THE QUARTERBACK, THE QUARTERBACK, THE QUARTERBACK

By STEVE KING

Did you see what happened in the two NFL conference championship games last weekend?
The teams with the best quarterbacks — the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the defending world champion Kansas City Chiefs — won, beating the Green Bay Packers and Buffalo Bills, respectively, and will meet in Super Bowl 55 in a week and a half at the Bucs’ home field, Raymond James Stadium. More on the last part of that later.
We talk all the time here at Browns Daily Dose about the importance of the quarterback in the pro game. not just now but rather for decades, and those games were a prime example of that. Once again, still and forever, the job of the quarterback is not necessarily to throw for 350 yards and four touchdowns. If that happens in the process, then great, but the job of the quarterback — his only job, really — is to win the game. That is best done when he makes big plays when they are there to be made, especially at the end of games since most times, these contests are decided then by only a few points.
People love to talk about analytics, and that’s understandable, but before there was such a term, going all the way back to some guy named Otto Graham (perhaps you’ve heard of him), the only commonality of winning teams was quarterbacks who played like winners.
It is why the Browns, after struggling so mightily in the expansion era, got to the divisional round of the AFC playoffs this season for the first time since 1994. It was the play of quarterback Baker Mayfield. Without him, the Browns don’t make it that far.
That’s why, too, teams in need of a quarterback are willing to do just about anything to get into position in the NFL Draft to take a good prospect at that position. Former Browns General Manager John Dorsdey salivated over the opportunity to draft Mayfield No. 1 overall in 2018. It was the thing that turned around the Browns. So while the new GM, Andrew Berry, has done an excellent job in so many other ways, let’s remember that Dorsey, who was just hired as a senior personnel executive by the Detroit Lions, was the guy who orchestrated the acquisition of the key piece of the puzzle. Dorsey did a lot of other good things as well, but then he negated it all — or at least most of it — by being too creative and too off-the-beaten-path by hiring Freddie Kitchens as head coach.
Berry did his part by hiring Kevin Stefanski as head coach, and the combination of Stefanski and Mayfield proved key in the Browns’ resurgence, for the most important professional marriage on any team is that of the coach and the quarterback.

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