When the Browns kicked Baker Mayfield to the curb, they brought in Jacoby Brissett to start in the 2022 season, and were so deathly scared of having him as their QB that they traded three first round draft picks in order to replace him with Deshaun Watson, but what nobody could've known at the time was that both sides had found their home. It seems a bit disingenuous to say that Joe Flacco is the only man to succeed in the system, because Jacoby Brissett, after being replaced, but before his replacement could actually suit up, ranked 13th in EPA/Play at the time of his actual replacement, 13 weeks into the 2022 season, and by the time the season had wrapped he had risen to 12th with somebody else faltering.
This is the guy the Cleveland Browns fell all over themselves trying to replace. This franchise would kill for a QB who could rank 12th in EPA/Play right now, but they had one, and they paid three first round picks for the privilege of kicking him to the curb. It's a shame they didn't just stick it out. It would've been in hopes to draft somebody in the first round of the 2023 draft, but with the way it all worked out, the team could've extended Jacoby and we could've been in a whole different place right now. Perhaps 2022 was a one-off, and Jacoby would've went right back to being what Jacoby was before that and afterwards, or, perhaps the Stefanski system really suits what he's good at doing, and this could've been a match made in heaven for both sides.
We don't know the answer to that, because his tenure was over before it started, but it's an interesting what-if for a player that likely will not get mentioned a lot in what-if discussions as 2022 gets further and further into the rear view. What I do know is that every QB who suited up for the 2023 Browns stunk, and Jacoby couldn't possibly have been any worse than any of them. If he could've managed to rank 12th in EPA/Play (as he'd done one season before that) with that defence backing him up, I see no reason the Browns couldn't have been Super Bowl contenders.
But instead, Cleveland has about 700 plays of Deshaun Watson over the course of three years, where the offence is almost always better without him than it is with him. This is most obvious in '22, where the Browns were sixth in EPA/Play as an offence at the time of replacing Jacoby, and absolutely horrendous under Deshaun, but the pattern persists in each of the last two seasons also.
It's tough to blame anybody for not knowing just how good Jacoby Brissett was going to be in Cleveland. It was not very forecastable, but the fact remains that he was a top ten QB in the NFL in 2022, and Cleveland paid three first round picks to replace that top ten QB with Deshaun Watson. That's a very Cleveland move.
That leaves me looking at the people who made this decision. First comes Kevin Stefanski, who in general I don't like, because I don't like coaches as play callers. He's supposed to be this offensive guy, but in his tenure in Cleveland he's had one top ten offences. Just 2020. He was en route to a second in 2022 before he got Deshaun dropped on him, but still. One top ten offence in five years for this man who's supposed to be an offensive guy is likely bad enough that we can call it a failure, although he did have an offence on the fringes of the top five in the NFL with Jacoby Brissett at QB, so this cuts both ways. He's not to blame for a lot of this, but the players dislike him, and I'm not sure why he's still here.
Then we move to everybody else. The question with the upper office people is whether they remain because they're good at their jobs, or whether they remain because Jimmy Haslem likes them. As far as how good they are at their jobs, it's difficult to tell, because the Deshaun Watson trade overshadows everything. I think the general perception is that Cleveland rosters have been pretty good from 2019-2023, 2024 of course exempted. Just the QB position remains an issue. They have had three potential fixes for this in the building (Cody Kessler generated 0.108 EPA/Play in 2016, Baker got 0.197 in 2020, Jacoby Brissett was at 0.115 in 2022), but none of them remain in 2024. Cody Kessler got benched and eventually run out of town because he was ruining the tank. Baker Mayfield got benched and eventually run out of town for reasons that I don't think anybody quite understands. Jacoby got benched and eventually run out of town because of the Deshaun trade.
This is three viable QBs. Cleveland intentionally chose to replace all of them. These were not injuries that ended a career or anything like that. This was Cleveland seeing good and deciding they wanted great, not realising when to leave well enough alone in the case of Baker and Deshaun. Seeing good and realising 'oh crap, we will not lose enough with this guy' in the case of Cody Kessler. All of this has led us to where we are now, where the botch job at the QB position has ruined what could've been a great era of Cleveland football.
Nevertheless, the people who presided over that botch job remain, ostensibly to try to find the right QB this time, in hopes that they will not botch it on the third try. The third time is the charm I suppose, but I don't know if I would trust the front office people who ran off each of the two best EPA/Play QBs the Browns have ever had as my agents to find the next one. For what, so he can play well and they can run him off too? That seems to be what the Browns do these days.
It must be the case that Jimmy Haslem is a fan of these people. I cannot come up with any other justification, but that seems really lame, even to somebody who is not a fan of the Cleveland Browns. We must have more stringent standards than this, but apparently not in Cleveland.
