A Little Draft History

If it’s April in Cleveland, there are only two questions on the minds of local sports fans: How will the Indians finish this season and who will the Browns take in the draft?

As to the former, we can only hope that the roster, dotted as it is with no name position players who can’t hit and suspect pitching prospects with arm troubles and velocity problems, will not replicate the miserable spring training record it compiled. Unfortunately, it looks like it just might.

As to who the Browns will take, we can only hope it doesn’t end up in another lost opportunity, or three. When former head coach Eric Mangini, acting essentially as his own general manager, maneuvered around the draft a few years ago like a copier salesman at a Ramada Inn bar sizing up the talent on a Tuesday night, it ended in near abject disaster for the franchise.

Alex Mack has been a serviceable center, but hardly a stalwart who couldn’t otherwise be easily replaced. And he was the highlight of that draft. Brian Robiskie and Mohamed Massaquoi were drafted in the second round with the idea that they’d become the foundation of an improved receiving corps. Robiskie was cut last year and Massaquoi has shown himself to be like Mack, only more so. Massaquoi is the kind of 3^rd or 4^th receiver that most teams already have. The depth he adds is marginal since there isn’t much talent in the 1^st and second slots. (In truth, the real problem with Cleveland’s receivers is the same problem most Indians teams have historically had—plenty of players at exactly the same second or third tier talent level.) He’ll probably survive training camp this season if only because the Browns’ options are still so few.

But why single out Mangini? It’s not like any of the previous drafts were any better. Indeed, there’s only one player on the current roster from the three pre-Mangini drafts and none before that. You could go back further and chart the average length any of the Browns’ draft picks who actually stayed in the league spent in the NFL (about 2 years) to make the further point, but why bother?

The Browns are lousy at drafting and have been lousy at drafting for as long as they’ve been back in the league. It’s why they’re so bad now. But for the moment, let’s not lament the Browns and instead illustrate a much larger point as we look at some other teams’ inglorious draft history. For all the supposed science and money and time and kvetching that goes into the NFL draft by the experts employed by the teams, not to mention the curbside experts employed by networks or sitting on bar stools at BW-3, it still remains mostly a game of chance.

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Long before now, Ryan Leaf became less a person and more a punch line. One of the best known and biggest draft busts in the history of the NFL, Leaf embodied everything that could possibly go wrong with the NFL draft. Now he’s back wearing a number, only this time it’s attached to prison garb and not a uniform.

The story of his arrest last week, and another this week, for allegedly burglarizing at least two homes to steal prescription drugs were just the latest in a long list of epilogues that have been written about Leaf. And as sad as it all is, the Leaf story is also a cautionary tale, really, on how utterly useless all the run up to the NFL draft can be.

Experts were about evenly split on whether Leaf was the better choice as the number one draft pick in the 1998 NFL draft or whether that honor should go to Peyton Manning. Manning played with the more established program at Tennessee while Leaf toiled in relative obscurity at Washington State.

But in ways in which only the draft can whip up frenzied thinking not just among fans but those paid big money to make these decisions, the argument over Leaf vs. Manning went almost down to the wire. Leaf had the better arm. Manning was more mature.

As the debate raged on, Manning vs. Leaf, Leaf vs. Manning, the San Diego Chargers, sitting at number three in the draft knew one thing: they wanted one of the two and really didn’t care which. So they swapped picks with Arizona, threw in another first rounder, a second rounder and Eric Metcalf-up-the-middle, for that right.

If you’re sensing a feeling a of déjà vu all over again, right down to the involvement of the Indianapolis Colts, there’s probably good reason. Twelve years later with the Colts having wrung out all they felt they could from Manning are now on the precipice of almost the same decision, only this time in the form of Andrew Luck vs. Robert Griffin III. The Washington Redskins, desperate for a franchise quarterback, made a blockbuster trade to ensure they’d get one of the two.

The more things change… And for what it’s worth, this is exactly the scenario the Browns, and not the Redskins, would have been walking into had they instead made the ill-advised trade for the second pick in the draft.

Would they have fared better than San Diego? Probably, but how come whenever someone says Griffin’s name I can’t help but hear them say “JaMarcus Russell?” Maybe they’re really saying “Akili Smith.” That may be unfair.

