A year ago at this time — for that matter, even three months ago when the NFL regular season was in the home stretch — did you ever think in your wildest dreams that as the Browns began restructuring their quarterback room in the offseason, the first player walking through the door would be . . . Kenny Pickett?!!
No, I didn’t either — not even close.
There will be two other principal quarterbacks in that room before it’s all said and done, one from the NFL Draft and likely the other being a more accomplished free agent than Pickett.
That’s not really a newsflash. You need to have three capable quarterbacks in this brutal, physical and injury-prone league. The only question is who the other two will be.
Watching it come together will be fascinating — in more ways than one. The Browns have maintained all along that this is not a rebuild but rather a remodel, so as to enable them to compete for a championship in 2025. I don’t believe it for a moment — moreover, I don’t think it’s even possible — but I’m going to give Browns General Manager Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski the benefit of the doubt because their backs are to the wall.
If they don’t get this quarterback situation figured out, something they have not come even close to doing since they began working together in 2020, in fact instead screwing it up to historic levels, then this team that fell to 3-14 last season isn’t going to win again. And if that happens, then they will both likely be out of a job. Perhaps it will be that immense pressure that drives them to the right answers. We can only hope, right?
Despite all this, I think they will still refuse to sit at Nov. 2 overall and draft a quarterback. That raises the stakes even higher, for if they bypass the two top-rated quarterbacks in Cam Ward and Shadeur Sanders, then they are taking a huge risk and setting themselves up for failure if the gamble blows up in their faces and doesn’t work out.
If you like a little — or a lot — of drama with your football team, then this the place to be.
Steve King
