View from the Dawg Pound Bengals at Cleveland, 14 December 2014

            For the second December home game in a row, the weather was more than ideal for football. Temperatures in the forties, no wind or rain, tailgating was at a level unheard of in recent Browns seasons. Great weather and a team still in the running for the playoffs? It seemed too good to be true. And it was.

            Enough has been said about Sunday’s game. I’ll just quote from my game notes for the start of the game. Browns kickoff. Cinci Scores. Cinci kicks off. Browns three and out. Cinci scores. Browns three and out. Cinci scores. Browns throw a pick. Cinci scores. Browns three and out. Cinci throws a pick, Craig Robertson with another big play. Browns actually start driving. Browns throw a pick. Cinci penalty, Browns keep the ball. First “Put in Hoyer” from the guy behind me. Browns throw pick on the goal line.  Yada, yada, yada.

Sunday’s disaster against the Bengals brought into public knowledge what some people have known all along, that neither Brian Hoyer nor Johnny Manziel is the quarterback that will lead the Cleveland Browns to a championship. Hoyer is a career journeyman, with the brains but not the arm for the NFL. Manziel possesses the skills to be successful in college but those same skills do not translate to the pro game.

Hoyer’s journey in the NFL from New England to Pittsburgh to Arizona to the Browns, living off the “knowledge” he learned as a Tom Brady backup has suddenly stopped. Signing him was a good move, a stopped gap solution until the real quarterback would hopefully show up. The drafting of Menziel was a bad move, and tarnished an otherwise good draft and some solid free agency signings.

            The graphic on the morning shows Sunday stated that Manziel is the 22^nd starting quarterback since the team returned in 1999. The only for sure thing is number 23 is not that far in the future.

            Quarterback is such a chance at draft time for most teams. The only for sure bet in recent history has been Andrew Luck. Oregon’s Marcus  Mariota, even with his Heisman, is as big of a risk as Manziel. Obviously a more mature person, he still spent most of his career using his feet as much as his arm. For all of his faults as a person, last year’s Heisman winner Jameis Winston has more of a pro skill set than both Manziel and Mariota. He has thrown more from the pocket, and shows he has the tangibles to keep winning. As of this writing in two seasons he has not lost a game as a starter.

Quarterback isn’t just a Browns problem. The NFL has a quarterback problem, there isn’t enough to go around. College and high school quarterbacks don’t learn to audiblize because their coaches do it for them. They don’t read their third or fourth receivers because if their first one isn’t open they take off running. During the off season they get the false sense that they can play in the NFL by participating in a sham called 7 on 7 football, which is nothing more than glorified touch football. Receivers are always open and catching the ball when they know they are not going to be hit, and quarterbacks can always find the open guy when they aren’t being chased by defensive linemen and blitzing backers.

The Browns coaches have to some how regroup their team and win one more game. An 8-8 season after the disasters of the last few would be a big step forward. Going 7-9 and losing the last five games is the same old stuff. The team has to win, no matter who is the quarterback.

Here’s their dilemma, this isn’t an expansion team or even the talented deficient team of a few years ago, this is actually a decently talented team on both sides of the ball. Sure it has some problems like kicker, but the talent to succeed is there. But not without a quarterback, a pro quarterback who can read defenses and has a strong arm enough to do what needs to be done in the NFL. We will have the whole off-season to talk about their options, but for now just win one more game.

Once again Browns fans will spend the playoffs watching what seems like the same old teams. Wonder why some organizations always seem to be good? They don’t draft popular running college quarterbacks like Manziel or Robert Griffith III because they know they can’t do it on the next level.

And when the season is finally finished, throw Manziel’s corpse onto that big, and getting bigger, pile of unsuccessful former running college over hyped college quarterbacks, right on top of Pat White, Vince Young, and RGIII.