While the parallels are almost scary between then and now, there are some differences. In the first place, by all accounts Griffin is more physically gifted then Leaf was (not to mention Russell or Smith). Part of the reason Leaf looked so good resulted from the relatively inferior competition he faced each week playing for Washington State in the then PAC-10. (Heck, the now PAC-12 is an awful conference still). It’s that simple fact—it’s difficult comparing players across conferences—that contributes to the voodoo nature of the NFL draft in the first place.

But more importantly, Griffin, by all accounts is far more mature then Leaf then or even now. Griffin shows up for his interviews with teams and answers in a straightforward fashion. Leaf always had an entitlement chip on his shoulder and stiffed the Colts on a pre-draft interview, thus likely sealing his fate as a #2 choice.

Let’s not forget, though, that both Russell and Smith were also supposedly mature beyond their years, although in both cases that proved not to be true. Russell, in particular, was highly touted by Phil Savage who, before he imploded in Cleveland, was one of the more respected scouts in the NFL. Savage raved about Russell in ways usually reserved by a father for his son. It sounded like pre-draft hype and perhaps it was but I did sense that Savage really meant what he said. He had a relationship with Russell that dated back several years and seemed thoroughly convinced that he would be a franchise quarterback for some lucky team. He wasn’t.

Still, the object lesson of Manning vs. Leaf is that when there’s a near sure bet on the table in the NFL draft, you take it and don’t look back. Manning, given his upbringing and maturity (the son of a NFL quarterback, a 4-year college starter) was a near lock to be a good NFL quarterback. It was only a question of how good. Leaf, Russell and Smith can with the label of having greater potential upside. Initially the only question was how quickly it could be realized. Ultimately it was a question of why wasn’t it ever realized.

Given this history, the Colts then just as the Colts now will take the bird in the hand and draft the son of former NFL quarterback and a 4-year college starter instead of the player with the potentially greater upside. Though the Colts haven’t made their plans public just yet, it would be a shock of seismic proportions if they didn’t draft Luck. They will.

The Redskins will take Griffin and hope that the thrill ride of potential doesn’t break down quickly like it did for the Chargers (Leaf), the Raiders (Russell) and the Bengals (Smith).

The Browns on the other hand may end up not doing what they need to with the 4^th pick, filling in the massive gaps on this team on both sides of the ball, and instead fall prey to this week’s flavor of the day, Texas A&M’s Ryan Tannehill, because some unaccountable talking heads from ESPN were jazzed by Tannehill’s pro day work out. For what that’s worth, that means that Tannehill looked awfully good wearing shorts, throwing out patterns to friends while assistant coaches chased him with blocking dummies. Not exactly game conditions.

If the Browns make that move, they do so knowing it will be a reach and the fans should accept that fact. Tannehill is smart but he started for the Aggies for only a year and a half. It’s not exactly a tremendous body of work on which to judge, which means that you’re buying potential and not actual production. It’s something that so many teams do as they convince themselves they’re smarter then everyone else. Usually they end up looking dumber then everyone else a season or two later.

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It would have been a nice story if Leaf or Russell or Smith had gone on to have decent NFL careers, but it was never meant to be. In each case, none were nearly as good as the pre-draft hype. The arms were big but there are plenty of guys tossing footballs through hoops at carnivals with big arms.

What they each lacked, ultimately, was the intelligence and maturity it takes to play one of the most difficult positions in professional sports. To succeed as a NFL quarterback you have to be able to make that throw across your body and across the field to an outlet receiver who’s broken loose in the secondary and you have to do it while 4 or 5 guys all weighing at least 300 pounds collapse the pocket or seal you off on the edges. You also have to know what every other receiver is doing at the exact same time and then you have to discern the true defensive formation being run and not the one that’s being shown. And for good measure, you have about 5 seconds to get all of this done and you have to be able to do this 20 some times game in and game out, year in and year out.

That neither Leaf, Russell or Smith made it hardly qualifies as tragedy. Indeed, that there’s anyone that can get all this done and done well is by far the exception and not the rule. It’s the reason teams like the Browns go through quarterbacks like toddlers go through Pampers.

This is all a way of saying that the next time you get it in your head that the Browns screwed up by not mortgaging the future for RGIII or buying into the hype surrounding Tannehill it’s worth remembering that when you take anything other than the sure path in the NFL, you end up hitting more pot holes then smooth surfaces.

