in the 2015 season to be mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. On January 3, 2016, soon after the final game of the season (a 28–12 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers), both Ray Farmer and Mike Pettine were fired from their respective positions as general manager and head coach. Brown/DePodesta/Jackson/Dorsey: 2016–2019 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. On January 13, 2016, the Browns hired Bengals offensive coordinator (and former Oakland head coach) Hue Jackson as head coach - making him the eighth full-time head coach since the team's return in 1999 and fourth since 2012, when the Haslam ownership era began. On January 28, the Browns hired Andrew Berry—a longtime scout with the Indianapolis Colts–as vice president of player personnel. Berry, being a Harvard alumnus like DePodesta and Sashi Brown, has been noted as furthering the Browns new analytic approach, and the trio has been dubbed as the "Harvard Connection" (and other similar monikers) by local and national media. On March 4, team president Alex Scheiner announced he would be stepping down from his post effective March 31, and would remain with the team as a consultant for the rest of the year. With this move, Paul DePodesta essentially became the top ranked executive of the team in his role as Chief Strategy Officer. This makes DePodesta the fourth different top executive of the team under the Haslams' ownership. On March 11, following two seasons of inconsistent play on the field and numerous highly publicized incidents off the field, the Browns waived quarterback Johnny Manziel. On March 24, the Browns signed quarterback Robert Griffin III to a two-year contract. Going into the 2016 NFL Draft, the Browns had the #2 overall pick. They traded