DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Watson vs Sanders?

I agree w/this - we are SO far off at the QB spot that it seems pretty hopeless. Whenever DW drops back into the pocket I am bracing for the worst (INT, strip sack, poor throw) instead of feeling a sense of confidence (I even had the confidence with Baker). I think we have the worst QB room in the NFL. Hell, I'd take the Chicago backups (either of them) over our guys

Let's see if Monken can adhere his knowledge and maybe get Watson to another level .
Remember this is the sane guy that made Ryan Fitzpatrick and Jameis Winston
Look good .
Look Stefanski was still here Id be in real panic mode.
But Monkens body of work blows his out of the water

Ty Simpson grew on me but I would not have taken him at #13. Not sure how I felt about Dart or Schuck.

Personally I am not big on blaming the FO for missing on diamonds in the rough or to use Brady as an example - every team passed on him multiple times. The Patriots got lucky - it wasn't some genius pick and I don't blame the Browns for passing on him. Any QB that has first round consideration - that's a different matter and you'd hope the professionals have a better inside track and ability than us fans.

Last year I went into the season with no expectations - and I am there again. Monken, the rookie WR, the OL, Verse, Schwesinger .... those will be the things I am interested in this year. If we are somewhat competitive - great. If not - well I'll still watch and pay close attention to the QB draft class.

j/c...

I'm not losing any sleep over the QBs we didn't draft. I lost enough over Josh Allen lol.

This window was closing, completely exacerbated by the Watson debacle. Two good drafts to reopen that window, by injecting talent and youth all over the field, was badly needed. If our brass saw a QB worthy of railroading that mentality, we would have taken him. Flipping Myles confirms that mentality and also sets us up to grab any QB we want next season.

Any team that doesn't possess generational talent at QB can make a list of all the QBs they failed to draft. It does nothing to help them win next Sunday.

You mean the guy that even made Joe Flacco look good.

I get what Fate is trying to say but I agree with you. What we as fans "think" about players in the draft are meaningless. We're not being paid 7 figure salaries to be experts and get results. This is a results oriented business as are most. Berry was hired in 2020. He still hasn't brought in a legitimate starting QB. He is still here and the guy who tried to make the most out of that mess is gone. That should be a lesson for all of us to learn from.

Factual information is valid and helps explain why they usually don't win on Sundays.

Quite simply, we do not have a chance this year. Our best chance is to let the lasts 2 drafts develop, lose the standard 12-14 games and then draft the QB in April. It sucks but it's the reality IMO

You're putting the cart in front of the horse.

Nobody on the planet can accurately predict those careers. It's unfair to look back with hindsight and judge someone for not doing something in the draft. If it were, I could spend 5 minutes compiling a list that would leave you believing Ozzy Newsome is the worst draft evaluator of all time, based merely on who he passed on.


From PFF:

Roughly 44% to 54% of all quarterbacks drafted in the first round become outright busts or severe disappointments. While Pro Football Focus (PFF) tracks an overall "hit rate" of 63.3% based on a lower threshold of simply meeting pick expectations or logging snaps, the reality shifts dramatically when evaluating whether a first-round quarterback actually signs a second contract or transforms into a franchise cornerstone. Quarterback hit rate is highly inflated by team volume. The actual "franchise savior" success rate drops closer to 40%.

Crap shoot. Always has been, always will be. Your best chance at success is at the very top of the draft. 2026 draft was the first in Berry's tenure that he's had the assets to address this obvious need with the necessary capital. From that standpoint, I understand the frustration, we all share it with you. That doesn't mean we can create simple "if/then" statments to define careers or future success of this franchise.


Hang in there, bro. It's going to be a bumpy season. But there's light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully it's not another oncoming train.

Then why are they assigned, hired and agree to do that job and receive seven figure salaries to do it? Berry just exited his sixth draft and we are further away from having a franchise QB than they day he was hired. The only "light" there is at the end of the tunnel is the hope Berry gets the QB position right next year.

Over that six year period we have watched team after team find an answer to their QB position while he has not.

I mean I do get what you're saying. But at the same time getting that "crap shoot" right is their job. Those that can't or don't complete that assignment aren't considered a success and Berry has gotten far more leash than most who have failed that assignment.

You can't get the crapshoot right when you have no dice. We had Deshaun Watson, the largest QB contract in history and no 1st round draft picks for three years.

