If it’s not Watt, then who will it be?

By STEVE KING

OK, so the Browns lost out in the J.J. Watt Free Agent Derby, the defensive end deciding, in a real stunner in many regards, to sign a fat two-year contract with the Arizona Cardinals.
Good luck with that, young man.
Anyway, the Browns made the choice not to pay that. I would have chosen differently — I absolutely, positively would have chosen differently, because Watt’s talent is such that you overpay to get it, him, if you really, truly want to win a Super Bowl like all these teams, such as the Browns, say they do — but there are smart men in the front office in Berea and I trust that they have a well-thought-out plan and know what they’re doing.
With that, then, what I want to see now — what I, and other people interested in this team, need to see now — is the execution of that plan. For it’s easy to make a decision, one way or another, on a big-picture issue, but if that decision involves not signing a great player at a great area of need, as it does in the case of the Browns, then they have to find someone to sign. That’s the hard part, finding the right guy — the right fit for their version of Plan A, which is, in effect, actually a Plan B because they didn’t get Watt.
The Browns defense isn’t horrible, but it is terrible, and, with all due respect to Charles Barkley, terrible is not as bad as horrible. And if the Browns want to get to where they want to go — the Super Bowl — then they have to fix it. They have a great offense, but they can’t outscore everyone. You’re playing with fire by playing that way. It will not end well. It never does.
So, the onus is on the Browns to show us that they have a better plan than paying Watt the same as the gross national product of some Third World countries. It’s not about managing the salary cap, although that’s certainly a necessary component. It’s about winning, and ultimately winning a Super Bowl championship. It really is. That’s the end-game. Anything else is a failure. That’s really true as well.
We’ll see how the Browns do with their Plan A, which is, again, really a Plan B, especially if it blows up in their faces.