That’s right. You didn’t read the headline incorrectly.
I am indeed asking, “Is there still hope for DeShone Kizer?”
Most people, including now perhaps his own head coach, Hue Jackson, who appears to be trying to save himself with new General Manager John Dorsey, think that Kizer has little to no chance to be the franchise quarterback for whom the expansion-era Browns have looked so long and hard.
But maybe ‘’most people’’ are wrong – or at least there’s a chance they might be jumping the gun on writing off Kizer.
That’s the opinion of sportsillustrated.com’s Richard Klemko. In a story written Wednesday entitled, “Goff and Wentz Show There’s Hope for Kizer and Trubisky,” he looks at the progress those quarterbacks made from their rookie seasons in 2016 to this year:
“The immediate legacy of Carson Wentz and Jared Goff—before the Pro Bowls and All-Pro nods and playoff wins are tallied up years down the line—is fairly obvious at this point: Don’t judge rookie quarterbacks by Year One. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, and we’ll get to them. But what the second-year quarterbacks for the Eagles and Rams have done for the next generation of young passers and the coaches and executives responsible for selecting and coaching them is something so significant I don’t think we truly understand it yet.
“Wentz, in his second year more than doubled his touchdown total from the year before (in three fewer games) and halved his interceptions; his passer rating went from 79.3 to 101.9. Goff raised his completion percentage by eight points and his QB rating from 63.6 to 98.9.
“What will become of the Bears’ Mitchell Trubisky if John Fox is relieved of his coaching duties at season’s end? And what do we make of Browns second-rounder DeShone Kizer, the lone current rookie starter chosen outside the first round in 2017?
“The Notre Dame product has been the biggest letdown of the first-year QBs, and it’s not really close. His 59.4 passer rating is historically bad, ranking third-worst among rookies with at least 400 attempts after Jim Zorn in 1976 (49.5) and Jack Trudeau in 1986 (53.5). But most foreboding for Kizer’s future as a starter were coach Hue Jackson’s words this week after the team dropped to 0-14. ‘He has some work to do,’ Jackson said of Kizer. ‘I think that’s a fair question if he’ll ever get it. I think he will, but he has to keep working.’
“Given the examples of Wentz and Goff, it would behoove us to suspend judgment on any of the 2017 rookie quarterbacks until further review. Sometimes patience is what’s needed to build trust.”
Even for Kizer’s many detractors, Klemko’s point is something to think about, isn’t it?
