NFL head coaches – really, head coaches at all levels of football – like to have as many aspects of their team settled as possible by the time training camp begins.

Yes, there will always be a few lingering position battles to solve, and that’s to be expected, but camp, in a coach’s mind, should be almost exclusively for fine-tuning the plans, schemes and principles that are already in place.

That’s especially true at quarterback, which is the most important position not just on the team, but in team sports overall. So, then, being unsettled at quarterback is being unsettled overall as a team. The two are not mutually exclusive. And teams that are unsettled have much less chance of being successful. Indeed, question marks are killers.

And so it is with the Browns, who, as camp opens, are more unsettled — more messed up — at quarterback than they’ve ever been in their entire history dating all the way back to 1946.

They have their franchise quarterback in Deshaun Watson, but they have no idea when, or even if, he will be available this season. How can they plan when that is the case?

In the meantime, they’re having to go with Jacoby Brissett as their starter and Josh Rosen and Joshua Dobbs, in that order, as the backups. When they’re in a division – the AFC North – where two other teams, the Super Bowl runnerup Cincinnati Bengals and the Baltimore Ravens have quarterbacks named Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson, respectively, how in the world are they supposed to be able to compete, even with the fact that the rest of their team is extremely talented and built to win right now?

Nobody has answered that question yet, and until they do, there is absolutely no reason at all for anyone in Cleveland to be optimistic.

Steve King