DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Browns QBs under Stefanski

....right in the middle of our Josh Gordon/Johnny Manziel carnival. I can't frickin' imagine what it would have been like around here if we drafted him.

As a flyer fine. But to sign him and not someone who can actually compete I would say no at this point.

In has last 5 games he has thrown 9 int's and only 1 td. We already have QB's on the roster who can thrown int's.

After signing a 4 year 180 million dollar contract with the Falcons it got so bad they benched him for a rookie.

That sounds so familiar it's eerie. And I don't mean the lake.

I'm good with going after Cousins...BUT...he is not the guy he was when he played for Ski...that was a looooong time ago in NFL-years and then without an Achilles injury. He's better than anything we have right now...but..."he isn't taking us to the super bowl".

Then you propose the distinct possibility that the turnover machine as of now, Cousins, join an obviously not ready for prime time if he'll ever be DTR and watson unless we draft a QB?

Cousins looked great and then fell off a cliff. As of now that's who he is. That is important.

The FO just opened up some cap space by kicking that can down the road. Hopefully it was to invest in the QB situation they themselves created. And hopefully they'll do a better job than they did the last time even though that wouldn't take much.

If an actual NFL FO looks at who Cousins is now and sees that even so much as a temporary band aid we should all start to worry yet again. And if they see any QB currently on this roster as a possible answer it will just be repeating the same mistake.

It wouldn't hurt to take a look at KC simply because of his past relationship with KS. Honestly, our best chance to win next year as things stand now and contemplating other QB options is probably JW. He did move the O as well as any QB we've had in many years. If not there's always Bailey Zappe. We haven't tried him yet!

Then there's always Flacco. You either have to decide if you believe KC is who he is now or who he used to be. Time is a funny thing. It's hard to turn back the hands of time.

I don't believe the KC I've seen on the field as of late id the same KC I saw when he was working with Stefanski back in Minnesota. The reason Minnesota let KC go to begin with is because they didn't think he was the same KC either. I think that overall Stefanski is good at working with QB's. But I think one of his limitations include the inability to turn the clock back to 2019.

The rookie was the 1st round pick. In most cases, early 1st round picks take over in the later point of the season.

I believe that all along Penix was looked at as next years starter

Yes, second in line. But if he was considered their starter next year and they were confident in that, why did they sign KC to a four year 180 million dollar contract?

Point being KC was benched because he was sucking. And that's the only reason.

KC was signed before the draft

I'm not sure what impact that has on anything. They knew they signed him to a four year 180 million dollar deal when they held the draft. And what does that have to do with sitting KC because his play sucked?

You said


Pennix wasn't considered the starter next year when they signed KC
When KC was signed Pennix was not on the roster
I think they were surprised that they were able to get Pennix in the draft.
I am sure that, at a minimum, they weren't counting on it

I think Cousins was signed before they drafted Penix. The Falcons wanted to have a QB in hand andnot hope a QB they wanted fell to them.

Also, the Falcons are still in the playoff hunt, so Cousins couldn't have sucked all that bad. I don't think one can just look at the last several games and need to look at the entire body of work.

I am not saying Cousins has played well the last month or so. It was clearly time for the Falcons to make the move they planned all along.

I found it real interesting that Deshaun Watson restructured his deal before the season ended. I have a suspicion that FO is working on some kind of win win trade scenario with Atlanta Falcons for Kirk Cousins as soon as NFL league year expires. Probably something like Browns would assume difference in 2025 salary between Watson and Cousins for next year. But the restructure would make it a more friendly deal for Atlanta to assume that deal for the last year 2026. That would bring Watson home to Atlanta where he is a legend, for really no more money than they would have already paid Cousins next season. He can be Pennix back up and if he does not work out the restructure would not hurt them much more than cutting Cousins with 3 years left on his deal. The Browns would get their bridge QB that knows Stefanski's system and unload Watson and free some cap flexibility for 2026.

