Browns Blues: We're #1 (In The Draft)

CLEVELAND, OH -- I can hear the chants coming out of the bars and homes around Northeast Ohio. “We’re #1!!! We’re #1!!!” The Browns’ 20-3 loss to the Chicago Bears on Christmas Eve secured them the #1 pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.

That makes two years in a row that this once-proud franchise has succumbed to defeat after defeat and been awarded the first pick in the Draft.

Problem is, no matter who is doing the picking for the Browns, as evidenced over the past decade – or even since the “new” Browns came back in the NFL in 1999 – there’s nobody smart enough to make the right choice.

The loss to the Bears underscored that. Here was Mitchell Trubisky, Mentor native and Mr. Ohio Football, beating the Browns’ brains in with his strong arm and nimble feet.

Hey, the Browns could have drafted him. He went #2 to the Bears in the 2017 Draft. That team thought enough of him to trade up to snag him. The Browns? Draft a quarterback at #1? A quarterback who wanted to play for his hometown team.

No thanks, said the Browns’ brain trust. They went with the sure thing: pass rusher and physical freak Myles Garrett. Franchise quarterbacks, you see, are a dime a dozen. Physical freaks like Garrett come along once in a lifetime, right?

Ask the Eagles, who recognized an NFL quarterback in Carson Wentz, or the Texans, who jumped at the chance of trading their #1 pick in the 2018 Draft to the Browns to draft Deshaun Watson. Now, to be fair, both of those quarterbacks went down with season-ending injuries this year, but they were both looking like they would look pretty damn good in a Browns uniform. At least, it would have shown that the Browns brain trust had a clue about judging football players.

But I digress.

The fact remains that as of Christmas Eve, the Browns at 0-15. That’s 1-30 under Hue Jackson over the past two seasons. Add the 2015 season to that tally, and the team is 4-43.

What’s even more incredible and troubling is that Jimmy Haslam has gone on record as saying Jackson will be the coach next season, too. Either Haslam likes to lose and be the laughing stock of the NFL owners or he has a plan to make the Browns so bad (read: the plot of “The Producers”) that the league will force him to sell.

Oh, yeah. About drafting a quarterback with that first pick. UCLA stud quarterback Josh Rosen, according to reliable sources, has been quoted as saying he may stay in school rather than be picked by the Browns. He also said something about wanting to go to a “more stable” franchise.

You see, when players start turning their noses up at the prospect of coming to the Browns, it’s time for drastic measures. New uniforms, new head coach, new owner, new city?

We thought the Browns couldn’t get any worse. Wait until Sunday against the vaunted Pittsburgh Steelers, who would nothing more than to rub the Browns’ faces in the Heinz Field turf making them 0-16 and tying the 2008 Detroit Lions as the only NFL team to go winless since the advent of the 16-game schedule.

Get your popcorn and beer ready.

File Photo By Associated Press