IT’S ANALYTICS AND SCOUTING, TOGETHER

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By STEVE KING

The old-school football vs. analytics battle continues to swirl within the Browns.

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The battle reared its ugly head again Wednesday when Alonso Highsmith was fired from his job as assistant general manager, afterward saying he and the club had philosophical differences. Highsmith is the old-school football guy – 100 percent through and through – and believes fully in scouting. He has no time for analytics, especially to the level they are used by the Browns.

At the same time, the Browns won’t budge from their stance on analytics being vitally important.

Here’s what Highsmith doesn’t get, and to an extent, also what the Browns don’t get, and it that there has to be a combination of both scouting and analytics. It’s not an either/or situation, as way too many people perceive it to be. One can’t survive without the other. Like it or not, it’s the way the game is going, with analytics having a definite roll that gets a little bigger every day. It just does. But it’s not the be-all, end-all. It’s part of the process.

To deny the need for analytics, as Highsmith did, is just stupid. It’s ignorant. It’s like the horse-and-buggy people who, 120 years ago, thought motorcars, or horseless carriages, as they were called, were just passing fads that would eventually go away.

Yeah, right.

Stick your head in the sand far enough and long enough and you can convince yourself of everything.

At the same time, this is not fantasy football being run totally through some computer. There also has to be a human touch with scouting. And it takes a human to blend the data from both processes to get the best total answer.

The problem with analytics during the Sashi Brown tenure is that the former Browns executive director of football operations had no scouting aptitude. He was simply a numbers guy.

Andrew Berry, who just got hired in that role, understands the benefit of analytics, but he can also scout. So, from that standpoint – that is, in theory — he’s a good addition to the way the Browns do business now.

But will it all work in reality?

Ah, that’s the question. But who knows? We’ll just have to wait and see.