Blaming Berry for not "finding a QB" during this Watson debacle is dumb. D-U-M-B, dumb. Everyone in the sport knew this would play out on this timetable, The economics and lack of draft picks dictated this timetable.

And he's farther away because we had one when he got here. Jimmuh said "hold my beer". And anyone that still insists "this was Berry's decision" has got to be smoking something. Berry can't open the checkbook that wide. Berry can't extend those assets without 100% consensus. Berry can't tell his owner "I need you to put 1/4 billion in an escrow account" for the world's first fully guaranteed QB contract.

Berry presented the facts, Haslam said "let's go get 'em".

And Berry knew that meant job security... and the fact that he still has one is proof of everything I just said.

Once again I get it. We should just ignore the fact that it was Berry himself who created that situation. I hope you understand that it was the owner himself who hired Berry to begin with because the owner isn't qualified for the job and as such has one of two choices. Either put his faith in Berry's decision or to replace him. Haslam's mistake was putting his faith in Berry on the watson decision.

I fully understand the mess they were in due to the watson decision. But just like every decision that was made, someone is responsible for that. Berry's job is not only to find, sign and draft players, but also managing the salary cap. He went all in on the instant fix. That ended up being a miserable failure all the way around. But if I'm not mistaken you are actually admitting that the salary cap position that put the team in made it impossible to go back the well in the FA market at QB.

I find it odd you are calling what I'm saying as dumb when it was Berry who put us in that timetable which ties his own hands.

You are certainly correct that Haslam had to sign off on it. But if you can't trust the decisions of the very GM you yourself hired, why would you give him that job to start with?

It's like paying an attorney a huge amount of money and then ignoring his advice. If you can't trust his advice you need to hire a different attorney. All you have to do is look at who negotiated the deal to give up all of those first round picks for watson. Trying to pretend it wasn't Berry who made that deal which put us in QB hell is, how would you say it? Oh yeah, dumb.

You know people on the inside, bro? You must.

Jimmy Haslam has employed seven head coaches and six general managers. He seems pretty quick to "learn from mistakes"; or at least his perception of them.

Yet you want us to believe Berry leads him around like a dog.


You want us to believe that fault for the worst QB trade in history, the highest paid salary in history, among the highest sacrificed assets in history and responsibility for the largest guarantee in history... falls at the feet of Andrew Berry.

And the reward for that is that? At the end of this season, he will be longer in tenure than the other five combined.

Welcome to Fantasy Island.

Just to clarify. I think Berry, at least by the early results, has turned the corner in overall talent evaluation. But the jury is still out as it pertains to the most critical position on all of football, the QB position. I think after next years draft and the next couple of seasons following it we will find out about that.

Amen to the first part, I'll never argue he wasn't complicit. I see the word complicit through a different lens though, and I don't think my view is that far-fetched if you follow the timeline. This started exactly when Mayfield became a weekly pain in the grass.

How did it start? The "seven-month odyssey" started when Watson was mentioned as an option (probably by Berry).

Haslam took that bull by the horns by starting "an extensive, comprehensive evaluation" involving external investigators and legal review... and culminating in "a total organization decision" driven by football operations and a vetting process that even included the Haslam family and input from their daughters!

There is no owner of any team, business or popsicle stand (fun fact, I just discovered a distant relative invented the popsicle) that does all that without being 100% all-in. In fact, I don't think any of that is even possible without the owner being the driving force. Maybe that's just me.


And let's not forget... Talking heads across the sport said that the Browns finally secured a consensus top-5, elite franchise quarterback in his prime and became "Instant Super Bowl Contenders".

I don't believe anyone "leads him around like a dog" nor have I even suggested that.

I laid out my case and you have no legitimate reply to that as is demonstrated by your response.

You don't need to have someone on "the inside" to understand that NFL owners hire GM's to do and accomplish certain duties. AKA their job description. They hire what they believe to be the best person for the job to build an NFL team. To evaluate talent, bring in that talent, draft that talent and to manage the salary cap. If NFL owners thought they didn't need such a person, they wouldn't pay someone millions of dollars annually to fulfill those duties. Claiming otherwise flies in the face of logic.

I do think Haslam learned one lesson. And that lesson was that continuing to fire people before they have had a legitimate shot at building a team was counterproductive to the goal of building a winning franchise. That's a pretty logical conclusion for Halsam to have come to considering the results that had been to date at that time.