For a team like the Browns that have broken down in every season for nearly a generation, it’s time to ignore the hype and find the sure paths. That means more Joe Thomases and less pretty much everything else they’ve tried.

Lingering Items--Leadership and Desire Edition

If you're the kind of person than tends to live vicariously through others, then Friday was your night. And who better to live through then LeBron James anyway?

After the embarrassing home loss of Tuesday night, Cleveland Cavaliers fans were openly questioning the desire and intensity of their team and, in some sense, themselves. How could a team this good not simply come out and impose it's will on an inferior opponent? Don't they have what it takes to be champions? Don't they realize that this is probably the best shot to claim a championship that most of them will ever see? If only I had worn my lucky shirt or screamed at the television screen a little louder things might have been different.

The run-up to Friday's game featured all sorts of soul searching. But in the end the fans' consensus was that this team had to somehow come out and take it to the Boston Celtics, whatever that means.

Now we know exactly what that means. Watching James in that first quarter Friday night, fans got to witness something that actually takes place far less often then we think: a player literally putting his imprint on a game and forcing an outcome from the outset.

There was a point early in that first quarter when the Cavs, aggressive though they were, committed four straight turnovers and all fans could possibly be thinking at the moment was, here we go again. If Tuesday night's game proved anything it's that wasted possessions are like a gift to the opponent. You only get so many opportunities to put the ball in the hoop. Squander too many of them and you'll find yourselves constantly chasing your tails, kind of like the Cavs on Tuesday and certainly like the Celtics Friday night.

But those four straight turnovers were merely a blip in a game that was far more perfect than Tuesday's game was dreadful. To the fans calling the talk shows and posting on the message boards, the ones telling James exactly what he had to do as if they were puppeteers merely pulling at his strings, Friday night's game was abject proof that certain players do understand what is exactly at stake.

When critics discuss important movies, they mostly talk about the auteur, the person who puts his or her stamp on the movie. Martin Scorsese is an auteur. People go to see a movie just because he directed it. Robert Redford and Clint Eastwood are auteurs. They can and do carry a movie by their presence.

It's the same thing in sports. Sometimes the auteur is the coach. Sometimes it's the player. In the NBA, it's LeBron James. He's not only the league's most recognizable player, he's achieved a rarefied status that few achieve in any walk of life.

Though it's not exactly a State secret, James has established himself as one of the great team leaders in the history of professional sports. Take James away from the Cavaliers and it's still a pretty good team. It's probably not a team that realistically competes for a championship but it is a playoff team nonetheless and perhaps even a team that gets into the second round of the playoffs.

With James, though, this team is special. He's the director and the star, playing a role that few if any could even imagine. He's the reason people tune in. Even Celtics fans on Friday night had to be amazed at what they were witnessing in that first quarter.

It's not just that James is the best player in the NBA and thus is bound to make any team better. It's more that he's such a great leader, such an inspiration to the rest of the team that they can't help but become better themselves.

This is no knock on head coach Mike Brown, but does anyone really think that J.J. Hickson would be seeing meaningful minutes on any other playoff team at the moment? Hickson's development is a product of James' mentoring much more than Brown's coaching. Mo Williams is a nice player but he's a far better player on this team with James. Is Delonte West still in the league if not for James?

Watching the Cavs absolutely dismantle the Celtics on Friday night was a singular pleasure mostly because it buried the lingering ghosts of Tuesday night's mystery. It told fans that their faith in James wasn't misplaced and that he is one of those few athletes that can actually be counted on to singularly turn back a potentially destructive tidal wave.

Now it's the Celtics' and their fans turn to question themselves. The biggest problem for them, though, is that they don't have someone like James to turn to for the answers.

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It was hardly a surprise that the Oakland Raiders cut quarterback JaMarcus Russell this past week just as it won't be much of a surprise when some other team picks Russell up. It's not that Russell lacks talent, it's that he lacks desire.

The stories filtering out of Oakland, many of which were no doubt planted by the Raiders themselves in order to lessen the public sting of such a colossal draft failure, lays the blame for Russell's failures at his feet. By several accounts it's not so much that Russell made playing quarterback look effortless it's that he actually gave less effort. Falling asleep in meetings, not keeping himself in peak condition, not fully grasping the team's playbook are among the list of Russell's sins.

