The Cleveland Browns are determined to find their franchise quarterback ahead of the 2018 NFL season. Though, being the Browns, it shouldn’t surprise you that they could be targeting a player who could be seen as one of the riskiest quarterbacks coming into the league via next April’s draft bonanza. According to ESPN’s Ian O’Connor, one NFC personnel man is convinced the Browns will take Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen with the No. 1 overall pick.
NFC personnel guy convinced Browns will take Josh Allen at No. 1, leaving Dave Gettleman (with a Giants loss or Colts win Sunday) to pick Rosen, Darnold, or Barkley.
— Ian O'Connor (@Ian_OConnor) December 28, 2017
Now, it’s worth mentioning that Allen has been talked about as a potential Round 1 quarterback since even before the 2017 college football season began. So, it’s not totally crazy that an NFL team could be enamored with him. Though Allen did have a truly horrid junior campaign for the Cowboys, minus an outstanding performance in their bowl game (check out these throws) this past week.
Allen finished his collegiate career — he’s already declared he’ll enter the draft — having completed 56.2 percent of his passes (extremely low) for 4,912 yards with 41 touchdowns and 21 interceptions in 26 games. The talent he had around him was not exceptional, though neither was the talent he played against for the most part. And it must be noted that, in games against top competition, Allen was miserable this past season.
Needless to say, even though he has arm talent and the athleticism/size to excel at the NFL level, by no means is Allen a polished product.
In this scribe’s humble estimation, there are at least a few other quarterbacks who’d be better suited at the No. 1 spot than the Wyoming product — Lamar Jackson, Josh Rosen and Sam Darnold. Yet we already have evidence that neither Rosen nor Darnold want anything to do with the Browns, who could potentially be taking that into consideration when weighing their options.
The Browns have struck out on a quarterback for years, and the past two drafts have been particularly brutal. They could have had both Carson Wentz and Deshaun Watson but traded the picks that landed both quarterbacks to the Philadelphia Eagles and Houston Texans.
They’ll be eager to get it right this time, but we won’t be surprised if, in their laser-guided focus not to screw up, they end up screwing up monumentally anyway.