I would love to see the Brown s draft a Carson Beck or Drew Allar and have them learn the system under Cousins and build a culture at QB for once.

When a QB falls off the cliff he generally doesn't climb back up. Yes it can happen but that's more hope than a plan.

And they weren't planning on starting him in week 16 of season until KC started sucking so bad. Through all of the BS that's the bottom line here. 1 td and 9 int's in his last 5 games.

We just see it differently. No sense in trying to say the same thing 25 different ways.

I have zero confidence that our decision makers can get us our qb. They got us in this situation
position, playing a qb who’s has led 25 drives or so and we have scored 6 points. Meanwhile the guy we let go before the season is carving us up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Also, if, and it is an unknown, if stefanski and berry pushed for cutting ties with baker and giving up three #1 picks and a gazillion dollars for Watson, they should be fired for that reason alone.

To let the same people who destroyed our qb room have responsibility for rebuilding it seems foolish to me.

Imagine the conversation between Berry and Stefanski when they come to the conclusion that Baker wasn’t good enough.

If you take his stats from 2020 and add a decent LT and Mike Evans you have the Baker we saw today. 5TD and 350+ yards. Add another elite WR to that mix and our 2020 team had all the tools to beat anyone.

I mean who could have the imagination and foresight to think that Baker with a couple of good receivers and a half decent LT would be a good idea?

Yes that is pretty radical thinking!!

In all fairness, although I mostly stand in your corner, a little perspective is necessary.

2020 was four years ago.
The Browns didn't just think he "wasn't good enough".
His injury made him a ___ QB when wearing a brace and throwing fastballs to try to make up for it. He started the season near 80% passing and was NFL worst 55% post-injury.
His attitude and insistence on playing did fit not Stefanski and Berry's kumbaya style of leadership.
The OBJ drama and the fact that Baker truly seemed to avoid throwing the ball to him exacerbated matters further.
His crap performance against the Packers with 4INT all but cost us the playoffs... behind a narrative of "I'll talk with my people" to decide whether he was starting or not.
His being thrown to the wolves against the Steelers the following week for 9 sacks and another terrible performance had the lawyers drafting the divorce papers.

All that wasn't exactly the Browns being blind to a talent that would take another couple years to really come to fruition.

thats such revisionist thinking and not even close... Baker insisted on playing hurt.. GMAB, I remind you, the coach/gm have the power to say who plays and who doesn't. Their job is to field the best roster on game day to help them win. This was also the same year they were paying a backup QB (who knew the offense and was very successful in it) 10million to hold a clipboard. The smart money would to be have played him and let Baker heal. The OBJ "drama" was all on OBJ and his Dad, if OBJ was causing an issue in locker room and trying to turn the team against Baker then I'm 100% with Baker on that. Receivers don't piss off QB's if they want the ball, been that way since the first forward pass. Could Baker been more mature, sure, but he was a young kid given the pressure of saving a franchise and city desperate for a savior. Thats why theres coaches, they are the adults to help these kids make that transition. It told me more about KS as a coach then it did Baker as a player. KS hasn't developed a single player. Baker has had talent since day one, he's not doing anything special right now or playing above his abilities, before KS got here he played like this most of the time. People seem to forget he broke Manning's rookie record in 3 less games. So yeah if we are assigning blame here its 90/10 browns vs Baker. I don't blame him at all for what transpired here, this staff handled it just about the worst way you could.

Absolutely 100% spot on!

Letting an injured QB dictate if he’s going to play or not is weak leadership.

This’s the same leadership that has transformed the Browns to what we see today.
Continuing with Watson despite everyone sees it’s not working.

Baker is almost the same today as he was in 2020, just a couple of years wiser with more maturity.
The Browns leadership is the same today as we saw in 2021. Bad decision making from a weak leadership.

Nothing has changed.

I think you guys need to read better and comprehend better instead of feeling like you have to hunker down and double and triple downing on "your position".

Did you not see "mostly stand in your corner" ... "He started the season near 80% passing and was NFL worst 55% post-injury." ... "His being thrown to the wolves against the Steelers".

