Cleveland Browns Make Changes in the College Scouting Department

This morning, ESPN's Adam Schefter reported that the Cleveland Browns had already let go of six of their scouts. While it is expected that scouting departments will be massively overhauled after a change in general managers (Ray Farmer to Andrew Berry), typically those changes are made after the conclusion of the draft.

Browns are streamlining their personnel department and have let go of six scouts whose contracts were set to expire, per league sources.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 8, 2016

Dan Hatman, Director of Scouting Development at The Scouting Academy, says that the team's college scouts are the ones who received their walking papers.

I'm hearing the #Browns scouts whose contracts will not be renewed are college scouts. Also sounds like small group in draft room for CLE.

— Dan Hatman (@Dan_Hatman) April 8, 2016

One report specifically lists five of the names, all of whom were college scouts: James Kirkland, Harrison Ritcher, Mike Hagen, Matt Holland and Bobby Depaul. The Browns previously had one of the NFL's largest scouting staffs, so this shouldn't be viewed as something that is overly out-of-the-box. I would imagine that the majority of the scouts' work has already been completed, so now it's more so up to the decision-makers on what type of plan they want to have heading into the draft.