If your name is Ray Farmer and you’re the general manager of the Browns – for the time being anyway — then today is another in a seemingly endless list of really bad days.

 

Head coach Mike Pettine threw Farmer and his personnel people under the bus in grand fashion on two occasions today.

 

First of all, Pettine said the Browns had no idea how bad quarterback Johnny Manziel’s off-the-field issues really are.

“I don’t think we anticipated that his problems, his issues, maybe how deep-rooted they were, the extent of it,” Pettine said Wednesday as the Browns began to prepare in earnest for Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers at FirstEnergy Stadium.

 

“If you sat in our draft meetings and listened to the background reports on a lot of our guys and you took guys off the board based on that, there would be about five or six magnets left over to pick from. You have to decide how much of this is maturity. Was it early in his college year? Is it continuing? You do as much research as you can. …That’s why the draft is hit or miss with so many guys just because of how impossible it is to predict those things as they move forward.”

 

For years – even decades — teams have investigated all draft-eligible players from top to bottom. For players expected to go in the first round, the investigation is ramped up considerably. They look at everything, tracking things back as far as middle school, in an effort to know everything there is to know these young men.

.

Apparently the Browns are not one of those teams.

 

The Browns were not aware how bad Manziel’s problems are? Really?!

 

Then perhaps they should have asked any of their fans, who were aware that things weren’t quite right with this kid. It was impossible not to be aware of it. And by doing a thorough investigation in that regard, the Browns would have then discovered at least enough of what has come to light and would have – or least should have – been scared off.

 

But they didn’t investigate thoroughly, which is an incriminating indictment of their scouting process, or, even more incriminating, they knew and chose to ignore it and select him anyway at No. 22 overall in 2014.

 

That’s like buying a house sight unseen and then, upon learning that its foundation is sinking in quicksand or that it’s built upon an ancient Indian burial ground, and buying it anyway.

 

Nobody would be that dumb. Would they?

 

Only Farmer can answer that. But it doesn’t matter, really. Either way, the Browns – with Farmer as the lead man — totally botched the drafting of Manziel, which we all knew already.

 

Then Pettine also announced today that rookie guard Cameron Irving, drafted at No. 19 overall this year, is being benched in favor of somebody named Austin Pasztor. Raise your hand if you could pick Pasztor out of a lineup.

 

Remember the house you bought that is sinking in quicksand? Well, Pasztor is the tent you have to live in after your house is condemned.

 

Two first-round draft picks, two incredibly poor talent evaluations by Farmer.

 

And you can bet that Pettine, who can’t stand Farmer and, after Textgate, doesn’t trust him any further than what he could throw him, was only too happy to embarrass him badly – perhaps historically so in Browns annals – by what he said and did today.

 

More on Ray Farmer tomorrow.