I read that and feel like there is a lot of acknowlegement about the Baker situation .... but with the added truthful insight/observation that Baker isn't 100% without blame.

I was a huge Baker fan - I still root for him because of what he did here - but he was an immature butt head when he was here. And while I agree that KS should have had the cojones to sit him and deal with the repiricussions. While I agree the OBJ thing as all OBJ who never wanteed to be here and especially didn't want to be here when there was a bad QB throwing him the ball; just how many times did OBJ line up in the wrong damn place? Remeber that we were told after OBJ left that he was running the wrong routes (in a timing offense) so that him being "wide open" was a lie ??? BUT .... even with those two caveats - Baker needed to go through the process of being let go, bumping between a couple bad teams to end up where he is and now being the better version of himself. Still with arm talent and moxy - but now with a mature head on his shoulders.

Equally while my perspective of Baker is probably pretty well known - so to is my (now) desire to move on from KS. But back when this all happened - if the choice was KS or Baker comming off a bad year, albeit injured, then the entire NFL would probably have agreed: Stick with the HC. Revisionist history indeed ... Bottom line is we are where we are. Lets deal with the roster, the HC and GM we have and figure the best way forward. Sure I'd love to have BM on the team - but he ain't and he won't be. Spending this much time banging on about it does absolutely nothing positive for anyone.

you're right. to take it further: we avoid all this nonsense if Andrew Berry and Stef does the right thing and put Baker on IR the moment he injured his shoulder.

Baker is a gone so he’s not the main subject but what’s interesting is to highlight and recognizing a pattern and not learning from past mistakes.
What we see today at the end of 2024 is what a weak leadership creates.

Unsolved problems (without a decent QB and still tied to Watson), lack of quality (shortage of draft picks), players who hesitates to stay (Myles, Bitonio).
It’s all about decision making.

Baker didn't need the process of getting let go, KS did, it is alot harder to find a franchise QB than a HC in this league. Noone is saying Baker didn't need to mature.. he was the exact same guy he was in college from a maturity standpoint, everyone knew it, its what made Baker Baker for better or worse. The issue I have is there was nothing that he did that should have warranted a release. KS and Berry just simply suck and can't identify or develop talent and Baker wasn't drafted by them so they went after someone, that even if Baker was the worst QB to ever suit up, should have been left alone because he came with a war and peace laundry list of red flags. That is the single biggest reason this staff needs replaced, it went downhill from there, now we have the 5th oldest and the most expensive roster in the NFL and 3 out of their 5 seasons have been losers. This is not the staff. Baker's quality of play since leaving here is a testament to their inability. Baker struggled in Carolina, but carolina was a dumpster fire, since leaving there has played extremely well. He actually has talent at the skill positions. He actually has a coaching staff that is semi competent (i think bowles is holding that team back) but Baker has proved he can work in any offense, so that whole "he wasn't a fit" for KS "offense" is BS. Do we even know what KS's offensive identity is? throw for 5 yards when you need 11 or a the TE end around on a 3 and 16?

Did either of you actually read that? Or just see something you didn't like and start foaming at the mouth?

There is absolutely nothing that is revisionist history there. If you don't like looking at both sides of the OBJ drama, that's fine, he and his dad were both idiots. There are some peculiar facts surrounding that as well. Namely one Hollywood Higgins, and his 1.5x reception rate with less starts than OBJ. Maybe some aren't aware, but Higgins left the Browns with Baker and never caught another pass in the NFL. What kind of "history" is that?

I spent years defending Baker, and ironically, am still doing so now. I was a "Baker Boy" and mostly wore it with pride -- and am still doing so today.


So you can blame it all on leadership, and I'll pull no punches agreeing with the insanity of letting a snotty-nosed QB call the shots (I did as much in the first damned post), but acting like Baker played no part in the divorce is revisionist history of the highest order. Absurdity, really.

