I think when you go back to include KC as well, yes, people will say he's a good talent evaluator.

Outside of the draft:
Traded for Teller
Signed Hunt

Those two moves alone have had a massive impact on our identity on offense. He wasn't perfect but he made some really good moves as well.