The Eagles' Super Bowl championship didn't teach Browns GM Andrew Berry anything he didn't already know. (TheLandOnDemand)
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland. He has covered the Browns since 1984.
What did Browns GM Andrew Berry learn from the Philadelphia Eagles’ 40-22 shellacking of the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday?
Nothing he didn’t already know.
Berry has been an unabashed admirer of Eagles GM Howie Roseman since he apprenticed under Roseman in 2019. Berry has called Roseman the best GM in the NFL. Few could argue after the Eagles’ third Super Bowl appearance and second championship in eight years.
Berry originally joined the Browns in 2016 at the age of 29 under former VP Sashi Brown. He left the Browns in 2019 as GM John Dorsey seized the power in the Browns’ building and butted heads with Paul DePodesta’s analytics department.
I always felt DePodesta dispatched the young Berry to Philadelphia intentionally to train him to be Dorsey’s successor. DePodesta felt Dorsey would self-destruct. The selection of Freddie Kitchens as coach put the wheels in motion.
When DePodesta made Berry the youngest GM in the NFL a year later and paired him with coach Kevin Stefanski, Berry brought along Roseman’s blueprint for a championship team.
That included stocking up on the defensive and offensive lines, fortifying the defensive secondary, fielding some play-making receivers, not losing sight of the running game, and favoring a quarterback with ability to hurt a defense with his legs along with his arm.
Berry tried to follow this script. He just hasn’t made great decisions in the draft.
He devoted draft resources to:
* The offensive line (Jedrick Wills, Nick Harris, James Hudson, Luke Wypler, Dawand Jones, Zak Zinter).
* The defensive line (Jordan Elliott, Tommy Togiai, Perrion Winfrey, Siaki Ika, Isaiah Thomas, Alex Wright, Isaiah McGuire, Michael Hall, Jowon Briggs). The addition of ex-Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz in 2023 was a big part of this effort.
* The secondary (Grant Delpit, Greg Newsome, Martin Emerson, Cameron Mitchell, Myles Harden).
He traded for:
* Front-line receivers (Amari Cooper, Elijah Moore and Jerry Jeudy).
He cultivated a decent running game:
* Through Stefanski and former offensive line guru Bill Callahan’s wide-zone system. But the Browns lost their way by dismantling it to better accommodate Deshaun Watson’s shotgun, spread formation preference. They have taken measures to restore it with the promotion of Tommy Rees as offensive coordinator and addition of Callahan-recommended Mike Bloomgren as offensive line coach.
And now Berry finds himself in the position of correcting the quarterback mistake – a career mulligan.
If Hurts is his model, Alabama’s Jalen Milroe might have the closest raw skillset in the coming draft. But the developmental process with Milroe figures to be much, much longer and more arduous than it took Hurts to ascend as a Super Bowl MVP.
You wonder if Berry has the staying power to see it through. Six years into the job, he’s still the youngest GM in the NFL, but the results have gotten real old.