Here are my 10 non-optimist thoughts on Cade McNown. I started with 20 and worked it down. Sorry, Luke McCown. Fuck, whoever he is:
10. Let's get this out of the way: He is about to be 36 years old by the time next season is winding down. That makes him two years younger than Tim Couch. For a guy who has spent five of his 12 seasons as a designated starter, I am left wondering why he is still in the league. He is basically Tim Couch in games started: Couch had 59 starts while McCown had 49 in his career.
9. What has he done on the field in his career? Well Couch finished his career with a completion percentage of 59.8% and 11,131 yards on 1714 attempts, 64 touchdowns to 67 interceptions. And we couldn't stand the guy, despite some ups and several downs. McCown in all his years as a healthy player has a 58.8 percentage, 11,033 yards on 1664 attempts with 61 touchdowns to 59 interceptions. So, we are talking about a guy who did Tim Couch things over the course of more years, but not for an expansion team.
8. All things even, you might get excited about Tortoise Tim Couch and be nostalgic for Hare Tim Couch, who crammed a career into five seasons. But McCown was surrounded by some talent. In Arizona he had The ghost of Emmett Smith, Anquan Boldin, and Larry Fitzgerald. In Chicago, He had Forte, Jefferey, and Marshall. In Tampa he had Vincent Jackson and Mike Evans. Did Tim Couch have any player at any time that good?
7. This leads me to his selling points in the press: He gets along with the new OC and he will be a mentor to the assumed younger quarterback who will be groomed to start. I'm sorry, but didn't the Browns hire an OC who specializes in developing quarterbacks? And didn't the Browns invest in the best QB coach who works independently with QB prospects as a private consultant? And now they need a mentor for a young QB? This seems like a complete overkill with three guys all doing the same thing. Look, I've worked with youth a long time. I've never seen a situation work out where one problem child gets three mentors and it works better than one kid who gives a shit with one mentor. Never.
6. So the overkill of mentors doesn't lead me to believe the team wants to trade for a veteran starter. A veteran starter with a 35 year old backup and the legion of QB gurus doesn't add up. Is it possible the Browns want to develop Manziel and another rookie QB? The press is selling, but I'm not buying. I have always said the best move for the Browns is a guy like Colin Kaepernick or Andy Dalton, some guy who has worn out his welcome with fans elsewhere but is consistently top 10-20 in the league. This move doesn't give me optimism.
5. No team has successfully developed two young QBs at the same time and maintained value on both assets. I've seen teams develop two young QBs and develop one while selling the other for peanuts (Newton and Gabbert) and I've seen both prospects flame out (RG3 and Cousins) but never two fully developing.
4. So, I think we may see Manziel get traded or get the kid glove treatment. I'm willing to pull all negativity if Manziel is traded. Why? Little birdies keep telling us the team leaders hold this past year of fucking around against him. Everyone seems to need a clean slate. More importantly, you don't treat an addict with kid gloves, giving him whatever he wants. That is diametrically the opposite of how you deal with someone who is addicted and deep in the manipulation of addiction. Giving Johnny a cakewalk to starting rather than competition on the field would make a drug and alcohol counselor call his or her sponsor in the middle of the night.
3. You want me to address the Hoyer situation. You are waiting for me to address the Hoyer situation... why not, let's address it. McCown had some challenges last year, but he also had two highly regarded receivers. In his 11 games, he surpassed an 80 QBR twice, and one time it was by a hair at 81.3. I won't pretend that this rating tells the whole and perfect story of a QB's performance, but he basically sucked except for two games. Hoyer was above 80 in QBR for 11 games, with 5 below. He was above 80 in QBR for 8 of the first 9 games, with that Jacksonville stinker the only blemish. If that four game poopy streak that Hoyer put up ended your faith in him, McCown almost tripled it last season. So to all the posters saying McCown was a better option than Hoyer, why is there a severe lack of evidence? I think the texts are being brought to the public and Farmer/Haslam know they are about to look like imbeciles. Hoyer will have no interest in working for them after this goes public - and let's face it, Hoyer probably already knows what he texted - and they wanted a veteran under contract before their gross malfeasance against coaches and player goes public.
2. So McCown is a player who statistically shouldn't play. In fact, he has verbalized to the press he is fine with not playing. That is the most Jason Campbell thing I've heard since Jason Campbell. He is talking like a guy who can't wait to be a QB coach, even though the Browns have two QB coaches on staff already. Why should I have any excitement?
1. Draft a quarterback I can have faith in by 2016 an I can put away my frustration. However, there is no quarterback... NONE that I see being successful as a rookie. This is in part because college football doesn't see itself as a minor league and training ground for the NFL. They want to win on their own level of competition, and t hey should. More people in the country care about college football because it is the game of the small town. There are far more division 1 football teams who have a shot in this nation than NFL teams, and honestly we are getting to the point where the NFL is like 30 Saturday Night Live shows with 30 uber-rich Lorn Michaels barking out of touch orders from behind a monster goblet of white wine. Why should top college football coaches - who have far more job security than an NFL coach - kowtow to a pro style offense? There is no incentive since they see moving out of bigtime college football contracts and into NFL contracts as a punishment for NCAA violations... **cough couch ** Chip Kelly and Pete Carroll.
