Cavaliers Close Out 1st Half of Season Against the Hornets
February 22, 2012Box Score: New Orleans Hornets 89, Cleveland Cavaliers 84
February 22, 2012After what would take a trade to get to the second-overall spot in the upcoming NFL Draft, Sports Illustrated’s Don Banks forecasts the Cleveland Browns will leave the first night of festivities with Baylor’s quarterback Robert Griffin III.
When all is said and done, Griffin will be going in this slot to someone, and the Browns still make the most sense in terms of their need at quarterback and their good fortune to own two first-round picks in 2012. Trust me on this one: The NFL is about to fall in love with Griffin, and the top of the draft is all about quarterbacks. The Browns should jump on this deal — and this player — with gusto, because they’re not getting the ultra-impressive Griffin if they sit tight at No. 4. If Cleveland doesn’t move on Griffin, Washington might.
Banks’ proposed trade has them moving out of the 22nd-overall selection which St. Louis would then use on an offensive lineman to help keep Sam Bradford upright. If the Browns trade would not go down, these projections would leave Oklahoma State’s Justin Blackmon, Alabama’s Trent Richardson and LSU Morris Claiborne as the likely best available come the fourth-overall pick.
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Add this to the pile of “experts” who have the Browns trading out of that 22 spot to move up. These analysts ignore two very important things:
1) Either Shurmur’s going to have to change his whole offensive scheme to fit RG3, or RG3 would have to be crammed into Shurmur’s system. I don’t think either is likely.
2) The Browns have too many holes to just give up picks willy nilly like all of these guys project. RG3 might turn out to be a dynamic player, but even a dynamic QB isn’t going to cure all ills.
Shurmur thinks this is needless media speculation
Deja rant.
Officially sick of the mock drafts that pop up every four days. I really want to flash forward to late April…..for many reasons. February is the absolute worst month.
Finally, ’bout time we had some trade up for Griffin talk round these parts.
Starting to lose it. May have to either keep off this site for a few weeks or only comment in haiku while trimming my bonsai tree.
The comments to this article hereby incorporate all other comments heretofore offered on the subject of the aforementioned article; to wit, whether the Cleveland Browns, members of the North Division of the American Football Conference of the National Football League should (1) draft Robert Griffin The Third, whether through a direct draft selection in the 2012 National Football League Draft or through the entering into of such draft pick trade transactions that would facilitate such objective, or (2) forego such previously-stated objective of drafting Robert Griffin The Third in favor of other contingencies, alternatives, or options.
Signed,
The WFNY Community
WR, RB, LG, RT, DE, OLB, CB,S
Yeah, screw it. We don’t need no stinking team. A quarterback will fix everything…
Is that the Patriots motto you’ve transcribed there?
It’s unanimous; the Browns either do whatever it takes to draft RGIII or risk gravely insulting the conventional wisdom producers of the American sports journalism profession.
The only way I want to see Griffin here (with the #2 pick anyways) is if the Browns go out and get a #1 WR and a RT/RB in free agency.
What did the absence of Peyton Manning do to the otherwise sound and well-seasoned team, the Colts?
1. Griffin is an excellent fit for the WCO. He’s accurate, moves well in the pocket and has a gun. He’s not Mike Vick, but if he was, Vick plays in a WCO.
2. Not sure if you know this but the Browns can draft other players this year and next.
You left of QB, the most important position in all of sports. Also, in case you hadn’t heard, we still get more picks after the first round this year and even next year. Can’t fix it all overnight.
I think “filling holes” this year and then waiting another year to get a QB in a year where we will likely have WAY fewer resources to acquire a potential top-tier QB talent, thereby delaying the installation of our new signal-caller and commencing his development so as to guarantee that both next season and the season after that don’t allow for surprise growth/contention, is definitely the best route.
Besides, if we pick two players instead of one, we’re guaranteed to hit on both and “fill holes.” Way less risky.
And this way, the team will be all ready and rearing to waste a year while a new QB is integrated. They we will have the pleasure of watching our new middling QB prospect while Steinbach and Thomas get older and D’Qwell and Montario have another two seasons on their legs and Hillis wears down and all that good stuff.
I didn’t know that instead of taking a QB we could have seven players. Your point is taken, but come on…..
No hyphens after adverbs.
(And you call yourself a nerd. Sheesh.)
I’m a creative nerd.
Why can’t that happen? It should.
Yawn . . . let talk about uniforms!!!!
