Report: Browns hire Andrew Berry as VP of Player Personnel
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January 28, 2016The Browns’ Great Front Office Construction of 2016 is nearly complete. On Wednesday evening word came from the NFL’s Varys, Adam Schefter, that the Browns had hired Andrew Berry to be their vice president of player personnel. The team made it official shortly thereafter. With Sashi Brown (lawyer) installed as VP of football operations, Alec Scheiner (lawyer with football tendencies) as president, and Paul DePodesta (baseball executive) as chief strategy officer, Berry brings a crucial bit of football experience and credibility to the front office.
The Browns braintrust unsurprisingly sang Berry’s praises when the team announced his signing. Sashi Brown pointed to Berry’s experience in the front office and understanding of the league…
Andrew has been part of a strong foundation in Indianapolis and possesses a tremendous understanding of what is needed to lead a successful, high functioning and comprehensive personnel group. He has been trained by some very experienced and highly successful personnel executives in the National Football League. Andrew understands what it takes to build a winning team and the individual traits that are essential in looking at each player that make up that team.
…while Hue Jackson cited his football knowledge and analytical skills as assets.
Andrew will be a great leader in our personnel department. In spending time with Andrew, it is evident that he has a very strong understanding of the game. His substance and depth in his analysis of how to build a successful team and how he looks at individual players will be a great benefit to us moving forward. It is critical to not just rely on one individual but to have a leader in place that can bring together a comprehensive array of information from our talented and hard working group of scouts and raise the strategic level and success of our approach.
So who is this guy and what does he bring to Berea? Let us investigate.
Where did he come from? Does he at least have NFL experience?
He does. He spent the past seven years with the Indianapolis Colts. He joined the team in 2009 as a scouting assistant, holding that position for two years. In 2011 he was promoted to pro scout, and just a year later he was elevated to pro scouting coordinator. He served in that capacity until the Browns lured him away.
Per the Browns, Berry’s responsibilities in Indianapolis included “managing the free agency process, scouting upcoming Colts’ opponents, evaluating NFL players and players other professional leagues. He also assisted with college scouting, preparation for the NFL draft and participated in contract negotiations during free agency.”
Longtime Colts president/GM Bill Polian spoke highly of Berry.
Andrew Berry is one of the brightest young men we ever had the pleasure of working with. He came to us very early in his career and very soon we realized he was on a fast track. I am not surprised the Browns hired him for this very important position. I assure you he has both the capacity and the will to do an outstanding job. The Browns have made, in my humble opinion, a great hire.
Berry has had a rocket up his behind since he entered the NFL. The Colts were his first employer once he got out of college — check his LinkedIn — and now he has the Browns’ top personnel job at just 28 years old.
He’s young, eh? Where did he go to school?
Add another Harvard man to the Browns front office! Sashi Brown went to Harvard Law and Paul DePodesta went to Harvard as an undergrad. Andrew Berry got both the undergrad and graduate experience — he got himself both a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s in computer science in just four years. He was a John Harvard Scholar, which is Harvard’s highfalutin way of saying that he was in the top 5 percent of his class. He was quite the dignified student, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa and the whole deal. When he wasn’t in the classroom —
Ugh, another Harvard guy? Does he even know how to play football?
— as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted; when Berry wasn’t in the classroom,1 he was on the football field. He played quarterback in high school in Bel Air, Maryland, but played in the secondary while in Cambridge. He was a four-year starter at cornerback for the Crimson, and he was a good one. He was thrice named to the All-Ivy League first team and earned two All-America selections. Listed at six feet tall and 175 pounds, Berry totaled 125 tackles and five interceptions in his career. There was a four-game stretch during his junior year when the ball was allegedly never thrown his way. Real Revis Island stuff.
During his senior season, Berry was one of five finalists for the John Wooden Citizenship Cup, given to the nation’s highest-achieving student-athlete. He was also a finalist for the Draddy Trophy, known in some circles as the academic Heisman, awarded to the national scholar-athlete of the year. He was also named the Football Championship Subdivision Athletic Director Association Scholar-Athlete of the Year, and a member of the FCS Athletic Directors Association Academic All-Star Team and Allstate American Football Coaches Association Good Works Team — doesn’t it just roll off the tongue?
(He also won the Nils V. “Swede” Nelson Award, given annually by the Gridiron Club of Greater Boston. That put him in the company of Doak Walker, Dick Jauron, Matt Hasselbeck, and a bunch of guys you’ve never heard of from Bowdoin and Middlebury.)
