Right now, if the season began tomorrow, the Browns would be trotting out former Steeler Kenny Pickett as their starting quarterback and Pittsburgh would have under center Mason Rudolph, or Rudolph Mason, or whatever his name is, another former Steeler who has returned.

Neither of those men are good enough, by any stretch of the imagination, to get the Browns and Steelers where they want to go. The teams are well aware of that, or at least they had better be.

But it won’t be easy for either of them to find the right quarterback. It’s a hard job. Making it even more difficult is the fact there are a lot — a whole heckuva lot — of moving parts in their searches. We’re not going to beat a dead horse and detail all the candidates and senarios because they’re being discussed by the media thousands of times each day.

But there are 30 other teams in the NFL, all of which will be looking for difference-makers at all positions, including quarterback in many cases, in next week’s NFL Draft. That muddies up the waters even more.

So, then, the Browns and Steelers have to have a handle on not only their own situation, but also that of all the other teams in the league so they can read the room and understand what could go on, and likely will go on, throughout the draft. If the Browns and Steelers have a player in mind and some team swoops in at the last moment and grabs him right out from under their nose, it could be disastrous.

In the case of the Browns, if they get it wrong — and that won’t be known for several years, a fact that negates those silly post-draft team grades that all the so-called experts race to do while they’re still cleaning up around Lambeau Field, where the proceedings will be held — then General Manager Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski will likely get fired. As for Pittsburgh, no one will get canned, but the fans — and perhaps owner Dan Rooney II as well — will grow more restless with General Manager Omar Khan and head coach Mike Tomlin than they already are.

Steve King