Russell's fate is reminiscent of former Browns' quarterback Mike Phipps. The Browns, in a trade that was as disastrous as any personnel move made in franchise history, shipped receiver Paul Warfield to Miami so that they could draft Phipps, a hot shot quarterback out of Purdue, with the third overall pick in 1970.

The Browns were still coached by Blanton Collier, one of the great minds in NFL history. The story Collier used to tell about Phipps gives a little insight to what the Raiders went through with Russell. After the Browns drafted Phipps, Collier took to personally trying to school the new quarterback, spending countless hours going over the nuances of the pro game. Collier said that after one classroom session in which he had been trying to explain all manner of the intricacies of running a pro offense, he looked down at Phipps' notebook and he hadn't even bothered to take a single note. Indeed, every page in the notebook Collier had given him was still blank.

In retrospect it turned out to be the most obvious clue that the Browns had made a mistake. Yet because the pressures teams faced then aren't nearly the same as they face now, the Browns kept Phipps for 7 seasons before setting him adrift. In that time, Phipps was mostly awful. He completed about 48% of his passes. He had 40 touchdowns against a staggering 81 interceptions. Phipps then went to the Chicago Bears where he survived 5 more seasons. He pushed his completion percentage to 52% during those 5 seasons but he only had 15 touchdowns against 27 interceptions in mostly part time play.

It's hard to imagine at the moment that Russell could possibly last 12 years in the NFL. Surely some team will take a chance on him, mostly because there are few really good quarterbacks in the league at the moment. But Russell isn't going to get magically better by simply going to another team, just like Phipps didn't magically get better by going to the Bears.

Russell will need to literally transform himself into another person, which will be nearly impossible. If, as the number one pick in the draft, he couldn't find the desire to succeed, why would he suddenly find it by moving on to another team?

That's what makes the NFL draft such a crap shoot. Picking the right players is about so much more than physical skills. Yogi Berra's words about baseball apply equally to football. Ninety percent of the game is half mental.

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I've never been much of a fan of Bruce Drennan but you sometimes have to give him his due. After the Indians blew a 9th inning lead against Toronto the other night when second baseman Luis Valbuena booted a routine grounder that should have been the last out of a certain victory, it was enough to send Drennan into orbit, and that's saying something.

Drennan isn't exactly known for his subtlety, but from the opening salvo of “we stink, we stink” to his concluding words “did anybody remind them that his is the major leagues?” he put together what was as good of a stream of consciousness rant you're likely to ever hear. In those 5 minutes, he captured at the flashpoint the frustration that Indians' fans are feeling about players like Valbuena, Jhonny Peralta and Russell Branyan. Do yourself a favor and listen to it. You're bound to feel better:



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With all the talk about whether or not Colt McCoy will play this season, the question to ponder is simple: Why does anyone think it will matter?

Not So Safe Choices

You could go half blind and fully crazy trying to keep up with all the comings and goings of this year’s NFL draft. Maybe it’s because unlike many years, there is no national consensus as to who should be the number one pick. Maybe it’s because like most years, the Cleveland Browns find themselves in the thick of the top of the draft. Or maybe it’s because the NFL draft is the second biggest event in pro football, next to the Super Bowl.

Whatever the reason, one thing is for certain: if you’re not yet sick of hearing about the draft you soon will be.

But until most fans grow completely weary of the draft, which should occur somewhere around 6 p.m. Sunday evening, there is plenty to keep one interested. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this year’s draft is, as mentioned, the lack of consensus number one pick and how this impacts the Browns. As a result, whoever falls to the Browns at number 3 will have been number 1 on someone’s mock draft board and, naturally, will demand to be paid like the first pick in the draft.

Though there are nearly as many opinions about the best player in the draft as there are experts making those opinions, one player frequently mentioned as a likely number one pick is Jamarcus Russell, the quarterback from LSU. In a scene reminiscent of the Peyton Manning/Ryan Leaf and Tim Couch/Akili Smith scenarios several years ago, Russell is competing against Notre Dame’s Brady Quinn for the honor of being the first quarterback selected. Though he has been knocked around by critics for supposedly not winning enough big games in college, Quinn isn’t taking a back seat to anybody. In a story in this morning’s Plain Dealer, Quinn said, rather matter-of-factly, that “I’m the most prepared player for the NFL in the draft.” If nothing else, you have to admire his confidence.

