Politics and RGIII

First, I need to address some shallow thinking:

Skin-deep, it's smart to be interested in Matt Flynn. Most of the pros buy him as the real thing, and he'd fit right in here.

But when you think just a LIITTTLE harder, you come up with more to that story. First, I'm hearing rumors of some truly undoable salary demands. He was awesome in those two games, ok. Would he be that awesome every week with THIS team?

How MUCH? More than half the quarterbacks in the NFL? More than 2/3rds? Well, I'm hearing that his camp will want more than two thirds of the STARTING quarterbacks in the NFL, for at least five years.

This would gobble up the bulk of the Browns cap dollars, at a time when the ideal answer at wide reciever is a VETERAN, and veteran X-RECIEVERS are there in numbers. So are good-to-excellent free agent cornerbacks. (X-reciever: demands double-coverage. Tends to run deeper routes and challenge safeties. Primary reciever--not a slot guy GET IT?)

Meanwhile, Colt McCoy enters only his second season in the West Coast, after his first actual preseason with that system, and with much more real-game experience than Flynn. And if he DOES beat out Flynn, we've got a massively-overpaid backup quarterback who we CAN'T trade because nobody wants to pay that much for a guy who couldn't beat out Colt McCoy!

Meanwhile, RGIII is right in front of us, with an astronomicly higher upside than either Flynn or McCoy. True, trading that extra first round pick would hurt a lot, but with the new rookie salary structure, Griffin would cost much less than Flynn. The monies some shallow thinkers had earmarked for Flynn, along with the the salary they would have had to pay #22, is now available for some truly GOOD young free agents (26 and younger).

This brings up part one of the politics of it: Rightly or wrongly, free agent X-recievers will be reluctant to sign with the Browns with Colt McCoy projected at quarterback. They would for Robert Griffin III.

More importantly, if Heckert, Shurmer, Childress, and Holmgren feel that RG III is for real, and will kick ass in the NFL, they HAVE to try to get him.

Why? What if they don't, and Grif does a Cam Newton, or at least an Andy Dalton? The fans will be out with the ropes and torches by about game three.

Get me right: I fully expect that IF McCoy gets some better protection, Hillis re-signed, and one reciever with real deep speed, he will do well. I just don't believe he can do as well as Griffin. He can't put the ball in a one yard window 40 yards downfield. He can't break out of a collapsing pocket and run for 30 yards, and he can't be near as accurate on the run and throwing all-arm, off-balance.

Even if statisticly they're similar, that won't matter to the Cleveland lynch mob. We could have had Saint Robert, and they just let him go.

Of course, if they disagree with Mayock, Kuiper, Miller, Wilcotts, Gannon, Brandt, etc. and don't believe that Griffin will be that good, they're ok. It's just that they're betting their futures on that judgement.

...and I doubt that they disagree with all these guys.

PS I was impressed by Griffin defending his college offense, insisting that he usually had at least three reads and looked foreward to showing that in his team interviews. I believe him--he'd be stupid to make the assertion of it wasn't true.

Because I believe him, I'm really encouraged. I was kind of shocked to hear him say that he could learn a West Coast offense quickly at first-- but then he said what I said about the difference between book-learning and learning by doing. He seems to me supremely confident, but with both his feet on the ground.

Pat Kirwin, Gil Brandt, and ALL the other REAL experts on NFL Radio agree on one thing:

IF YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO GET A GUY YOU THINK CAN BE A FRANCHISE QUARTERBACK, YOU TAKE HIM, EVEN IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A QUARTERBACK. THE QUARTERBACK IS TTHHEEEEE MOST IMPORTANT PLAYER ON YOUR TEAM.

Some clowns are saying that they can just get Bradley next season. Yeah, when they don't have two first rounders and aren't just two slots away. All it will take is the following season's first rounder, the current second round pick and a bunch more, is all--SHUT T F UP YOU IDIOTS! If you expect 4-12 again you are retarded, and if they win six it's over. Morons.

Get him now, spend 20 mil on free agents, draft eight more players, keep McCoy, and don't WORRY about the most important player on your team for ten years!

BUB: Sure, the season before last he was a third or fourth-rounder. Part of the reason he's so white-hot right now is the drastic improvement he showed between 2010 and 2011. Mayock is a brutal judge of quarterbacks, and all he could find wrong with him was that he didn't anticipate well (yet).

Isn't such rapid improvement indicative of FURTHER rapid growth? I'd rather have that than rock-solid, gradually growing Andrew Luck (not that I don't think Luck can be as good or better, mind you--just opining that Griffin is there with him.)