We just got finished praising Browns Executive Vice President of Football Operations Sashi Brown for saying that the club wouldn’t force things when it came to picking a quarterback in the 2017 NFL Draft.

 

That is, the Browns wouldn’t hop over a bunch of great players at other positions – players who could really help them a lot right away — to take a lesser-quality player just because he plays quarterback, the spot at which the Browns have failed to find a franchise player since the Bernie Kosar era 30 years ago.

 

Now we’re going to criticize Brown for failing to realize another truism of this process: that the quarterback makes all the difference in the world.

 

Just after Brown made that great point about not reaching for a quarterback during an interview a few days ago at the annual spring meetings of the NFL owners in Phoenix, he made this not-so-great point:

 

“But we also know one player is not going to change things. Finding a starting quarterback, whether he’s on our roster and develops or we go out and acquire one, will help things dramatically, but we’re going to take it step by step here and see what opportunities present themselves.”

 

Huh? Say what? Really?!

 

Now I’m wondering if Brown really knows what he’s talking about.

 

He’s absolutely wrong. He’s as wrong as he can be.

 

Yes, “one player,” as Brown puts it – as long as he’s the quarterback, that is – will indeed “change things.” He will do more – much, much, much more – than simply “help things dramatically.”

 

He is the foundation for everything the Browns are trying to do, everything they’re trying to build, every goal they’re attempting to reach, every reason for their professional being and worth right now. The quarterback is the be-all and end-all of this regime.

 

Putting it very simply, if these guys don’t want to get fired – and as such get kicked out the door and land on the pavement outside Browns Headquarters along Lou Groza Boulevard in Berea right next to all the other members of all the other regimes in this nightmarish expansion era who have suffered the same fate – then they have to find the quarterback. Without him, this Browns total rebuild really doesn’t get started in earnest.

 

To say anything else – or to merely infer it, as Brown may have mistakenly and unfortunately done – is extremely silly, and make-your-blood-run-cold scary for Browns fans.

 

And if he really knows what he’s talking about – which I strongly suspect he does – then he ought to know better than that. No, actually, he needs to – he must – know better than that.

On April Fools’ Day, that’s no fooling.