Although not quite the consensus pick, the conventional wisdom is that Oakland is enamored with Russell and Detroit will do something stupid, leaving the likely scenario that Quinn will be there for the taking at number three. But the real question for the Browns is whether or not a quarterback is even their most pressing need. Frankly, given how poor the Browns line performed last year, it’s hard to know if either Charlie Frye or Derek Anderson are legitimate starters or better suited for perennially back-up roles. To the extent, though, that conclusions could be drawn based on the quarterback play of a year ago, you have to assume that in one way or another, the Browns will do something at the quarterback position it’s just a question of how quickly.

In many ways, even if Savage believes that a quarterback is among the most pressing needs, that doesn’t mean he will go that route. There are safer choices to make, Calvin Johnson and Adrian Peterson, for example. But if Savage sees quarterback as the best option in the first round, most seem to think he prefers Russell to Quinn because of his familiarity with Russell going back several years. The thinking is that if Russell isn’t available, then Savage is likely to go in another direction, say receiver (Johnson) or running back (Peterson). But should he? As the old saying goes, it ain’t bragging if it’s true and in this regard it is true that Quinn is as well prepared for the NFL experience as any quarterback candidate in recent memory. A column written by Pete Prisco for CBS Sportsline, provides some food for thought from a historical perspective.

While it isn’t quite perfect, Prisco makes the case that the comparisons of Russell to both Ryan Leaf and Akili Smith are worth making, particularly in the area of experience. Russell, like Smith and Leaf, was a late starter. By the time their college careers came to a close, Russell had 29 starts, Leaf 24 and Smith 11. On the other hand, Quinn and Manning both had 46 starts.

In other words, experience matters. Taken a step further, Prisco notes that the stats that matter, such as touchdown-to-interception ratio, while nearly the same for both players for their career, actually weigh more heavily toward Quinn when you consider only junior and senior years, which seems fair. In that regard, Quinn’s ration was nearly 5 touchdowns for each interception while Russell’s was slightly more than 2.5 to 1. So much for the argument that Quinn lacks accuracy.

While Russell has a much greater body of experience than did Akili Smith, it is hard to understand exactly why the scouts are drooling over him while simultaneously downgrading Quinn. Russell seems to have a stronger arm, but it’s not as if Quinn is a weak sister in that regard. Whatever one thinks of Quinn’s arm strength, it certainly is superior to that of either quarterback the Browns currently have penciled in as their starter and backup.

This isn’t to make the case solely that the Browns should draft Quinn so much as it is to make the case that should the Browns draft Quinn it would hardly be the biggest mistake they’ve ever made. Likely, it won’t even be in the Top 50. But is that enough of a reason to pay third-pick money to Quinn or can the Browns do better?

Ah, this is where the guess work really comes in because it’s not as if the Browns are one or two players away from greatness. And this is really the rub for Browns fans for they so want to believe that whoever the Browns draft first will be the difference maker. If only that were the case.

The NFL draft, in many ways, is like Christmas in April. You get a shiny new present or two and you feel like those trinkets will immediately make all the difference. But the Browns simply aren’t allocated enough presents in this or any other draft for it to make an immediate difference. The only way the Browns could assure themselves of getting immediate help is if they had the first 10 picks in the draft and the cap money to pay them all.

But since that isn’t going to happen, Browns fans need to fully appreciate that whoever is the pick in the first or the subsequent rounds will merely be pieces in a puzzle that isn’t likely to come together for a year or two, at best.

This brings us squarely back to Quinn. For the most part, the NFL isn’t a place for rookie quarterbacks. No matter what their preparation was in college, the pro game is much faster than anything they’ve ever experienced. Knowing that, many fans aren’t too keen on drafting a quarterback, even if he has the pedigree of Quinn. But it you accept the fact that the Browns aren’t going anywhere next season anyway, then why is Quinn such a bad choice? It could take him a year or two to adjust, but by the time he’s ready, the Browns will hopefully have more pieces in place to make it a truly competitive team. And if he really does have the right pedigree, then Quinn may just be that final piece that can put the Browns over the top when they are ready to win.