Sounds like he was pretty good. Why didn’t he, you know, play professional football?
He tried. There are videos of him training for the combine and scouting reports and everything. The league, however, decided he wasn’t quite good enough to cut it as a player. Despite all the accolades, Berry went undrafted in 2009. He had hope when the Washington Redskins offered him a tryout, but that hope was quickly dashed by injury. Not long into his tryout, he had to pull out with a herniated disk. The dream was dead.
He had other options. He had interned at Goldman Sachs during the summer of 2008, and the door was open for him to return. He could have accepted a professional life without football, done the investment banking thing, and raked in the dough. Around the same time, however, the Colts reached out. They knew about him from Harvard and wanted to interview him for a job in their personnel department. With the support of his parents, he followed his heart.2
From the Harvard Crimson in 2008:
“It was a difficult decision, from the aspect that I’d spent my time in the summer at Goldman Sachs and the career opportunities and support I had received there I thought were really nice,” Berry says. “But at the end of the day, I felt compelled to take the job with the Colts because that’s where my passion [was]. From that point, once I saw everything fall into place, it was pretty easy to pull the trigger.”
So should we like this guy or what?
I think so, yeah. If you’ve talked yourself into the other Ivy Leaguers in Berea, then Andrew Berry should be a no-brainer. He presumably has the smarts to hang with the likes of DePodesta and Brown — econ + comp sci = analytics wet dream, far as I can tell — and he knows what it’s like to be on the field. He’s been in huddles. He’s led teams. He’s worked in personnel departments. While a bit young, he in many ways sounds like the ideal fit for today’s Browns front office.
As always, there is reason for skepticism. Even the most glowing praise from Sashi Brown and Hue Jackson doesn’t mean all that much — what, they’re going to say he’s average? And while the Colts won a lot while Berry was in Indianapolis, their drafting record during Berry’s time doesn’t look great outside of Andrew Luck and T.Y. Hilton. And never forget that the Colts were the team to trade a first-rounder for Trent Richardson. As Berry was primarily involved with pro scouting, free agency may be more relevant.3 We don’t know how involved he was in any given personnel decision, so arbitrarily allot credit as you see fit.
Still, Berry has good signs on him, and he has for a long time. Berry’s college coach, Tim Murphy, is unlikely to be surprised by any success that comes Berry’s way; the coach foresaw great things for his player over six years ago. From the above-linked Crimson story:
“Andrew’s really special,” says Crimson football coach Tim Murphy. “For my two cents, he’ll be running an NFL team in 15 years. At 37 years old, he’ll be running an NFL franchise. I have no question.”
He’s certainly on track. Andrew Berry hasn’t succeeded to the degree he has on dumb luck alone. “I’m definitely not the smartest kid here,” he said while at Harvard in 2008, “but starting things early and knowing my priorities has helped.” He comes across as a man driven by what he does, willing to work hard, and conscious of the effect that one person can have.
He told the Boston Globe in 2008 that his short-term goal upon graduating was to pay off his student loans. In the longer term, he said, he wanted to make a difference.
“Quite honestly, next year, when I graduate, who’s going to remember Andrew Berry?” he said.4 “If not next year, five years down the line. Who can name the last five Nobel Prize winners? Or even five CEOs of companies? It’s the people who have a personal effect on your life, those are the people you’ll remember.
“I want to be able to have an impact on where I’m needed.”
Taken a look at the Browns recently, Andrew? I they could use you right here in Cleveland.
- Or taking part in other extracurriculars — he was involved in a bunch of ’em. From the Harvard Gazette: “Andrew’s work with the Phillips Brooks House Association Summer Urban Program as a teacher and director; science and math tutoring at the St. Paul A.M.E. (African Methodist Episcopal) Church; and after-school program volunteering are just a few examples of the commitment he has made in his four years.” [↩]
- Berry said of his parents in 2009: “I feel like I won the lottery in the sense of I had so many good supportive people around me that pointed me in the right direction at critical points of my life, and I feel like if I’m in a position where I might be able to help somebody else out, that’s an opportunity I’d love to take.” [↩]
- Ed’s note: This is an edit made on January 28. [↩]
- He joins Hue Jackson in terms of third-person speaking. [↩]
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But they haven’t done anything funny since Christmas Vacation!