In all the computations and calculations that go into the Moneyball approach to sports, there is one simple multiplication rule that trumps everything when it comes to using the approach in the NFL.Multiply zero wins by anything and it equals zero confidence in the process.That's the problem the 0-11 Cleveland Browns face as they come precariously close to becoming only the fourth team to go winless in the Super Bowl era. If the Browns, who have two home games and a bye over the next three weeks, don't find a way to win a game this season, will that undermine what the team has tried to build this year'"There's no question that you worry about that," a team source said. "But I don't think that's happened. I don't think anybody has lost faith."Whether you call it faith or confidence, NFL coaches will tell you that once it's gone, it's nearly impossible to get back."If players don't think a coach can help them win anymore, they tune you out," Tampa Bay defensive coordinator and former Atlanta head coach Mike Smith said. "You're not useful to them anymore."Cleveland's performance this season is enough to cause problems. But it comes on top of the team's adopting an outside-the-box approach to the sport that led to plenty of doubt, at least from a public perspective.The Browns brought in head coach Hue Jackson, promoted Sashi Brown to executive vice president of football operations and hired Paul DePodesta to be the team's chief strategy officer. Neither Brown nor DePodesta, who was a key figure in the development of the idea of Moneyball when he worked in baseball, had extensive experience in traditional football personnel evaluation. Rather, they were trained as a lawyer and economist, respectively.While Moneyball concepts have been adopted throughout sports in recent years, there has been a great deal of criticism of the approach. The Oakland A's, the team that introduced the concept to Major League Baseball, have never won anything of substance.Now, in Cleveland, the short-term analysis of the situation is simple: It's failing.Then again, it's not as if the more traditional approach to football has worked for the Browns either. In the past 14 years, counting this season, the Browns have produced 13 losing seasons, including 12 with at least 10 losses. There have been zero playoff appearances in a league where more than one-third of the teams make the playoffs every year."Yeah, it sucks [to be winless]," one Browns player said. "But it's not like we've been kicking ass."The Browns, who were once dubbed the "factory of sadness," have really been more of a factory of chaos since returning to the NFL in 1999 as an expansion team. During Cleveland's 14-year run of futility, the team has had two owners, seven head coaches, seven general managers and two executives hired specifically to oversee football operations (Mike Holmgren and Joe Banner).The constant change has led to constant reshuffling of the roster to fit the needs of the next head coach. That comes on top of abject failures in player selection.During a nine-year period from 2007 to 2015, the Browns selected 23 players in the first or second round of the NFL draft. Of those, only six are still with the team, and three of those were drafted in 2015.Three of those picks were quarterbacks who turned into colossal failures. Brady Quinn was taken in 2007 and lasted only three years. Brandon Weeden was drafted in 2012 and was released after two seasons with the team. And in 2014, Johnny Manziel was taken in the first round and became the face of the team's failures with his embarrassing two-year run with the Browns.That's the antithesis of how contending teams are traditionally built in the NFL."You have to have people who are bought in to do what you do and how you want it to run," said New England coach Bill Belichick, who cut his teeth as a head coach in Cleveland in the 1990s. "Those are the people who are the foundation of how the team is run."The Browns have veteran left tackle Joe Thomas, cornerback Joe Haden and a history of losing as their foundation right now. As three team sources said, that's a long way from what's needed."The talent is just not there yet," one source said.Which is why, those sources said, Jackson has been careful not to rip into players as the losses have piled up. Outside of Thomas, Haden, linebackers Jamie Collins and Chris Kirksey, defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah and wide receivers Terrelle Pryor and Corey Coleman, the Browns are scrambling to find starters to make the team a contender.What the team does have is a truckload of draft picks. The team drafted 14 players this year, and 12 made the roster. The team already has two first-round picks and two second-round picks for next year.But the deeper question for the Browns is whether the current regime of Brown, Jackson and DePodesta will be able to stay together to execute the plan it has put in place.One former Browns player indicated things seemed to be changing for the better this season under Jackson."I felt like the winning spirit was making its way into Cleveland with those new coaches," said linebacker Barkevious Mingo, a 2013 first-round pick by the Browns who Cleveland traded to New England this year. But Mingo was also clear to point out there was a long way to go, saying that going to New England was a "huge culture shock."The question is whether the culture the Browns are trying to install will be trusted if the season continues to go adrift. Will the players lose confidence in the coaches and front office, undermining the ability to compete'Many people outside the organization have started to wonder. Last week, Brown had to assure the public that Jackson would remain as coach, per Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. The mere idea that a coach could be fired after one season is head-scratching.Then again, that's exactly what the Browns did in 2013 when they fired Rob Chudzinski after one season."I hope not," a veteran player said. "You see this all the time in football. You run a play and it doesn't work. Could have been a great call, but it just didn't work out. Somebody fell down running a route, somebody missed a block, something somewhere didn't execute properly."You don't get rid of the play; you practice it until it works."
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