The Browns have the picks to draft a top QB, but will they?

INDIANAPOLIS -- You don’t need to know much about the NFL to know that the Cleveland Browns are an objectively bad football team.

Cleveland nearly went 0-16 last year with arguably the worst offense and defense in the league, after all, and has the fewest wins in the football (38) since it last finished a season with a winning record, in 2007.

In addition, the Browns haven’t competed in the postseason since 2002, have started 26 different quarterbacks since the franchise’s 1999 revival, haven’t won a playoff game since 1994, when Bill Belichick coached the original Browns before their departure for Baltimore and haven’t won the division since 1989 -- before most of its current roster was born.

That adds up to a reputation that precedes the team wherever and whenever its name comes up, but that’s something Browns vice president of football operations Sashi Brown is hoping to fix. And with the Nos. 1 and 12 picks in this draft at Brown’s disposal, there’s a thought that this could be the year Cleveland’s long-awaited turnaround actually begins in earnest.

“For us, we’re going to look at every opportunity, including free agency, to upgrade our team,” the 40-year-old Brown told reporters last week at the NFL Combine. “The lifeblood of what we need to be build is essentially have better results in the draft. It will not be exclusive to using picks to trade for players or looking at free agents we feel can add value to us.”

Last spring, Brown, fresh off a January promotion after three years as the team’s general counsel, traded the No. 2 overall pick to Philadelphia, which used the selection to take North Dakota State quarterback Carson Wentz. Brown then dealt the No. 8 pick, which he received from the Eagles, to Tennessee and Cleveland moved back to No. 15, where it took receiver Corey Coleman out of Baylor.

There’s a chance that Brown may use a similar approach this year -- he said he intends to “responsibly listen” to offers for the No. 1 pick -- but the expectation is that Cleveland will stand pat. And if it does, the Browns could use one of their first-rounders on a quarterback, hoping to steady the entire franchise by getting its most important position in order for the first time in decades.

 

“It’s a quarterback-driven league,” Browns coach Hue Jackson said. “You have to have a guy that can play consistently week in and week out. We’re going to see if we can find that.”

At No. 1, however, a quarterback could be a stretch, given defensive end and Combine beast Myles Garrett’s standing as the surest thing in the draft. Assuming the Browns select Garrett, it then becomes a matter of who’s available at No. 12 -- a pick Cleveland got from the Eagles -- and while the Browns desperately want to fill the void at QB, Brown won’t force it if the right guy isn’t there.

Looking past the first round, Cleveland has nine other picks, including two second-rounders, but while there are gems to be found later in the draft, the longer teams wait, the less likely they typically are to find a franchise-altering star.

“Last year, who would have sat here and said Dak (Prescott) is a guy that needs to be a top five pick?” Brown said when asked about the depth of this year’s class. “So the reality is you have to go in with enough humility and also diligence to understand what each prospect provides, then put them in your system or at least project them into your system and see how he's going to perform.”

With that in mind, the Browns’ best bet may be to simply take the best player available at each spot, regardless of what he plays -- that’s easy to do when most positions are positions of need -- then try to settle the quarterback position through free agency or the trade market, where Cleveland reportedly has been linked to Patriots backup Jimmy Garoppolo and the Bills’ Tyrod Taylor.

“I think it provides us a lot of flexibility in terms of how we build the roster and could be patching together to move up to get a player we covet and target,” said Brown, who declined to discuss other teams’ players, citing NFL tampering rules. “It could be, again, acquiring a player from another roster. So it gives you a lot of flexibility as you move forward."

The inherent risk in that, though, is a situation where the three quarterbacks currently on the roster -- Cody Kessler, Robert Griffin III and Kevin Hogan -- are the Browns’ top three options for 2017, as well.

“That could be the reality that we're faced with, so it's something that you have to prepare for,” Brown said. “It doesn't mean that's necessarily our aiming point. We want one of those guys to develop and establish themselves as a good quality long-term starter for us that can win a lot of games. But I think each of them would have a way to go to establish himself that way.”

“I think we have to feel that way because that potentially could happen,” Jackson added. “It all depends how this all unfolds. But I know we’re doing anything and everything we can to improve that position.”

Such a result would be a nightmare for the Browns -- and perhaps an indictment of Brown’s fitness to oversee the construction of the roster. But even if Cleveland does find its QB of the future this offseason, the Browns are still looking at a long road back to relevance. So for Brown, this offseason is ultimately as much about selling hope as anything else.

“It’s not just about putting a quarterback on the team and saying ‘Here we go,’” Jackson said. “You have to make sure he has enough weapons. You have to make sure you’re able to protect him and you put him in the right spot so he can have success. I think all of those things go into it.”

“Some of our younger guys are going to have to step up, but we charged them with that as soon as they came in the door,” Brown added. “This is not time to take a redshirt year. When you come in and you're drafted by us ... your time is now.”

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