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This Mateer kid can really throw the ball 🏈 It literally flies out of his hand.

I believe the experts were right and Sanders was a late first early second round talent but fell due to concerns with attitude and off the field distractions. Gabriel was over drafted he was seen as a 5th or even 6th round draft pick that the Browns overvalued. He was who the projections thought he was too short, too weak of an arm to be effective in the NFL.

Hahaha I see it!

I am sure there is some of that. Just look at the pre-draft "Legendary" hype put out by the Sanders camp. If in the end Sanders had gotten up in front of the coaches in pre-draft meetings and wowed them with his football knowledge, at least some of the teams would have overlooked the media sizzle.

They say they need more time to redact names of innocent victims. Plausible I suppose.

No matter. I don't get the urgency at this point. The files have been in the hands of the DOJ for 4-5 years. If such a big deal now, why not 3-4 years ago?

I think it is more a bunch of noise than anything else.

Please, don't start on some tirade that I am trying to protect pedophiles.

"Three wins is not going to cut it"
Said jimmy haslam in August.
With Pauli D gone,the GM position is slightly more appealing,but still it would be a very hard sell to any candidate worth a damn.
No worthwhile coach will take the HC position with Berry as GM,except maybe that fat guy that coached the Cowboys.

In the Baker draft Mel stated he felt the Browns should go with Allen because he had the biggest upside.

At the same time Josh Rosen was thought to be the most ready by others.

I don't have a real feel yet on the guys in this class. Mendoza, Moore and Simpson are the projected first rounders.

I am going to watch the Alabama OK game tonight. Simpson and John Mateer.

I have seen some of Mendoza, Moore, Simpson, and Mateer.

Mateer to me is the most intriguing. His playing personality reminds me of Baker. He is an all out guy. He holds players accountable. He will do anything to win. He plays with no fear. He is 6'1" but he packs 225 lbs. He is by far the best runner of all the QBs. In addition he has the best arm. His numbers suffered because of a broken thumb on his throwing hand. He is raw and plays frantically at times. He will need to be coached and developed.

He will probably be a top 50 pick if he comes out. I have no clue if he comes out or not. We could probably draft him in the second round. Again ya never know with the draft. Teams see guys differently.

I would never expect the Browns to draft him. It never happens that the guy I like is selected. I wanted Ben when we took Winslow. I wanted Mahomes. We took Myles and Peppers in the first. Myles was the consensus 1st pick. But I wanted to trade up for Mahomes using Peppers pick and more. Mahomes went 10th. I wanted Darnold but I would have been good with Allen or Baker. I did not want Rosen.

Mendoza, Moore or Simpson could turn out to be great. Ya never know. But I like Mateer.

Trump just refused to answer any questions regarding this.

The trump Justice Department breaking the law.

Is anyone really surprised they didn't reach the deadline? If they are they shouldn't be.

Breaking News!

Rumors are coming out of the White House that President Donal Trump will be signing an executive order renaming the San Andreas Fault to Joe Biden's Fault. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

I don't really disagree with your premise. I think they had a decision to make. Either try to see if they could address the QB position with lower picks which would give them huge ammunition in this upcoming draft at other positions of need or whether to try and address at least part of the other glaring holes on the team then. There's one way that they can't lose. If they decide there's not enough evidence to roll with Sanders, I still think he's shown enough to trade him for a higher draft pick than they spent on him. I believe the ROI at that point would have made him a wise choice.

And besides, I've never heard a team complain about having too many good QB's. By good I don't mean franchise QB's I just mean QB's who can play at a decent level. Even a decent backup QB with a fifth round pick is a good pick.

I know you bag on the Gabriel pick. And hey, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But Gabriele played in one of the, if not the top conferences in the nation. They won a lot of games against good teams and even beat the Buckeyes who were the #1 team in the country. Sure in the rematch OSU made him look far less than stellar. But it's hard to beat the Buckeyes once in a season, much less twice. He had a good pedigree. I can't say I blame them for taking a shot with him.

And as we can both see, where a player is "projected" to go in the draft and where they get selected are often two totally different things.

I don't think it's unreasonable to believe if those who missed the projections on Sanders by 4 rounds it's rather disingenuous to keep carrying on about how it was this FO who missed the Gabriel by 2 rounds. If those same people whiffed on the Sanders projections it's not hard to believe those same people whiffed on the Gabriel projection too.

It almost as if you are saying they were brilliant for getting a 1st round projected pick in round 5 but were idiots for selecting a 5th round projected player in round 3.

That may be true. As you said it's pretty much a guessing game. I think much of that decision will rest with who it was making a huge push to land watson. Someone initiated and pushed for that move. While I agree nobody most likely applied pressure in the opposite direction to any degree, someone was so determined to land him they made s second trip to sign him after he had already said Cleveland was off the list. In doing so they gave an arm and a leg to get that deal done.

I think most would agree at least in large part this is what has culminated since that trade to be a major factor in where they find themselves now.

I don't think we'll ever know the answer to that question for sure.

Haslam may have been the one making that push and will be looking for a fall guy. He may think that even with the constraints they faced after making this trade the results should still have been better in maintaining a competitive roster from Berry. It may have been Berry making that push and Haslam will hold him responsible. It may be both Berry and Haslam feel Stefanski should be producing better results with the roster he has been given.