And nowhere did I say that Berry was the only one involved in the decision making process to bring watson here speaking of Fantasy Island.

Haslam did sign off on the deal. And once again I feel I must restate the obvious. If Hasalm didn't believe he could trust Berry's decision making on issues it was his job top accomplish, why would he have hired him in the first place?

That's how it works in every business model. You hire the people you feel are best qualified and you trust them to do the job you hired them for. Haslam was certainly smart enough to realize that he didn't know what he didn't know. That's why he didn't name himself the GM. If you don't trust the persons decisions and ability to do that job that you hired them to do you replace them. Haslam trusted Berry's decisions on bringing watson here. He signed off on that decision. Once again, if Haslam thought Berry wasn't qualified to do the job Berry wouldn't have had the job in the first place.

Nothing about this is complicated. Berry made a bad decision and Haslam having hired Berry to do that job signed off on it.

And just a reminder, talking heads are talking heads because nobody is willing to give them a job in the NFL. A lot of talking heads said that Sanders was a first round draft pick too. It could be that they're talking heads because they were a fomer NFL GM who couldn't find a franchise QB too. Just sayin'.

No, the last two drafts our QB IS DW... $230M guaranteed DW..

Dart was taken #25 overall, are you suggesting we should have taken him at #6 overall? If so, we should probably pin this post so we can evaluate you in 3 years as well. You say Dart is a starter, but right now, either DW or SS are starters.. Starting doesn't a career make.

So.. we need to follow closely Dart AND Mason Graham, who we wouldn't have if they took Dart.

Same with Shough, in order to draft him, you are trading off Carson Schwesinger.. so watch BOTH of their careers, not just the QBs.

Ty Simpson, you are trading off Spencer Fano...

Time will tell, I agree with you, but we need other players, not just a QB. If you are taking the QB, you better hit on him, because you are not filling a hole with another prospect otherwise.

As of today... I will still take Graham, Schwesinger and even Fano. All three were taken at a proper spot according to their evaluation. All three QBs you mentioned were taken higher than their evaluation said they should be taken out of desperation.

Let's move forward with what we have rather than rehashing what we didn't take before we even know if that player "lost" is going to amount to anything.

This ^^^

Factual information being the key here...

Since 2020, how many franchise QBs have the Browns been in position to get? Watson was a franchise QB, no matter how disgusted I was when the trade was made, there isn't anyone that would have argued that his skill set on the field wasn't at a franchise level. He led the league in passing yards his final season he played in Houston. THAT is getting a franchise QB for your franchise, even though I don't give Berry the credit, I think that was all Haslem.

SINCE THAT FATEFUL DAY... how many QBs did we pass on that are now considered franchise?

The trade ended up a colossal failure, but to say Berry has done nothing to get a legitimate starting QB in here is not factual. He brought him in(with Haslem's nudging) and the player failed.

Andrew Berry's plan seems to be this.

1) Draft a QB with 1st round draft pick in 2027 or trade considerable amount of draft capital to draft a QB in 2027 unless DeShaun Watson or Sheduer Sanders plays well enough to prove they are the teams franchise QB. Not winning the starting job. Showing they are the long-term answer. One of these QB's are going to win the starting job but that is still a long way off from showing they're the franchise QB. If neither of these QB's prove to be the franchise QB they will both be gone after this season. Watson's contract expires and he will not be resigned unless he takes the Browns on a 12-5 AFC North Championship type season. Sanders will be traded or cut unless he can lead the team to a double-digit win season and a wild card berth type season. If he is not franchise QB no way the FO is going to keep him while trying to get their 1st round draft pick ready to be the teams starter. His fans bring too much baggage with them. Both are long shots at best.

2) Dillon Gabriel was drafted in the 3rd round to be the teams long term starter. The FO like Gabriel and they like his ability in the film room and his ability to grasp an offense. With Watson still counting against the cap in 2027 and 2028 Gabriel is a cheaper option as back up vs signing a vet like the Raiders did with Kirk Cousins. His spot on the team is secure for this year and the next 2 are secure.

3) Keep Taylon Green or get another developmental QB as QB 3.

One last thing....

Sorry for the perceived rant... I'm just as frustrated as anyone that we don't have the QB yet, but some things just are out of control of that happening. We have to be realistic.