Look at it this way. Assuming he’s there for the taking, if the Browns don’t take Quinn, they still will likely select a skill player such as Johnson or Peterson. A slight possibility exists that they would further invest in the offensive line by taking Joe Thomas, but Savage may think it’s time to allocate his cap money elsewhere. Despite the skills that Johnson and Peterson seemingly possess, the Browns still won’t be any more competitive next year with either in the lineup, even if they improve to 6-10. In other words, the other holes that need to get filled still remain. But as it all comes together in a year or two as Savage envisions, what you have to ask yourself is whether either Frye or Anderson is the right quarterback when that time comes. Probably not.

If you need a comparison, look no further than the New England Patriots. They’ve managed to do just fine without having elite receivers or running backs, mainly because they have an elite quarterback. In fact, the Patriots have been a series of moving parts in many of their skill positions, except for quarterback.

The point is, if you use New England as the model, and hopefully Savage does, then taking Quinn makes a tremendous amount of sense. Peterson may be the next coming of Ladainian Tomlinson, but the Patriots have been successful with lesser backs. Johnson may be Randy Moss or Terrell Owens without the character issues but the Patriots have been successful with lesser receivers.

Unfortunately for the Browns, they’ve not been successful with anything. This draft gives them that opportunity. While Quinn may be, in his words, the most prepared player physically and mentally for the NFL in the draft, he may also be the most likely player that gives the Browns the opportunity to begin building the identity they need to compete in the long term, even if the short term success would be better guaranteed with a safer choice.

Red Herrings

You may not ever be able to pin the exact time and place when the NFL Draft went from an administrative activity to an event, but a good starting point probably is the birth of Mel Kiper, Jr. The annual dog-and-pony show or meat market, depending on your preference, is now so big that it spans two days, is held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and has spawned, thanks to the aforementioned Kiper, an entire industry whose sole purpose is to convince fans that they too can be a NFL general manager.

So it’s no surprise, of course, that the local media would be lock step with this approach. And this comment isn’t confined to the mainstream media, either. Any and every Cleveland sports web site/blog, including the Clevelandfan.com where I’m a frequent contributor, treats the draft like a presidential election. We write countless stories and columns (like this one), conduct mock draft after mock draft and ultimately become convinced that if the Browns don’t draft X in the first round, we are in for 10 more seasons of ineptitude.

Well, the latter comment may be true given the ineptitude of the Browns since their return, but that’s another point for another day. For today, it is enough to marvel at the column inches devoted to Browns GM Phil Savage’s pre-draft press conference held on Tuesday.

This press conference was covered by everyone in the mainstream media. Despite the number of stories written about it, the essence of the conference can be distilled to one word: nothing. That’s nothing as in there was nothing that was said, there were no clues offered, nor did anyone leave with any better idea of what the Browns might do in the draft then they had before the conference started.

The real issue is why this is news at all. Did any reporter walk into that conference room thinking Savage might actually say, “Ok, people, listen up. Here’s our draft plans. We have the third pick. We were just on the phone with Mike Lombardi over in Oakland. He tells me that they are definitely taking Jamarcus Russell. Matt Millen over in Detroit says that he’s taking Calvin Johnson with the second pick. He said he figured that he may have screwed up picking other receivers, but Johnson is simply can’t miss. That means that we will have our choice of three really good players: Adrian Peterson, Brady Quinn and Joe Thomas. Right now, we’re leaning toward Adrian Peterson. That could change and if it does, I’ll let you know, but right now that’s our choice. Any questions?”

Of course not. But we and the rest of the fans and the league listen and re-listen to what Savage said looking for even the slightest clue into his thinking. While Savage offered no real insight into who the Browns might pick, he did use his platform to accomplish his real purpose: try to influence who other teams might select. This cloak and dagger stuff played by NFL general managers is perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the draft. Given the way the league is structured, draft choices are the crown jewels. Though the teams kvetch and moan about what they will actually have to pay the players once drafted, there is no question that they have all long since concluded that the key to a team’s sustained success is drafting well, year after year.

So the GMs do what they can to throw each other off the trail. If you didn’t think so, read between the lines not only of what Savage said Tuesday but what everyone else is saying. The reason, for example, that in one fashion or another a player’s stock tends to drop or rise around draft time has nothing to do with how that player performed at the combine or in private work outs. It has everything to do with teams’ general managers and other staff members purposely putting out misinformation in order to better the chances either that the same player they just trashed might fall to them in the draft or some other player they covet more will be available.