I see you have decided to keep last season out of the conversation all together when it comes to Stefanski as a HC. Interesting.....

what I read was you blaming Baker for 100% of it..like this "His attitude and insistence on playing did fit not Stefanski and Berry's kumbaya style of leadership. " which I commented on, then blaming him for his performance against the packers and blaming him for the OBJ drama.. so yeah.. your revisionist history is overflowing with hyperbole and short on actual facts. Noone has said Baker didn't have maturity issues, but so do alot of players. But if they are talented you work with them and coach them. KS and Berry failed Baker and the team, not the other way around. The whole OBJ drama was just another example of Stefanski being a horrible manager of talent. It should never have gotten to the point it did. When he got hurt, he should have been sat and the highest paid backup in nfl history should have been playing. But OBJ never ran the right routes, thats on him, if he wasn't the first target he would half ass his routes.. he's been notorious for this his whole career. so yeah, Baker got hurt and couldn't throw as accurate as he was known for, again, thats on Stefanski, Baker should have not been playing in 2021. Ironically enough, as bad as he was, that would have been 100x better than anything we got this year

I don’t think we’re in disagreement regarding who Baker was, of course it takes two to dance the tango.
The question still remains though, who should be the main responsible, who has the age, the wisdom and hopefully the experience and knowledge to make it work?

what about last season? the defense and Flacco were the stars of last season. KS did very little. Don't take much when your defense is limiting the other team at a historic rate. Then you get a super bowl MVP QB to come in and just sling the ball backyard style. Get to the playoffs where the need to have more structure in the offense and well, you see the results. I will give KS credit for not completely losing the team when we were going through a rough patch at the QB position. But the fact of the matter is, he's a average coach and can't string any consistency together year to year. Thats a problem

Yeah, he took a QB that was on the couch, a QB nobody else in the NFL wanted even as a backup and went to the playoffs with him. And you call that "very little". Flacco put up 36 points against the Texans. 37 against the Jets. 31 against the Jags. I think we have a difference in opinion as to what "very little" means.

There is no question! I've never tried to say there should be.

When someone says "yeah, but there's another side of the coin", the person listening shouldn't think they're merely dismissing the first side. I would think in all your years of management and dealing with people, you would know and understand that.

The front office deserves at least 80-90% of the blame. They are the adults, they are in charge. My comment on their management style is definitely not an endorsement. Stefanski's ever-present calm demeanor and the franchise's "we're all adults here" attitude towards management doesn't always work well -- and in cases where it doesn't, it fails miserably. We're talking about a game where young men scream in each other's faces, talk trash, will spit on you in a scrum and slap your @ss when they help you up. It can never be all "kumbaya". That's on them, not Baker.

That crap during the injury season would have never gone down in a Pittsburgh locker room. Tomlin wouldn't even have to mutter the words, the mere look on his face would be "sit down and shut up, don't speak again until spoken to... and then I will tell you what to think".

The part about Baker is 100% false. He himself has said that he needed to get smacked upside the head (released by several teams) to wise up and get more serious about off-season and improving his technique. He has only recently gotten himself an off-season QB coach. When he was here, he made a comment about that (something about "wax on/wax off on the beach"). So unless the part you said about Baker being wiser and more mature is doing the heavy lifting in your statement, then (IMO) it's entirely false.

Put another way, the Baker that we're seeing now (with the chip on his shoulder but also with the benefit of way more maturity) is the Baker we wanted but NOT the Baker we had in Cleveland.


I would have a much harder time arguing with the rest of your argument about our FO leadership.

Did Flacco call plays, block, run, and catch the ball? Did Flacco sign himself to the Browns roster mid-season? Dude....

We see some of the details differently but your take is as good as mine.

Baker definitely needed to mature in all aspects but I’m glad that he find an organization that cared for him and gave him the opportunity to succeed. It just so disappointing that the Browns couldn’t be that team.

I sent OBJ’s daddy coal for Christmas. That debacle cost us a super bowl in my lifetime IMO. And I plan on living at least another 20.