If Scott Pioli messed it up, then how can the Browns – or any other NFL team, for that matter – expect to get it right?

 

As such, if you need any more evidence that the Browns shouldn’t touch New England Patriots quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, you need to keep Pioli in mind.

 

Here’s his story, and where – and how – it went bad for him:

 

Pioli was a pro personnel assistant with the original Browns from 1992-95. He was among the best and brightest of the young guys Browns head coach Bill Belichick brought in and took under his wing.

 

When the Browns left Cleveland after the 1995 season, Pioli went with the transplanted franchise to Baltimore and worked for the Ravens as a pro personnel coordinator under new General Manager Ozzie Newsome for a season.

 

Pioli was hired as director of pro personnel with the New York Jets in 1997 and was reunited with Belichick, who was working as defensive coordinator under head coach Bill Parcells. Pioli stayed in that capacity into the first part of the calendar year of 2000, and when Belichick nixed an offer from the Jets to become head coach and instead took the same position with the Patriots, he brought Pioli with him as assistant director of player personnel. The following year, 2001, Pioli was promoted to director of player personnel and the Patriots began their amazing run by winning the first of three Super Bowls within a four-year period.

 

It was in the 2005 NFL Draft that the two-time defending champion Patriots, who had upped Pioli’s role by making him vice president of player personnel three years earlier, used a seventh-round pick to select seldom-used USC quarterback Matt Cassel.

 

Cassel did nothing – because he barely played – from 2005-07 as a backup to Tom Brady, and then in the 2008 season opener against the Kansas City Chiefs, Brady was lost for the year with a knee injury. Cassel stepped in and helped guide the Pats to an 11-5 record. It wasn’t quite enough to put them into the playoffs, but it was much better than it could have been and certainly was enough to impress everyone who saw it. That included Pioli, who, as it turned out, took the giant leap after the season and went out on his own by going to Kansas City as general manager.

 

Pioli remembered that game against the Chiefs. He remembered how well Cassel played that day, and how well he kept playing throughout the rest of the season. He remembered how, even in practice, Cassel slowly but surely grew through the years and then finally blossomed when he was given a chance to play on a regular basis.

 

The Chiefs were coming off a 2-14 finish in 2008 and needed a quarterback in the worst way. With Todd Haley, a good offensive mind, having been brought in as head coach, Pioli thought that pairing Haley with Cassel would put the Kansas City offense – and the team overall – on the map. He was so sure of it, in fact, that he made a blockbuster trade with the Patriots to get Cassel and then signed him to a blockbuster contract worth more the gross national product of some small countries. In doing that, Pioli was staking his reputation – and, more importantly, his job security – on this gamble working.

 

It did not. Cassel fizzled overall, causing Haley to get fired late in year 3, 2011. Former Browns head coach Romeo Crennel, who was in Kansas City as defensive coordinator, was promoted to head coach on an interim basis and then got the job in 2012. It was Pioli’s last-ditch effort to save himself.

 

That didn’t work, either, as the Chiefs fell to 2-14. Crennel was fired, and so was Pioli. Cassel also got “fired,” being released in March 2013.

 

The plan looked so good on paper to Pioli, but it didn’t pan out – not even close

 

So, then, if Pioli, a good football man, couldn’t get it right by seizing upon a Patriots backup quarterback, can the Browns, who have only a tiny bit of film of Garoppolo to work off of, have any hope of getting it right? Should they even try?

 

Pioli was out of football in 2013 and then went to the Atlanta Falcons in ’14 as assistant general manager. There he was reunited with General Manager Thomas Dimitroff Jr., with whom he had worked at both New England and Cleveland.

 

Then, of course, to add insult to injury for Pioli, Belichick’s Patriots came back from the dead to defeat the Falcons 34-28 in Super Bowl LI three weeks ago.

 

So when it comes to quarterbacks and dealing with Belichick, Pioli keeps coming out on the short end.

 

What about the Browns?