My friend Mark is a Dolphins fan and he has a theory about the NFL draft: take a quarterback every year, and if you don't have a good one take the best one you can get in the first round, even if you have to trade up. In his view, amassing piles of draft picks like the Patriots do is great only if you have a good quarterback like the Patriots do. This opinion reflects the harsh reality that it's almost impossible to win a Super Bowl with even an average quarterback. Thus having great depth in the defensive backfield and tremendous special teams specialists does you little good unless you have a real stud under center.
Mark is further of the view that you know if a QB is a bust after two years. If so, move on. He's fine with rolling the dice on a high draft pick and moving on quickly if the player is a bust, so long as this risk is taken at the QB position. In his view, a complete bust is better than winding up with a guy like Ryan Tannehill because it's easy to move on from a bust. If you move on from Ryan Tannehill you could wind up with a total bust or even worse, Jay Cutler, so you're stuck with mediocrity for a number of years until the coach gets fired and a new regime comes in and cleans house.
The Browns highlight the flaws in Mark's theory. I'll explain. Here are the names of people who have thrown ten or more passes in a game for the Browns since 2012:
Cody Kessler
DeShone Kizer
Kevin Hogan
Robert Griffin
Josh McCown
Charlie Whitehurst
Austin Davis
Johnny Manziel
Brian Hoyer
Jason Campbell
Brandon Weeden
Thaddeus Lewis
Colt McCoy
Factory of sadness indeed. Here are the names of some QBs the Browns chose not to draft since 2012:
Deshaun Watson (they traded this pick to Houston, then took DeShone Kizer later)
Carson Wentz (they traded this pick to Philadelphia, then took Cody Kessler later)
Dak Prescott (they took Cody Kessler the round before)
Derek Carr (they took Johnny Manziel the round before)
Jimmy Garoppolo (again, they took Johnny Manziel the round before)
Russell Wilson (they took Brandon Weeden two rounds before)
Kirk Cousins (again, they took Bradon Weeden three rounds before)
To be fair, every team in the league passed on Prescott, Garoppolo, Wilson and Cousins ... and the Browns drafted Weeden, Manziel, Kessler and Kizer so they seem to be following Mark's theory. But the theory works best if the folks making the picks aren't completely asleep at the wheel. But even a blind squirrel can manage to bust a nut once every six drafts, right?
It is well established that I'm an idiot. However, when the Bills traded back from #10 in this year's draft I said "Did the Bills just do something that makes sense? Wow." and then "Although I would've been excited for them to get Deshaun Watson." He was tremendous in college and he's looked great so far this year. It didn't require piercing insight to recognize that Watson had yoodge upside--did you see the National Championship game?
Further, when the R**skins drafted Robert Griffin they also drafted Kirk Cousins. These picks worked out (compared to the situation in Cleveland at least). Would it have killed the Browns to take Weeden AND Cousins or Kessler AND Prescott? It's not like they're using their picks wisely and drafting well at other positions.
Seriously, the Browns suck at drafting all over the field. Here's the top 25 players the Browns drafted since 2012 ranked by career average value:
You know you're bad at drafting when the third-best player you've taken in the last six years is Trent Richardson. Who the hell is Mitchell Schwartz, other than the best Browns draftee of the past six years? I would've assumed he was a CPA, anesthesiologist, maybe a securities litigator. Turns out he's a Kansas City Chief! He went to KC last year and turned in his best career season to date in terms of AV. Typical Browns. Note that eight of these top 25 aren't in the the NFL anymore. That's not good.
All this is to say: the Browns realize that they don't have a QB, they realize that they need a QB, and they're actively drafting QB's, but they're either too dumb or too shook or too cheap or some combination thereof to draft a QB early in the first round. They need to talk to Mark. He hasn't said this, but I think his theory demonstrates the problem with advanced metrics that focus too much on "draft capital." Having all 32 picks in the seventh round might add up to a lot of "draft capital," but none of those players are likely to make your team better. At some point you have to take your balls out of your purse and spend a bunch of capital on a highly rated quaterback.
Buffalo's recent history highlights the potential merits of Mark's theory--you are never going to get a good QB unless you draft one (except for the Saints with Drew Brees, which must still piss off Charger fans). Here's a list of alleged humans that threw 10 or more passes for the Bills since 2012:
Tyrod Taylor
Cardale Jones
EJ Manuel
Kyle Orton
Jeff Tuel
Thaddeus Lewis (overlap!)
Ryan Fitzpatrick
Not exactly a beauty pageant. Unlike Cleveland, the Bills don't seem to feel any need to address this deficiency. Here's who they've drafted at QB since 2012:
Nathan Peterman
Cardale Jones
EJ Manuel
It's as if they're completely ignoring the position. Like the Browns they suck at drafting too:
Ten of their top 25 picks from the last six drafts are out of the league. Awful.
More remarkable, in my view, was their recent move to trade Marcell Dareus to Jacksonville for a sixth round pick. Much is made of the Bills' long-running failure to reach the postseason. What makes this particularly painful is that they haven't completely bottomed out (unlike the Browns) so they're typically good enough to get 6-7 wins and don't draft at the top of the board. Dareus, however, was the third pick of the 2011 draft and he played well for Buffalo. Getting only a sixth round pick for him is painful. You know what's really painful though? This:
Buffalo could've had any of these players on their team today other than Cam Newton or Von Miller. Instead they have a future sixth round pick. How's that for effective use of draft capital?! But I guess it isn't much more frustrating than this:
Buffalo could've stayed at 9, drafted Odell Beckham Jr. (or anyone else on this list except for Blake Bortles), and still had a first round pick in 2015. Instead they traded up for Sammy Watkins who they later traded for EJ Gaines and a 2nd round pick.
The one thing that remains constant is the Browns seem destined to win no more than four games, while the Bills are a near-lock to win six or seven. Which is particularly galling given that the Bills' personnel decisions make it appear that they're tanking. They can't even tank right!
I foresee the Browns having a top-three pick in April, while the Bills will have their own pick (figure somewhere around 14-16) and the Chiefs' (figure somewhere around 28-29). The Bills will trade both picks and Tyrod Taylor to the Browns for their pick, then draft a nose tackle. The Browns will draft QBs with both of the Bills' picks and both will suck. Whoever picks one or two spots after the Bills will get a Pro Bowl caliber QB. Neither team will hire Mark, but maybe they should.
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