Nothing happens in a vacuum.
It’s all inter-connected.
And that goes – really, especially so — for the NFL, too.
Just ask the Browns, and in particular General Manager Ray Farmer, though, because he doesn’t think he ever makes a mistake, he will never admit it publicy.
But the fans know better.
And they really know it now as the Browns get ready to face the unbeaten Denver Broncos on Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium.
When a team blows a No. 8 overall pick, as the Browns did in the 2014 NFL Draft when they traded back to select cornerback Justin Gilbert, it’s more – so much more – than what it does to that player’s career. It’s what it does to the rest of the team, and how it jeopardizes the club’s ability to win, and in this case spring the kind of upset that would do so much to boost a season that has been mediocre at best, always teetering on the possibility that it could head directly south at any given moment and stay there.
Here comes future Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning on Sunday. OK, so he’s not the Manning of old, but he can still find weaknesses in a defense and exploit them.
Two of those weaknesses – and they are big ones – come with the fact the Browns will be missing Pro Bowl players in their secondary in cornerback Joe Haden and safety Tashaun Gipson, both of whom are injured.
In a perfect world, this would be the time that Gilbert, with nearly a year and a half of experience under his belt, steps in and helps plug those holes. But the Browns can’t afford to put Gilbert out there. As if he had radar, Manning would lock onto Gilbert and exploit him, carving him – and as such, the defense and ultimately the team overall — to shreds.
The Browns have to go to plan B and use other players who, though lower-profile by the way they came into the NFL, are performing much better than Gilbert. But those plan B guys are such for a reason. They have shortcomings in their games physically either with the fact they aren’t big enough, strong enough or fast enough, or a combination of all three.
The Browns need for their No. 8 overall draft pick, a good-sized player whom they deemed to be extremely strong, fast and, given a little seasoning, eventually extremely capable.
The Browns have emptied the container of all the seasoning it held and it still isn’t enough to tenderize Gilbert for the gameday table.
So the Browns are stuck with a high draft pick who can’t play.
If Gilbert had come to the Browns as a rookie free agent in 2014, then he never would have made the team in the first place. And in the oft-chance that he had earned a roster spot, then he would be long gone by this point, trying desperately to catch on with another team in an attempt to save his career – what there is to save, anyway.
But the Browns can’t afford to set Gilbert adrift – not just yet, at least. They have too much time, energy and money tied up in him. That’s the way it is with all players selected near the top of the draft.
So the beat-up Cleveland secondary will try to hold up against one of the all-time greatest passers without being able to field a competent set of replacements.
Farmer can’t counter with the excuse that he was merely picking the player who Mike Pettine, a defensive-minded head coach, explicitly wanted.
No, Farmer is the GM. He runs the draft. If he thought Gilbert was inadequate, then he had to have the courage of his convictions and stand up and say so.
But he didn’t, so in essence, Farmer signed off on the pick. That makes him responsible, culpable. Gilbert is, without any question whatsoever, his mistake.
And if the secondary gets torched on Sunday, then the loss can be pinned squarely on Farmer for not giving Pettine players with whom he can win.
Really. Seriously. Truly
The tentacles of making a monumental mistake like that keep going and growing.
Farmer always acts like he’s the smartest guy in the room, but when things like this come up – and this one, especially, keeps coming up again and again and again – we are reinforced in the knowledge that just the opposite is true.
