In January 2016, the Browns made headlines when after firing Farmer and Pettine, promoted general counsel Sashi Brown to executive vice president of football operations, and hired longtime baseball executive Paul DePodesta as chief strategy officer. These moves were viewed nationally as the Browns trying to take a more analytics intensive approach to building the team, taking a page from the "Moneyball" style of Major League Baseball teams like the Oakland Athletics - of which DePodesta helped pioneer during his time as an assistant to Athletics general manager Billy Beane. With Brown essentially taking over general manager duties, this marks the fourth different head of personnel (either as general manager or similar job title) under the Haslam ownership era, which began in 2012.