CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Browns continued with their plan to reshape the front office Wednesday when they parted ways with veteran NFL executives Alonzo Highsmith and Eliot Wolf just 24 hours after Andrew Berry was named the team’s next general manager.
Although Highsmith and Wolf are no longer with the organization, there were efforts made to retain one of the executives for Berry’s personnel staff, according to ESPN NFL Insider Chris Mortensen.
“Assistant GM Eliot Wolf is parting ways with the Browns despite efforts today by new regime to persuade him to stay, per league sources,” Mortensen wrote on Twitter.
NFL Network reporter Ian Rapoport shared similar sentiments on his Twitter account.
“The Browns tried to keep him, but in the end, Eliot Wolf moves on,” Rapoport said.
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Wolf and Highsmith were brought to Cleveland by former general manager John Dorsey in January of 2018 with solid reputations in NFL circles after long-tenured stints with the Green Bay Packers.
The son of a former Packers general manager/Pro Football Hall of Fame contributor, Wolf spent 14 years with Green Bay, including serving as the team’s director of football operations.
Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network and NFL.com followed up the reports by saying Wolf should not be out of work long.
“Respected executive should be a hot commodity for other teams,” Pelissero wrote.
Despite their failed attempted at keeping Wolfe, the Browns must regroup quickly and turn their focus toward the 2020 NFL Draft.
Following last week’s Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, the next phase of the evaluation process is the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, Indiana in late February/early March.
At the Combine, Berry and his coaches will have 15 fewer interview slots than in past years, as the NFL has cut the nightly meetings from 60 to 45 in 2020, but each of those sessions will be extended by several minutes.
After the Combine, the Browns will host up to 30 prospects at team headquarters in the weeks leading up to the draft.
The 2020 NFL Draft will be held in at the Bellagio Hotel Fountains in Las Vegas from Thursday, April 23 through Saturday, April 25.