The Cleveland Browns haven't had a ton of success with first-round quarterbacks recently.
Brady Quinn was pretty bad and Brandon Weeden was both older and worse, but Johnny Manziel really takes the cake.
During an atrocious rookie season he managed to combine ineptitude on the field with an absolutely abysmal attitude and complete dumpster fire of a life off of it and is now in rehab doing his best to remember what it's like to be a real person - one who isn't showered with adoration and affection on a daily basis for playing a game (a game that I love, so yeah, show some respect Young Mr. Football).
Still, the recent draft failures should in no way preclude Browns GM Ray Farmer and head coach Mike Pettine - unfortunately for Cleveland fans, I should probably throw owner Jimmy Haslam's name in there too - from making another attempt at mining a franchise signal-caller from the NFL's annual collegiate meat market come April - a signal-caller like Oregon's Marcus Mariota.
"They are picking No. 12 and clearly needy for a quarterback and a stable citizen at the helm," writes CBS Sports' Jason La Canfora. "Josh McCown is a great caretaker but he's not the future. And Johnny Manziel had about as much of a lost rookie season as one could imagine. His future is already in doubt. The Browns have been peddling their 19th overall pick for Bradford - in both St. Louis and now Philadelphia - and owner Jimmy Haslam has been very intrigued by Mariota for quite some time. And make no mistake, his fingerprints were all over the Manziel selection. You can't rule the Browns out by any stretch here, with the draft picks and willingness to do it. Haslam likes splash moves."
While there's been no confirmation, but several reports, that the Browns, in fact, offered the 19th pick for Bradford, where there's considerable smoke there tends to be a fairly ample fire.
With McCown the only quarterback on the roster the team can count on - though to what extent it remains to be seen considering how poorly he played for the Bucs after lighting it up in a short starting stint with the Bears - and Bradford now in Philadelphia, a trade up for Mariota may be the Browns' best hope at securing a potential franchise player at the game's most important position.
