When Frank McCourt bought the Dodgers in 2004, his first major hire was the general manager, a 31-year-old whiz kid named Paul DePodesta.
McCourt fired him after two seasons, and DePodesta has not run another team since then.
He left baseball entirely on Tuesday, when the NFL's Cleveland Browns hired him as chief strategy officer. His mandate, directly from owner Jimmy Haslam: Help the team make "optimal decisions," according to Haslam, with an emphasis on analytical evaluation.
DePodesta, who played football and baseball at Harvard, was not hired to run day-to-day football operations for the Browns.