Savage is no different if you consider his comments Tuesday on the “Big 5” of the draft. There was hardly a ringing endorsement for any of them, save for Calvin Johnson. And, in many ways, the comments Savage made were just the parroting of what others have been saying for the last few weeks. Regarding Jamarcus Russell, for example, the comments were almost laughable. He said, in part, “I don’t have any questions about Jamarcus’ work ethic. I know it’s been a concern in terms of his weight.” The question is to whom, exactly has it been a concern? It certainly wasn’t to his former team, the LSU Tigers, whom he led with such aplomb that it made him one of the top players in the upcoming draft. In reality, it’s a concern only to those teams below Oakland who would like nothing more than to see Russell drop down to them. And in repeating this alleged concern, Savage became a participant in the scam hoping, apparently, that he at least has the chance to draft a player he clearly likes.

Savage’s comments regarding Adrian Peterson were similar. Despite an objectively impressive resume, many with a vested interest in having Peterson’s draft status lowered have been doing more than whispering that Peterson’s supposed upright running style could hurt him in the NFL. Savage said “he is a player who has somewhat of an upright style... The thing with Adrian, he's a home run hitter. He's going to have some runs of 0, 1, 2 yards and the next one might be 55 yards. He's definitely a guy who swings for the fences….I do think he's going to have to refine his style to a degree, to be a wiser runner. There are times he should just duck down and get out of bounds."

See what Savage did there? Just as with Russell, he sent the message to Cleveland fans that this is a top prospect while simultaneously telling them that he’s flawed so that the fans won’t be so disappointed if they don’t draft him and also telling the other teams listening in that the Browns aren’t in love with this guy anyway.

But lest anyone think that this game is only played on the downside, it’s not. Savage and his ilk also use it as a way of talking up players that they’d like off the board by the time they get to them so that they can draft who they really want without being criticized by the fans for not drafting the initial player. Calvin Johnson is this year’s poster boy for that approach.

Nothing about Johnson has changed since the season ended. He didn’t get bigger. He didn’t get faster. His hands are the same. Suddenly, or perhaps not so suddenly, you have folks like Savage talking up Johnson as the number one pick in the draft. At Tuesday’s press conference, Savage said of Johnson, “he’s a rare, rare physical prospect. There aren’t many of these walking around. People say why on Earth would the Browns take a wideout? The reason is that he affects coverage, too, and probably makes your running game better. This guy is a big-time talent. It wouldn’t surprise me to see him go No. 1.” In saying this, Savage just repeated a mantra that most fans who couldn’t pick Johnson out of a lineup are now saying.

These comments were not directed at the fans. They were instead designed primarily for the Detroit Lions and Oakland Raiders in general and Matt Millen and Mike Lombardi (or whoever is making draft decisions for Oakland these days) in particular. If Millen takes Johnson, then it’s just a question of who Oakland takes. If, as assumed, Oakland takes Russell, that will leave Savage with a choice of one of the top two quarterback prospects, or the top running back or the top lineman. And since he also just trashed Russell, he’s hoping that increased the chances that Russell will fall to him and the Browns.

But irrespective of whether it’s Oakland or Detroit that takes a quarterback, Savage wins in his scenario if he can get either of them (or another team who overpays to trade up) to take Johnson. Whether fans would agree or not, it’s at least clear that Savage would rather make his choice with Johnson already off the board. If that doesn’t happen, then Savage is faced with the possibility of also ignoring someone he just said could easily be the number one pick in the draft.

What really should not get lost in all this shuffle is that while the first pick generates all the noise, the issues with the Browns go significantly deeper. They are more than just one player away, to be charitable. Certainly the right pick in the third slot is critical to filling some of the team’s many needs, but it’s not the only answer. Instead, the real test of this or any other draft is what Savage does with the rest of his picks. This, more so than the first pick is likely to tell us more about how soon we can expect this team to become a factor in its division, let alone in the league, than anything else.

The smoke and mirrors, the deceptions, the red herrings that go up at this time of year make for great fun but are mostly irrelevant. Savage’s job hangs in the balance not on whether he picks Quinn or Russell or Johnson or Thomas but whether he can find other gems in the later rounds.