In the beginning, there was Jacoby Brissett.
When the Browns kicked Baker Mayfield to the curb, they brought in Jacoby Brissett to start in the 2022 season, and were so deathly scared of having him as their QB that they traded three first round draft picks in order to replace him with Deshaun Watson, but what nobody could've known at the time was that both sides had found their home. It seems a bit disingenuous to say that Joe Flacco is the only man to succeed in the system, because Jacoby Brissett, after being replaced, but before his replacement could actually suit up, ranked 13th in EPA/Play at the time of his actual replacement, 13 weeks into the 2022 season, and by the time the season had wrapped he had risen to 12th with somebody else faltering.
This is the guy the Cleveland Browns fell all over themselves trying to replace. This franchise would kill for a QB who could rank 12th in EPA/Play right now, but they had one, and they paid three first round picks for the privilege of kicking him to the curb. It's a shame they didn't just stick it out. It would've been in hopes to draft somebody in the first round of the 2023 draft, but with the way it all worked out, the team could've extended Jacoby and we could've been in a whole different place right now. Perhaps 2022 was a one-off, and Jacoby would've went right back to being what Jacoby was before that and afterwards, or, perhaps the Stefanski system really suits what he's good at doing, and this could've been a match made in heaven for both sides.
We don't know the answer to that, because his tenure was over before it started, but it's an interesting what-if for a player that likely will not get mentioned a lot in what-if discussions as 2022 gets further and further into the rear view. What I do know is that every QB who suited up for the 2023 Browns stunk, and Jacoby couldn't possibly have been any worse than any of them. If he could've managed to rank 12th in EPA/Play (as he'd done one season before that) with that defence backing him up, I see no reason the Browns couldn't have been Super Bowl contenders.
But instead, Cleveland has about 700 plays of Deshaun Watson over the course of three years, where the offence is almost always better without him than it is with him. This is most obvious in '22, where the Browns were sixth in EPA/Play as an offence at the time of replacing Jacoby, and absolutely horrendous under Deshaun, but the pattern persists in each of the last two seasons also.
It's tough to blame anybody for not knowing just how good Jacoby Brissett was going to be in Cleveland. It was not very forecastable, but the fact remains that he was a top ten QB in the NFL in 2022, and Cleveland paid three first round picks to replace that top ten QB with Deshaun Watson. That's a very Cleveland move.
That leaves me looking at the people who made this decision. First comes Kevin Stefanski, who in general I don't like, because I don't like coaches as play callers. He's supposed to be this offensive guy, but in his tenure in Cleveland he's had one top ten offences. Just 2020. He was en route to a second in 2022 before he got Deshaun dropped on him, but still. One top ten offence in five years for this man who's supposed to be an offensive guy is likely bad enough that we can call it a failure, although he did have an offence on the fringes of the top five in the NFL with Jacoby Brissett at QB, so this cuts both ways. He's not to blame for a lot of this, but the players dislike him, and I'm not sure why he's still here.
Then we move to everybody else. The question with the upper office people is whether they remain because they're good at their jobs, or whether they remain because Jimmy Haslem likes them. As far as how good they are at their jobs, it's difficult to tell, because the Deshaun Watson trade overshadows everything. I think the general perception is that Cleveland rosters have been pretty good from 2019-2023, 2024 of course exempted. Just the QB position remains an issue. They have had three potential fixes for this in the building (Cody Kessler generated 0.108 EPA/Play in 2016, Baker got 0.197 in 2020, Jacoby Brissett was at 0.115 in 2022), but none of them remain in 2024. Cody Kessler got benched and eventually run out of town because he was ruining the tank. Baker Mayfield got benched and eventually run out of town for reasons that I don't think anybody quite understands. Jacoby got benched and eventually run out of town because of the Deshaun trade.
This is three viable QBs. Cleveland intentionally chose to replace all of them. These were not injuries that ended a career or anything like that. This was Cleveland seeing good and deciding they wanted great, not realising when to leave well enough alone in the case of Baker and Deshaun. Seeing good and realising 'oh crap, we will not lose enough with this guy' in the case of Cody Kessler. All of this has led us to where we are now, where the botch job at the QB position has ruined what could've been a great era of Cleveland football.
Nevertheless, the people who presided over that botch job remain, ostensibly to try to find the right QB this time, in hopes that they will not botch it on the third try. The third time is the charm I suppose, but I don't know if I would trust the front office people who ran off each of the two best EPA/Play QBs the Browns have ever had as my agents to find the next one. For what, so he can play well and they can run him off too? That seems to be what the Browns do these days.
It must be the case that Jimmy Haslem is a fan of these people. I cannot come up with any other justification, but that seems really lame, even to somebody who is not a fan of the Cleveland Browns. We must have more stringent standards than this, but apparently not in Cleveland.