If the Browns really want RG3. Why do they have to give up the second 1st rounder? There may be other packages to put together. Future picks or players. The Browns need both picks this year more than they need to address 1 player at quarterback.
If the Browns really want RG3. Why do they have to give up the second 1st rounder? There may be other packages to put together. Future picks or players. The Browns need both picks this year more than they need to address 1 player at quarterback.
Tell nee you didn’t just call the colts a solid team….horrible d, no running back..it not solid
Lol..my reply would have been better without the horrible typos!
The Free Agent Tackles are either weak or injury prone (we already have that). The draft class is deep with RTs.
I think people are way to dismissive of McCoy. Last season was his first year as a starter, playing under a new coaching staff in a new offensive system, and had no real off season due to the lock out. His offensive line had holes, his wide receiver core was well below average, and the star running back spent a lot of games on the sidelines. Despite all this, his stat line was a little below average. If we can start fixing these problems and giving him experience with the offense, McCoy is an above average quarterback. Not bad for a 3rd round pick still under a rookie contract, and not the sort of guy we should be selling the farm to replace.
Especially, if the real cost of “trading up” is not being able to “trade down.” The reason the Browns are in such a good draft position this year (beyond losing a lot of games, again), is that trade with Atlanta. All we need is one playoff team to think they just need one of those “playmaker” prospects like Blackmon or Kalil and we can repeat the experiment. Then next year, we can repeat this dilemma with Barkley.
You can’t win in this league without a star caliber QB. Everyone but 50% of Browns fans realize this. It’s still stunning so many Clevelanders don’t want him. If they like him and see him as the QB of the future, trade what you need to get him.
Right, 9 straight years of playoff/10+ win season to 2-14. Awful history there…
Can we start a Mock Mock draft? Where we try to guess where the experts will guess where players will go. In fact I think we should start a fantasy mock draft league. The trophy for the winner will be a bronzed wig in honor of Mel the patron saint of mindless ESPN timefiller. Walter football has a list of every mindless expostion about the draft available on the internet. We could all spend a week looking them over and then start picking our favorites. We’ll first spend spend 67 hours straight coming to a consensus as to what the most likely draft should look like, whatever 90% of the sites say will be prevailing wisdom. Then we each begin picking our favorite draft site, you get one point for your draft placing a pick, two points when it calls a pick outside the prevailing wisdom, and 3 points for an unexpected trade. Also, each participant will have the right to risk it all and create their own draft, which sounds ridiculous on its premise – I mean why would you forgo the immense wisdom of the 83,483 draft experts to take a wild guess as to what is really going to happen? – However, if you do create your own draft all point values double.
I just thought this would be a fun way for us laypersons to live vicariously through the expertise of others.
#4 + #37 + Josh Cribbs for #2?
I wonder how it will look like when the dust (Manning, Flynn) settles. Until then, this may be a moot point.
Thank you, Craig. I had a comment about that but apparently it didn’t get past the censors.
I think they are planning to move Steinbach to RT and keeping Pinkston as the guard.
(sorry for any typos i may have included.)
no, there is a NFL rule that ex-Browns STers must go to the 49ers
I think you need to flip that… Steinbach stays at guard and Pinkston moves to right tackle (he played tackle in college… I don’t think Steinbach has played tackle, at least not for many years).
You must be related to Griffin or his agent sheesh already.
Finally some sense. I’m not saying that Colt McCoy is the definite answer at QB, but what I am saying is that nobody knows yet and I don’t know why everyone is in such a rush to throw him away and sell a key draft pick to grab the shiny but unproven toy. How many quarterbacks would have been better in the same situation last season? How would RG3 have done? Let’s all be honest with ourselves here… if RG3 were thrown into last year’s situation as a rookie QB, he probably would have done just as poorly. The only leg up that McCoy would have had would be the 6 games he played the previous season to get an idea of the speed of the NFL, but the offense last season was completely different, the coaching philosophies were different, everything was different.
I’m not saying that I don’t want RG3 at all. I think he has a chance to be a good NFL QB. His stats from the last college season were really impressive. But my blasphemous belief is that RG3 IS Colt McCoy with a stronger arm (I am assuming this because I’ve heard his arm is strong, but I have no proof of that… I guess the NFL combine and his pro day will tell us more). They are basically the same height and weight (RG3 is listed as an inch taller and 5 lbs heavier, but we all know how those stats always get a boost). They have the same ability to scramble and extend plays. I don’t think Cleveland fans understand that RG3 is NOT Mike Vick… he is not a dynamic running QB. He is a decent scrambler ala McCoy. The one thing McCoy has that RG3 doesn’t is experience in the NFL. We already know that McCoy can handle pressure and shows real leadership on the field and in the locker room… this is the thing about RG3 that nobody can predict until he gets there. He seems to have a great head on his shoulders, but how will he handle the pressure in the NFL? So is McCoy’s arm strength the only real barrier to QB success? If so, then I think H&H should draft RG3 and spend the pick to get him. If not, then I think we let the chips fall as they may and keep our two first round picks. My opinion is obviously the latter if I were the GM (glad I’m not).
