If you want to know the real
benefit of being the new regime for the NFL’s most pathetic franchise, it’s
this: you can clear the decks of the mistakes that aren’t yours and no one will
criticize. Indeed you’ve set yourself up
for praise.
That’s how it is at the
moment for new Cleveland Browns general manager Ray Farmer and new head coach
Mike Pettine. In succession on
Wednesday, Farmer settled most of the family business by cutting loose the two
quarterbacks that started most of the team’s games last season, Brandon Weeden
and Jason Campbell. For now, the only complaints are those
directed at Mike Holmgren and Tom Heckert, a long gone previous regime.
The moves weren’t
unanticipated. Nothing gives cover for
making a harsh move than the absence of the knuckleheads responsible for
drafting them in the first place. Yet for
those of you keeping track at home, this means that again as always the Browns
officially are looking for a quarterback. Unofficially, nothing’s changed. It also means that the books are now closed
on the fate of the 2012 draft as both first round picks are no longer with the
team, Trent Richardson having been traded to Indianapolis during last
season. Usually it takes a bit longer to
evaluate a draft.
I’d have to do the kind of
research that would really be a fitful waste of time to determine the last time
a team had two picks in the first round and neither was with the team two years
later. Let’s just peg the number at zero
because that’s what it probably is anyway.
(Interesting factoid: 3 times in
this golden decade plus of the Browns 2.0, the team has had two draft picks in
the first round. The only non-bust of
all 6 picks—Tim Couch, Courtney Brown, Joe Thomas, Brady Quinn, Trent
Richardson, Brandon Weeden—has been Thomas.
Couch and Brown lasted 5 lamentable years with the Browns, Quinn 3 and
Weeden and Richardson 2. Fascinating
record, isn’t it?)
That Weeden was a colossal waste
of a first round pick is a given. Weeden
was a bad decision from the outset. No
one drafts a 28 year old rookie quarterback in the first round. Check that.
No one drafts a 28 year old rookie quarterback in any round. No one, that is, except the Browns. The thought process at the time was that
Weeden would be more mature. That was
supposed to translate, I guess, into a shorter learning curve.
If there was one thing that
was clear about Weeden, though, it was that virtually nothing translated. Whatever he studied, whatever he worked on
almost didn’t matter. Weeden had the
unusually consistent inability to put thought into positive action or learn
from his mistakes. The 3 straight weeks
of awful off-balanced shovel passes late in games is the testament to his
trend. In fairness, there was one
mistake he did learn from and that was that he had to get off the field during
pregame more quickly after having gotten trapped under the American flag being
unfurled in his first game. The fact
that he got caught under the flag in the first place and the struggle to free
himself from its clutches ended up being the perfect metaphor for his NFL
career.
Where to place Weeden in the Parthenon
that is the Browns’ colossal waste of first round picks is far more difficult
for two reasons. First, the list is long,
the hall is filled. Second, some of
those picks (Couch, Browns) hung around longer than their shelf life because
the regime that blew the picks hung around longer than its shelf life. So tenure in and of itself is most
irrelevant.
But let’s ponder it just for
a moment anyway. Is Weeden closer to Tim
Couch or Brady Quinn? Is he Gerald
Warren or Courtney Brown? Braylon
Edwards or William Green? Does it
matter? Not at this point.
This is of course what really
ails the Browns most. They have been
systematically, almost deliberately, awful at the draft. No matter the pedigree, no matter the resume,
the paid professionals put in charge of picking from among the 10 or so best
college players repeatedly guessed wrong.
This record, too, extends
beyond the first round. The Browns have been
phenomenally unsuccessful in the second round as well during this 2.0 era. Their most “successful” second round picks have
been Dennis Northcutt and D’Qwell Jackson.
The least successful is a far longer list and includes the particularly
golden trio, all drafted in 2009 by Eric Mangini, of Brian Robiski, Mohamed
Massaquoi and David Veikune.
This is the key to why the
Browns have been so awful for so long.
