Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Hue Jackson is not "The Browns". Thank God.

Dear AJ McCarron:

I strongly advise you not to sign with the Cleveland Browns!  Joe Thomas might retire, Coleman might break his hand, and Josh Gordon might be found comatose in a crack house!

Let some lesser quarterback like Case Keenum or Tyrod Taylor or Josh McCown put up with that!  You're too smart to fall for Hue Jackson's sweet talk!

Besides, Hue likes you, but wait til your agent opens talks with Dorsey!  Hue doesn't care about money, but Dorsey does, and won't pay you like you deserve to get paid!

And who wants to be a bridge quarterback?  Clearly, you're meant to be a starter and go to Pro Bowls and stuff, while lesser lights like Keenum and Taylor toil in obscurity.

Check out the Broncos and the Jets!

Severely, ME

Dear Kirk Cousins:

You should sign with the Vikings.  They're stacked, and ready to go to the Superbowl already!  Imagine what they would have done last season with you instead of...uhh...Kasey? Kenard--nevermind.

And they can over pay you what you deserve!  The Broncos don't have as much money, and Elway is a tightwad anyway.  Remember he refused to pay Osweiler even a measly 18 mil/year three years ago?  

Go with the Vikings so they can dump whatshisname and have a real stud to take them to the Superbowl in 2018!

Severely, ME

But seriously, I know Hue Jackson is a big McCarron fan, but let's not get fuzzy here:  Hue is not "The Browns".

I suspect DePodesta came up from the basement to hand Dorsey his McCarron file, in case John didn't already know that AJ's yards per-attempt were a whole yard under Andy Dalton's, which inflated his completion percentage (screens and dumpoffs).

(And no doubt Dorsey shood him away and hastily stuffed the file under his jacket before anybody could see him with Mister Moneyball.  Then went to his office, checked for bugs, and called Sashi Brown to thank him for sabotaging the McCarron trade last season.)

Hue Jackson was great about handing Todd Haley a blank check, and I was feeling better about him, but he's back at it with this McCarron stuff, and it saddens me.

Anyway, Todd Haley might have more of a say than Hue Jackson, and has no relationship with McCarron to pollute his objectivity.

Remember, Haley's father was personnel bigshot (and ex-player), and he grew up helping his dad evaluate players, then started out as a scout himself.

Hue doesn't have anything like those credentials, plus it's Haley's offense now--not Hue's.

I think ma man Thomas Moore is too hard on AJ, but have to agree with him that he just might be the worst free agent quarterback option for the Browns.  More likely than not, Hue Jackson is the only person in Berea who doesn't know it.

One writer suggested that Sashi Brown sabotaged that idiotic trade attempt, and that maybe the new front office would be more supportive of McCarron.

Why?  They don't want to get fired, either.

We can't rule McCarron out, as a lot will happen in the next few weeks.  AJ is the youngest of the free agent veteran quarterbacks, and does have more upside going for him, and these are the biggest reasons why Spottrack expects his new contract to be massively inflated (and stupid--that was me not Spottrack).

Hue Jackson is NOT calling the quarterback shots A N Y  M O R E.  His view of McCarron is not objective, and everybody in Berea knows it.  McCarron is a last-ditch emergency option if his price comes down (by like 50%).

I'm befuddled at how nothing Case Keenum did throughout 2017 bought him any respect whatsoever.

I get that he was well-protected, had great weapons, and seldom had to come from behind.  I get that Bridgewater was doing just fine until he got injured, and that Bradford lit it up until he went down too.

I guess everybody just thinks Keenum was in the right place at the right time, and that with a less-stacked offensive roster, he'll revert to being mediocre.

Well actually, he was never average or below.  He was always at least a solid quarterback, which is why he's always had a job, and has a lot of starts (and wins) under his belt.

And frankly, while Sam Bradford did outperform Keenum, Keenum outperformed the healthy Teddy Bridgewater (yes he did!)  If Dalvin Cook hadn't bit the dust, Keenum might have reached the Superbowl.

But Keenum, in addition to being a "career backup", is also 30 years old, and as short or shorter than Rodney Mayfieldfield, so he's generally regarded as "just a guy".

This is why Keenum should be John Dorsey's prime target.

1: This just might be the deepest quarterback draft ever, with a pretty decent free agent class as well.  There are only 32 teams, and only "win now" contenders (or Bridge-quarterback-seekers) will look hard at a 6', 30 year old career backup who "lucked out" with the Vikings.  He will be affordable.

2: Keenum's career path has mirrored that of Josh McCown.  He's had to accept his role, so (unlike the much younger McCarron), he might see the Browns deal as an opportunity to prove to the rest of the league that he didn't just get "lucky" with the Vikings.

Denver could screw this up for the Browns, but they draft fifth overall, and are sure to draft a quarterback too.  Elway can't outbid Dorsey, and in reality, the Browns are already stacked with talent themselves.

Shut tf up.  Any QB who does elementary homework sees Njoku, Gordon, Duke, Garrett, Gregg Williams, Todd Haley, Thomas (I hope), Dorsey, and five (non-quarterback) draft picks in the top 65.

Any quarterback who looks at any films will know that he is better, and could have done better, than Kizer.

While I've been defending DeShone Kizer, he was historicly bad.  I defend him because my experts universally agreed that it was insane to start him as a rookie.  He was the very definition of "raw".

Nobody is even surprised that he sucked...ok well I guess a little that he sucked that bad.  

But I digress

3:  If Case Keenum can even so much as help the Browns finish ahead of the perennially-overrated Ravens and the Bungles, he proves he's for real, and finally gets his big payday.

This is redundant (sorry), but Baker Mayfield is unmistakeably the best quarterback in this draft.

Analytics are only half of that, and those stats speak for themselves.  The other half is his charisma, honesty, and leadership; his personality; who he is.

Well, if John Dorsey is at least almost as smart as my humble self, Mayfield is his real target in this draft.  (Once again, the Browns IT people need to fix this ongoing glitch which makes my emails and texts "undeliverable")

Anyway, Keenum, as a short guy, would be the ideal bridge guy for Mayfield.

Jim Miller calls Mayfield "an early starter", just like Rosen.  Miller says that if you can be patient, Allen or Darnold (in that order)  have more upside.

I gotta ask what Jim means by "more". 

Skipping the less-athletic Rosen here, does Jim think these guys will eventually be better than Mayfield? 

Because they are bigger and taller? Because one of them has a stronger arm?

Andrew Luck and Josh Freeman have had plenty of time to overtake Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and Russell Wilson.

Jim is projecting, and being optimistic.  He's also wrong.

While Jim stipulates that Mayfield is the best quarterback here, he's expecting the bigger, taller guys to transcend him over time...just because they are bigger and taller, and one of them has a stronger arm.

In fairness to Jim Miller, I know he was talking strictly potential, and not making predictions.  Jim would be the first to tell you, one or both of these guys could go the way of Freeman.

But even giving him that, Jim is still wrong.  Baker Mayfield will stay ahead of these other guys.

And if they sign AJ McCarron and draft Baker Mayfield, Haley might as well just give Mayfield all the starting reps from the start of training camp, because he'll already be the better quarterback.  And Kizer might be, too.

What is up with Hue?  

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