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Why Browns’ Copycat Belichick Draft Approach Won’t Work

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Belichick Browns Draft

I wanted to write this after seeing this tweet from Rich Hill.

For those not familiar with the Red Paperclip strategy , it began when a Canadian blogger, Kyle McDonald, bartered his way from a red paperclip to a house in 14 trades. Amazing. We’ve seen this idea in sports, recently with former Sixers GM Sam Hinkie, who was unceremoniously fired after 3 years of racing to the bottom accumulating assets all the way. The point of his strategy was to win a trade with no eye on the present success in pursuit of the accumulation of more valuable future assets.

Enter the 2016 Cleveland Browns who are fire sale-ing anything not nailed down in an attempt to acquire assets, using a largely analytical approach. In a piece in the Cleveland.com, Dan Labbe made the correlation between the Hinkie’s plan and Sashi Browns, urging fans to be patient with “The Process”.

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Patriots getting better players is a good start – Sports – The Boston Globe

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Patriots getting better players is a good start – Sports – The Boston Globe

I rarely link to anything Christopher Gasper writes, but today you get a special surprise because today’s turd got me fired up.

The Patriots lost to the more talented team the last three seasons?

I don’t agree on that one. 2011 – Eli made pin point throws on the final drive to win the game. Were the Giants really more talented? That’s a stretch and definitely not true if Rob Gronkowski was healthy.

Same thing with last year and the Ravens, and again, especially not if Rob Gronkowski was healthy. Match the 2012 Pats with the 2012 Ravens man-for-man and I’d take the Patriots.

Talent doesn’t ensure that your players play better on any given Sunday.

And are we even going to talk about the Pats’ lack of talent in the playoffs this year? Really? Gasper says he gets it. I don’t think he does.

It wasn’t “Belichick’s choice to play with three rookie wide receivers”. In fact his choice was to play with Gronkowski, Hernandez, Amendola and Edelman and maybe one rookie wide receiver playing a big role, i.e. Aaron Dobson. You know, the second-round pick people like Gasper have been demanding Belichick pick for however many seasons.

There’s no question, the Pats were not in an optimum position this season due to poor personnel development and acquisitions at wide receiver. But hey, despite this “three rookie wide receiver” offense, they were still a pretty good offense this year by the end weren’t they? It wasn’t their best performance against the Broncos for sure, but they fought with what they had and I don’t think anyone had any problems with the offense after they demolished the Steelers and Ravens among others.

So where is all this “talent” that Belichick is passing over? Because that sounds more like selling out your cap and draft picks to make splashy moves. Avoiding that stuff is what has kept the Pats competitive even when they are DESTROYED by injuries like they were this year.

This just goes back to stupid football cliches. Trade up in the draft! Sign Mike Wallace to a monster deal! Those are the answers!

They’re not.

Would there be an article like this when the Pats won the Super Bowl in 2001 with mostly castoffs and unknowns? No, because expectations are different now.

Records must be set. Four losses is AT MOST what the Pats are allowed in a season, or else BURN BELICHICK, BURN!

This is why I avoid this oversimplified post-season articles trying to describe why the Pats didn’t win their last two games. And that’s really what it comes down to. They couldn’t beat teams that had more talent after five months of football but they sure beat PLENTY of teams this year that did have more talent after all their injuries. 

How about those uber-talentd Broncos, Ravens and Saints?

Injuries aren’t excuses but they derail a great chunk of teams every season. The Belichick team-building approach keeps them competitive regardless. And when they have a mostly-healthy year like 2007, they dominate.

But even that much talent like they had in 2007 doesn’t assure a Super Bowl win.

Keep on doing it your way, Coach BB. The “sell out for talent” approach is best left to those who will never actually have to build  a team, and if they did they’d be fired after their big piece of talent got hurt or underperformed.