It’s hard to add depth when there’s no core to work with. The inevitable undrafted free agents that
fill out every team’s rosters end up holding much more prominent roles with the
Browns because the supposed studs drafted as starters rarely have panned
out. No team can progress past a 4-5 win
season until it can find a way to draft a player in the first or second round
that can actually contribute not just immediately but for the long term as
well.
All this is the history that
Farmer has stacked up in his office in Berea like musty boxes in an attic or containers
of yogurt in the back of the refrigerator. Someone had the idea that it was
best to keep them but moved out before you could ask them why. So the task fell to Farmer to clean the place
up and that’s essentially what he did by parting with Weeden and Campbell.
Weeden may latch on to
another team looking for a back up, similar to Colt McCoy, similar to Brady
Quinn. But his fate is cast. A quarterback that fails in Cleveland doesn’t
get a fresh start anywhere else. Weeden
is 30 years old now and has failed in two professional sports. Farmer did him a favor. It really is time for Weeden to move on to
his life’s work.
So kudos to Farmer for not
staying vested in a player based on his draft position. The only way to build a new culture is to
actually build the new culture and keeping players around that were responsible
for the old culture can’t be part of the new equation.
Perhaps that was really the
thinking behind Farmer’s free agent signings this week. Farmer’s been active in the market but active
in the same way that a person running on a treadmill is active. He likely feels
better for having exercised but he’s stayed in place accomplishing that
task. Swapping out T.J. Ward for Donte
Whitner and Karlos Dansby for D’Qwell Jackson doesn’t necessarily signify
progress unless the real goal is cultural overhaul. Statistically, the players are
interchangeable.
Undoubtedly there are more
moves to make. The Browns seem to have
swung for a few fences, particularly in the case of Darrelle Reavis, and
missed. That’s not a surprise. The Browns are a tough sell, as their
coaching search attests. But money often
does trump nearly everything else so expect a few more signings to fill in some
of the gaps. Recently signed tight end Jim Dray is an example, Running back Ben Tate , if they sign him, is another.
Teams like the Browns can’t
improve through free agency alone, even when the goal is cultural. But the key
to the Browns’ free agent acquisitions stem from the new attitudes in the
locker room. Guys that sign big new contracts tend to bring
a new enthusiasm and perspective.
The real trick for Farmer
will be the draft. He has plenty to work
with and a fairly deep draft class. The
most difficult decision he faces is the same faced by his predecessors. He needs to find a permanent, competent
occupant for the quarterback position. It
won’t be easy. It hasn’t been for anyone
else.
The popular thought at the
moment is that the Browns will place their near term faith in Brian Hoyer, sign
an experienced back up, and then take a quarterback a bit later in the draft
with the hope of developing him over time.
That sounds like the typical NFL executive plan, the kind of thinking
Holmgren used in drafting a quarterback late every year. I’m still waiting for that plan to work just
once in this era.
The Browns don’t need to
draft a quarterback for the indeterminate future. They need to draft a quarterback who can play
tomorrow. Quarterbacks out of college
are far more prepared for the NFL than they’ve ever been owing to all of the
specialized coaching they’ve received over the years. Teams, and as importantly, fans expect as
much production out of a rookie quarterback as they do out of a rookie
linebacker.
If this team wants to develop
a quarterback then they need to take the plunge and draft one in the first
round and throw him into the mix right away.
If Hoyer proves to be the better quarterback in training camp,
great. But the notion that a blue chip
quarterback will develop down the road out of the scrap heap that is the later
rounds of the draft is just wishful, worthless thinking at this point.
The fans in Cleveland can
tolerate plenty, obviously. But on the
list of things that will push them over the cliff number one is a front office
that continues to do the same things in the same way hoping for a different result. There’s a reason Holmgren failed here and it
starts and ends with his horse and buggy approach to constructing a NFL
team. This is Farmer’s time. He’s begun the process of changing the
culture and now he needs to take it to the next step by sending the clear
message that there is nothing about how the Browns previously went about doing
business, be it through free agency or the draft, is worth preserving.
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