I never said I supported Beck at all. I also watched several Raiders games last year and seen McCown start many games over his career. Basically it comes down to McCown getting released and them eating his bonus in dead cap or trading Beck who has more value to teams because he has a lower salary, is yonger, has more potential. Beck will be gone unless someone trades for McCown which won't happen.
I don't get the argument. You said they shouldn't have drafted Brady Quinn. Then you say they drafted Brady Quinn because they wanted to win now? Since when do teams draft rookie QBs to win now? They drafted Brady Quinn to be their QB of the future if Derek Anderson or Charlie Frye didn't work out, which at that point the Browns and most of their fans thought there was a pretty good chance they wouldn't. And not for nothing, but some fans I've talked to still aren't convinced that Derek Anderson is the answer at QB. There is a lot of concern about the way he tailed off at the end of the season. Some think that we will see Brady Quinn starting for the Browns much sooner than everyone expects.
The Browns didn't want to take the time to develop their youngsters and so they went and drafted a player that they thought was closer to being "the guy". Remember that the Quinn hype machine was in full gear and there were plenty of people who thought that he was going to step right in and be an NFL starter. Quinn was really their only option to improve immediately at the QB spot and they chose that route. That was their sentiment and not mine. And yeah, there are alot of Browns fans who aren't completely comfortable with Anderson, but that has more to do with things like mechanics that can be fixed with coaching and most of them acknowledge that. But they all now that they have a better chance of winning with Anderson based on his play last year. Personally I'm not a fan of either player and I'm glad the Phins didn't make a play for either of them.
We could go back and forth on this all night. You think it's a waste to spend any draft picks or money on a QB until you've proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that a guy doesn't have what it takes to be an NFL QB, throwing away as many seasons as it takes. I completely disagree. I sure am glad our front office disagrees with you too and drafted Chad Henne and signed Chad Pennington otherwise our QB situation would most likely be in dire straits.
That's not my position at all Spending draft picks and tossing them off to the side before you know what you have is wrong, but that doesn't mean that you can't be proactive or that the QB position should stay in a stagnant state.
Several things seem likely: 1) That the regime knows it wants the two Chads here 2) That either Beck or McCown will be cut. Based on these two assumptions, I think that everything hinges on Henne now. If Henne plays well in pre-season he becomes the back-up to Penny. Then we can keep John Beck and let him work through his development with us. If Henne struggles at all this pre-season, we keep McCown, to make sure we have a viable back-up to Penny. That means Beck gets cut (or traded). Henne is the crux of this now, I believe. That's why he is getting such an extended audition, imo. His performance will go along way towards determining whether Beck or McCown gets cut.
Well then I'm just confused. You stated more than once that you think the Browns wasted picks on Brady Quinn and you've held positions at some point or another against any quarterback not named Beck over the past few months. I apologize if I'm being inaccurate, I did not go back and search, but I'm pretty sure you were not huge on the Henne pick, and I'm not sure your stance on Pennington, but I thought you weren't thrilled with that either. Again, I apologize if I'm misremembering as Roger Clemens would say but if that is your stance then what is an acceptable form of being proactive in the search for a quarterback while unproven prospects remain on the roster? Not trying to be a jerk here, I always appreciate QB debates with you l2g.
I was never a fan of Brady Quinn and I think the fact that the Browns packaged picks in order to move up for him was a mistake on their part. Without going back and looking at the draft positions from last year and assuming that the Browns had an early 2nd rounder, I think Quinn may have fallen to them. IMO there were better options available and moving up for him robbed them of extra pieces to build their team. First of all, no need to apologize. I'll correct you if you're wrong. Listening to the FO talk about rebuilding and knowing that we just spent a 2nd rounder on a player that alot of NFL talent evaluators were pretty high on, I thought Beck would be getting his chance at the starting QB spot. I was originally for signing Pennington when there were reports that he wanted out, but I changed my mind once he said he didn't want to go anywhere where he couldn't start. So signing McCown made sense and I figured he would be a decent vet to have incase Beck faultered or was injured. Again keep in mind that I was still under the impression that this was a rebuilding team. Then the draft came around and they drafted Henne, at first I was totally against it because there were other players at other positions that I wanted more and who would have had a more immediate impact, but I eventually came around once the FO explained that they saw him as great value at that spot (considering where he was slotted to go, he was BPA). I figured that Beck would get his shot, McCown would back him up and Henne would get a full year of learning and prep and be ready next year if Beck couldn't cut it. Then they went out and signed Penny as well and there are talks of Glenn and Bentley and I really do question whether or not the FO really views the team as a rebuilding team or if they are trying to win as much as they can now at the expense of our young players.....which I'm totally against. I don't want this team to end up like the Jets when Parcells left (Cap hell, overpayed marginal players and a tough road to recovery). We finally have a chance to fix this team the right way and I hope that's still the plan and that the FO doesn't have a false sense of how good this team actualy is. I understand brother, same here.
My feeling is that the FO is indifferent between keeping either McCown or Beck. I don't think they favor either QB. I believe they will try and trade either and keep them away from being injured or in Josh's case, from his brother and his chainsaw. The only way I see Beck staying is if they were able to trade McCown. Releasing McCown after paying him a $2.5M signing bonus doesn't make sense salary cap wise.