Is it really worth trading up to #2 to get RGIII? I would imagine with Washington and possibly others applying the pressure, that we would have to offer more than the 4th and 22nd pick. St. Louis makes out like a bandit in this deal. If we trade up, they can still get Blackmon or Kalil at #4, which is what they want. I don’t think we offer much more knowing this. We have the leverage in saying “you still get your guy to protect Bradford or your guy for Bradford to throw to”, but if they trade with Washington, both will be gone…. I think we have just as much weight in this situation as they do, we don’t REALLY need to trade up because we can still get our guy at #4 and give Colt one more year. If RGIII turns out to be injury prone or a failure in our offense, we are set back another 3-4 years. We need to hit this draft with 2-3 must start players and go hard at a QB next year. Every year QB’s turn into great prospects and are overhyped. Who was talking about RGIII this time last year? There will be another great prospect that comes along… I also want a QB that was challenged in college. He didn’t challenge many great defenses this past year. Texas was the only team ranked in top 20 in the league for defense. All other teams he played fell in the 40-50 or even 70 plus range in league rankings. This is simply too high risk to offer more than the 4th and 22nd. Too many analysts overhype flashy and exciting prospects. I question ones like Todd McShays assessment of RGIII… He had a very similar one for Jamarcus Russell as well… we remember how that turned out. It’s more hype and marketing than the actual analysis of stardom. Does he have it in his heart and head to make it in the NFL day in and day out? We see the tangibles and potential skill, but will that all translate into an NFL starter for the next 10 years….
CLAIBORNE.
I also think many Cleveland fans are afraid of the high-QB pick because of Couch. Listen, Couch had one of the worst teams of all-time around him. He wasn’t going to succeed no matter what. Also, He wasn’t THAT good. The guys that are available this year are so much better than Tim Couch. There are probably 5 guys this year who are better.
So don’t be afraid, Cleveland Browns fans, of the high-QB pick. Sometimes, it does work out. Just ask Indianapolis…
I also think many Cleveland fans are afraid of the high-QB pick because of Couch. Listen, Couch had one of the worst teams of all-time around him. He wasn’t going to succeed no matter what. Also, He wasn’t THAT good. The guys that are available this year are so much better than Tim Couch. There are probably 5 guys this year who are better.
So don’t be afraid, Cleveland Browns fans, of the high-QB pick. Sometimes, it does work out. Just ask Indianapolis…
Miami is getting Manning. If the Browns don’t want RG3, all they have to do is work out a trade with Washington. Washington gets RG3 with the 4th pick and the Browns still get Pick #6 plus more if they don’t want RG3. This is a no-brainer.
im not sure if you guys know this but RG3 was the #4 QB on the big board in December. So two college QBs are better than RG3 (landry jones and matt barkley). RG3 biggest hype since Ryan Leaf. By the way the colts took peyton #1 overall in 98. the hype player leaf went number two. history will repeat with griffin. while his upside is better than leaf he projects as a top 15 qb. i think its funny how everyone links the browns to trading up when H&H are all about building through the draft. they would never trade 2-3 picks to move up 2 spots for one player. we have holes at LG (steinbach has a back problem and wont be effective this year) RG, RT, DE, OLB, and FS. lets throw away the draft for one guy who wont have a line to protect him and his only option will be a #2 receiver (Little shows promise but at best he would be a playoff teams #2).
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/963473-mel-kiper-big-board-setting-the-bust-odds-for-the-hairs-top-25-prospects/page/3
What about Flacco, Freeman, Sanchez, Cassle, Tebow, Ponder, Gabbert, hell every QB in the league not names Rodgers, Brees or Brady. 2 time SB MVP Eli Manning is not considered elite but some punk who got beat by the only good teams he played this year in a weak college conference is elite. Wake up and smell the coffee.
What if the Raiders trade Terrell Pryor to Cleveland for their 22nd pick. it would be a win, win.
I think the Brown can forget RG3. Dan Snyser, down in Washington is going to make the Rams an offer he can’t refuse.