EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth — and final — part of a series og stories about NFL Drafts for the Browns that played out quite differently than they were first perceived. The first three parts were about drafts that didn’t look great at the start but turned out incredibly well. Part 4 focuses on the 1999 and 2000 drafts, which were rated highly at the beginning before disintegrating into terrible ordeals.
The new Browns — the expansion version — were starting from scratch when they returned to the field in 1999 after a three-year absence.
As such, then, they needed — more than anything — foundational pieces of a franchise quarterback and a dominating player on the defense. That way, they would be getting a good, solid start on both sides of the ball.
The plan makes perfect sense, then, right?
Well, of course it does.
So, in that first NFL Draft in 1999, they took the more important of the two positions, quarterback, and took Tim Couch of Kentucky at No. 1 overall. They had the top pick as a result of being an expansion team.
The 1999 Browns finished with the worst record in their history — and the worst in the league that season — at 2-14. That earned them the No. 1 overall draft choice in 2000 as well, and they used it on a defensive end from Penn State named Courtney Brown. They thought long and hard about taking an outside linebacker instead in Brown’s college teammate, LaVar Arrington, but in the end, they believed that an end could have more impact and so they picked Brown.
Brown had some good games, but injuries and his emotional makeup — he liked football but didn’t love it, so the drive to be great wasn’t there — made his career short and underwhelming for a No. 1 overall pick.
Couch wanted to succeed, but things out of his control stood in his way. He excelled in the short passing game in college, but instead of developing an offense built on that, the head coach in his first two seasons, Chris Palmer, built a scheme centered around what he liked, the vertical attack. So he was a square peg in a round hole. In addition, his surrounding cast was awful, especially the line, which caused him to take a real physical beating.
Things got markedly better when head coach Butch Davis took over in 2001, but the following year when the Browns made the postseason, they played the wild-card game without Couch, who got hurt in the regular-season finale. Kelly Holcomb stepped in and had a huge game in a close loss at Pittsburgh, creating a quarterback controversy that lingered for the rest of Couch’s short and star-crossed time in Cleveland.
So, with the limited production from Couch and Brown, the 1999 and 2000 drafts, after all that initial hope and optimism, combined to be an unmitigated disaster and did much to get the new franchise off a horrible start.
Steve King
