The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Dorsey, Brown helped make playoffs reality
I asked this question on Twitter during the season, and now, with the Browns about the play a postseason game for the first time since 2002, it is worth exploring further:
How much credit does former general manager John Dorsey deserve for the success the Browns are having?
And while on the subject, how much credit goes to Sashi Brown?
Brown was hired in 2016 to replace fired general manager Ray Farmer. He had the second pick in the 2016 draft and infamously traded it to the Philadelphia Eagles for a bounty of draft picks. The Eagles used the pick from the Browns to select quarterback Carson Wentz.
A year later, Brown traded one of those picks acquired from the Eagles, No. 12 in the 2017 draft, to the Texans.
The Texans took quarterback Deshaun Watson. The Browns got the Texans’ 2017 first-round pick, which they used on safety Jabrill Peppers, and the Texans’ first-round pick in 2018.
Brown made a trade before the 2017 draft that gets lost in the wash. Seven weeks before the draft, he traded a 2017 fourth-round pick to the
Texans for a 2017 sixthround pick, quarterback Brock Osweiler and a 2018 second-round pick. Essentially, he was buying the second-round pick so the Texans could unload Osweiler’s $17 million on the Browns.
Brown was fired and replaced by Dorsey with four games left in 2017. The Browns were 1-27 on Brown’s watch.
“Obviously, the Browns have not yet achieved the turnaround we wanted for a franchise and the best fans in the NFL, who deserve it more than any other in sports,” Brown said in a statement after being fired. “I know that turnaround is coming.
“I thank (Browns owners) Dee and Jimmy and
the rest of the Haslam family for taking a chance on me. And when that turnaround happens, wherever I am, I will smile — more than a little bittersweetly — and say, to myself, ‘Go Browns!’”
So Brown never got to use the 2018 first-round pick acquired from Houston in the Watson trade, nor the second-round pick acquired in the Osweiler trade. But Dorsey did, and he hit the jackpot both times. He drafted cornerback Denzel Ward fourth overall with the firstround pick and running back Nick Chubb 35th overall with the secondround pick.
Dorsey acquired wide receiver Jarvis Landry from the Miami Dolphins in March of 2018 for a fourth-round pick and a seventh-round pick. He used the first pick of the 2018 draft (the Browns were 0-16 in 2017) on quarterback Baker Mayfield.
Mayfield, Ward and Chubb are all that remain from the 2018 draft.
Dorsey signed offensive lineman Chris Hubbard and cornerback Terrance Mitchell as free agents in 2018 plus defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson and offensive lineman Kendall Lamm as free agents in 2019. Eleven other free agents signed by Dorsey are no longer with the Browns.
Dorsey’s 2019 draft has proven less than spectacular. Cornerback Greedy Williams plus linebackers
Sione Takitaki and Mack Wilson along with safety Sheldrick Redwine are all that remain from that draft class.
Trading for Landry and drafting Mayfield were splash moves by Dorsey that worked well.
He also traded Peppers, guard Kevin Zeitler, a first-round pick and a third-round pick to the Giants for wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. and defensive end Olivier Vernon. The success of that one is open to debate.
Dorsey made one other move that helped put the Browns in the playoffs: The offensive line was decimated with injuries in August 2019 when he shipped 2020 fifth-round and sixth-round picks to Buffalo for a 2021 seventhround pick and an obscure
guard named Wyatt Teller.
Teller, according to Pro Football Focus, was the best guard in the NFL in 2020.
I have heard fans say Dorsey would still be the Browns’ GM if he had chosen Kevin Stefanski instead of Freddie Kitchens to be head coach in 2019. I disagree.
Dorsey was a heavyhanded general manager. His personality would not have meshed well with Stefanski’s. Current general manager Andrew Berry and Stefamski are a perfect fit.
But Dorsey left his mark on the playoff Browns. And so did Sashi Brown.