Paul DePodesta SHOULD Have Been Tarred and Feathered
- Fred
- Nov 15
- 3 min read
Last week, the Cleveland Browns announced that their Chief Strategy Officer, Paul DePodesta of Moneyball Fame, was stepping down to take a position with MLB's Colorado Rockies.
I was livid that DePodesta basically slipped out of town as the local media yawned. I heard a few comments at the local Sports Talk Station, but one host said "how can you be mad at a ghost? I never met him, I never saw him."
I took my frustration out in blog form: Paul DePodesta: NFL FAILURE
I tried so, so hard to be analytical, pointing out his atrocious 55-96-1 record while in charge, but today, it's personal. I thought my ire had subsided, but as I read about DePodesta's introductory press conference in Colorado, I saw this quote at TalkSport:
"'It's the way I feel about almost all the decisions we made there in Cleveland. I absolutely own them all.....I was also calling plays for the Browns," DePodesta said with a grin.'
Listen Fucker, you crippled the Browns and you are going to take a shot at the coach from the Central Time Zone? You should have been dragged into the street and beaten with sticks as you left town. Whatever angry mob analogy you want to make, I would have listened to as your punishment.
When the Browns left Cleveland in 1995, the fans literally tore that stadium apart. I am not using hyperbole, they physically dismantled the stadium. My Father-in-Law was there, the fans were lobbing industrial grade fireworks around while tearing the place down to the studs. He called the situation "legitimately dangerous." You don't believe him? According to The Athletic: "According to reports, police made more than 50 arrests in and around the stadium. For the most part, authorities allowed fans to exit the venue with chairs and bleachers. Their main objectives were to quash unruly behavior and prevent a riot."
DePodesta tried to run the Browns from his seaside estate in San Diego, wearing jorts and a polo shirt with his feet in the sand. While the Browns made bad decision after bad decision, he made sure dinner reservations were secure at his favorite San Diego restaurant. If he thought that the coach was the problem, maybe he should have flown back to Cleveland to have him fired. But that would have made him "accountable."
And you know what the real problem is in Cleveland, present tense? The front office. The owner is worried about building a new stadium and this regime, DePodesta and General Manager Andrew Berry, were the architects of the Worst Trade in Modern NFL History. You argue that Owner Jimmy Haslam dictated that the front office make the trade? Then DePodesta or Berry should have quit in protest.
That's why you don't let the owner make trades.
That's not Irascible Blogger Fred speaking, when the Cleveland Browns traded a boatload of draft picks for (accused) rapist DeShaun Watson, this was the consensus from the media:
Worst Trade in NFL History: Google AI
Worst Trade in NFL History: Sporting News
Worst Trade in NFL History: Fox Sports
2nd Worst Trade in NFL History: Cleveland.com
2nd Worst Trade in NFL History: USA Today
5th Worst Trade in NFL History: CBS Sports
I am going to say it again, in all caps, PAUL DEPODESTA MADE THE WORST TRADE IN NFL HISTORY. You say I'm being too hard on him? At minimum, if he wasn't on board, he should have stopped it.
His attitude, from the start, was this: Follow this computer program and you'll win.
His analytics were shit.
"While tarring and feathering had been used as a form of public punishment and ridicule in Europe since the Middle Ages, it became most famous for its use in colonial America in the 1760s and 1770s. Tarring and feathering was usually used as a form of vigilante justice and became a favorite of early American patriots in their protests against British taxation. Tax collectors, customs officials, or avowed loyalists were apprehended by a crowd or mob of colonists to be publicly punished and humiliated." - The American Battlefield
Yep, that's what SHOULD have happened before DePodesta got out of town.
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