The Cleveland Browns will have the second overall pick in this spring’s NFL Draft. No doubt the area’s sports talk show will devote hundreds upon hundreds of hours discussing who the team should take with that selection.
The Browns need to draft a quarterback. They have to find the right person after all these years and properly get him ready to be the starter for many years to come.
We aren’t going to pretend we are football scouts and tell everyone who should be the choice. And if the Browns would have stayed around the fifth overall pick, we would have advised trading down because the team needs to get younger and faster.
Currently, the organization has 23 players 29 or older on the team. True, two of them, Dustin Hopkins and Charley Hughlett are specialists, and another, Rodney McLeod, is retiring, but there are many key players in that group.
Among them are Joel Bitonio, who may retire, Jack Conklin, Wyatt Teller, Ethan Pocic, Juan Thornhill, and Nick Chubb. And of course, the best player on the roster and the best defensive player in the league, Myles Garrett.
Another one is Deshaun Watson, but he likely will never play another down in the brown and orange, so there’s that.
When you finish 3-14 you have holes in your roster, but in listing those players, you can see more holes are about to pop up in the not-too-distant future.
But since they moved up to second, you have to identify and draft a quarterback and then be patient enough to probably not use him for the 2025 campaign.
We are aware two rookie QBs have guided their squads to the post-season in Jayden Daniels with Washington and Bo Nix in Denver. And yes, C.J. Stroud has guided the Texans to the playoffs in each of his first two seasons.
Still, more often than not, rookies struggle at the most important position in sports, so getting an opportunity to sit and watch and be mentored should be the plan.
Everyone talks about two passers in particular, Colorado’s Shadeur Sanders and Miami’s Cam Ward.
Sanders played two years at Jackson State and then two years at Colorado, while Ward started two seasons Washington State, before transferring to the Hurricanes this season.
Both have played a lot of college football, much like Daniels and Nix.
There are others who could and probably will put their names in the conversation.
We aren’t sure who will be deemed worthy of the selection by the Browns, but we do know we will hear ad nauseum about their personal workout days when they throw passes without a defense present, and media folks and fans will ooh and aah about guys completing 63 of 65 passes.
We could do the same in our backyard.
A former college quarterback once told me the most important thing a QB needs to do if read defenses. It doesn’t matter if you have a big arm or not, or how mobile you are if you know what the defense is going to do and can counter it.
As for the Browns, they can’t keep trying to patch a flat tire at that position. Many people thought they solved the problem when they drafted Baker Mayfield, but for whatever reason, the organization soured on him.
It says volumes that the last “franchise” player at the spot was Bernie Kosar, and he was drafted in 1985.
It’s time to identify and pick a player who can handle the spot for the next ten years. It just has to be done.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 