Or, Haslam may realize by him insisting on and giving up so much for watson it was he who created this situation and give this FO and HC a chance to rebuild.

One thing is pretty much a certainty. It's almost unheard of to get a new GM who would retain the current HC. If in fact Haslam places the majority of the watson deal on Berry, it's a very rare case where a new GM doesn't insist on his own HC. And if you get a new GM who will keep the existing HC, I doubt that would be a highly regarded candidate.

Time will tell I suppose.

It was very good value in the 5th round for sure. The team had so many holes to fill at draft time, and this kind of season was projected that they would have been better served in my opinion riding with Pickett and Flacco and then drafting the Ohio QB Will Howard without trading picks. If Sanders pans out that will prove me wrong. But if the would have selected Wilson and another lineman later the line issues would not be resolved but could have looked better than it does now.

Following that line of thought you must think they stole Sanders who they picked 4 rounds later than projected.

That is 100% correct. But you know he feels compelled to say "Look at what I did for you!" whether he did it or not.

"Tariff money" is nothing but an import tax inflicted on American businesses and taxpayers.

Another lie-
Reports confirm that the funds for what President Trump termed the "$1,776 warrior dividend" bonuses were repurposed from money Congress had already appropriated for military housing assistance. The money did not come from tariff revenue as Trump suggested in his announcement speech.

The decision on the quarterback looms.

Haslam's decision will impact the team for years.

Regime change is a five year commitment typically.

I don't envy Haslam in making this call. Lots of floating factors.

Our OT situation is/was as predictable as they come.

cbfan..I totally agree..what the Browns are experiencing now is the result of a GM who lacks the expertise to judge OL & WR talent.

Ever since Haslam let Bill Callahan leave the Browns the OL has gone downhill. Any GM who has a lick of understanding of offensive football has to know that the most important group of players are the 5 starting OLinemen and the a close second most important group on offense are the backups to those 5 starting OLinemen.

The Browns WR group suffers from the same syndrome...a management group that is poor at judging WR talent.

Until the Browns fix their the management group in charge of judging OL and WR talent, I see no hope for this GM addressing the offensive weaknesses. For years I have commented that Berry needs help judging talent...especially the OLine and WR.

I remember us saying that about Allar. He does have the size and arm strength. He has that Josh Allen look about him but needs to be developed. I remember that there were a few so called draft experts that weren’t high on Allen too.

We all have to ask ourselves is there any HC candidate out there that can be better than KS? I really don’t think so. Coordinaters are unknown as you mentioned. Guys who were HC’s that are coordinators now would probably be considered strongly. None weren’t that good when they were HC’s. Do you want Mike McCarthy, John Gruden or Rex Ryan? KS is probably as good as any of the available ex HC’s. An unknown could be the answer but do we want to take that chance? Probably not now with this DW mess still hanging over us.

Something else to consider is how valuable is the Browns Head coaching and GM positions seen from top candidates right now? With Watson and his contract still on the roster, salary cap issues for 2026, and no franchise QB I do not see either job as being overly attractive. Maybe if the Browns somehow get the #1 pick without trading their 2nd 1st round pick those positions might be seen in somewhat a better light.

If changes are made.

I wish there were replacements I could get behind.

Vrabel is doing well in NE. Again a quarterback is delivering. He would have been a good candidate.

Tomlin is not a consideration at this point. I doubt that will change because I do not see him wanting a job in Cleveland for any number of reasons.

Coordinators make me nervous because there are lots of unknowns with a guy getting his first HC job.

More than the head coach GM is a harder hire. GM is a difficult job for many reasons. First thing is the relationship with the owner. That can really complicate things. Second the responsibilities of a GM are varied. Contract knowledge, trade negotiations, agent negotiations, management of staffs, FA evaluations, and the draft.

The job is IMO the most important job in the organization. You can be great at one part of the job and stink at another part.

So, here we are. QB hell and a losing team. Haslam is the guy we have to look to for answers. So far he done little right.

I think Mendoza has solidified his spot as top QB and #1 overall pick in 2026 draft.

Tonight is a huge night for Simpson. He struggled down the stretch. Bama's run game has struggled, and teams have been pinning their ears back and pressuring Simpson and finding success doing so. He is on the road facing a really good defense and pass rush tonight. With a big game he could end some fears and solidify his spot in the 1st round. With another bad game he may end up coming back to college for another year. Current projections have him predicted to go mid to late 1st at this point in time.

Dante Moore can also solidify his spot with a couple nice games in the playoffs. He has the size 6'3 and arm talent but is seen as far from a finished product and still possible could go back to Oregon another season. If drafted he may not be a day 1 starter.

Mendoza is the only sure-fire top of the draft QB right now. If the Browns bring Berry and Stefanski back and do not take a QB in the 1st round I would not be surprised if they took Drew Allar somewhere in the draft. They were on record last year as saying if he would have come out, they would have taken him early in last year's draft.

I'm no QB guru but this is not how I think others see it. The QBs who were the darlings last year definitely fizzled: Beck, Nussmeier, Allar et al. But I think most who's opinion I think carries something think Mendoza, Simpson and Moore would be real in any year.