BALTIMORE — As the losses mounted, at a rate that would strain any person’s patience or capacity for self-effacing humor, Andrew Berry finally understood the measure of his boss’ character.
Berry was vice president of player personnel for the Cleveland Browns, and he worked for Sashi Brown, an unorthodox football executive doing his best to tear a woeful organization down and build it back up. The teams Brown constructed in 2016 and 2017 won exactly one game in 32 tries, about as bad as it gets by the NFL’s unforgiving calculus.
As the horror show deepened and exasperated fans sharpened their pitchforks, Berry, the Browns’ general manager today, never saw Brown lose faith in his plan or turn cold to the people around him. “He is very secure in his skin,” he said. “He was the same guy every day, a steady hand to guide the ship when the ship was going through very turbulent waters. … That consistency was something that all of us as younger executives took with us, something that we really learned from Sashi.”
