As the Browns move closer and closer to making a baseball player of the past their quarterback of the present (and, presumably, future), more information is trickling out regarding why the Browns opted to acquire Brandon Weeden with the 22nd overall pick in the draft.
Tony Grossi of ESPNCleveland.com looks at why the Browns wanted Weeden and, perhaps more intriguingly, explores why they didn’t want some of the other quarterbacks who were available.
Grossi reports that the Browns had concerns about Ryan Tannehill, unrelated to size and arm strength. "[H]is maturity as a quarterback and field leader were so lacking that he turned them off in personal interviews,” Grossi writes. “He didn’t project as a leader.”
As to Robert Griffin III, Grossi writes that the Browns believed he was “too small . . . [a]nd too eager to show how fast he could run.” He says the Browns “never seemed all-in” on Griffin, and that they “pursued him just enough to say they tried.”
But what about team president Mike Holmgren’s public griping that the Rams didn’t play fair during trade talks, and that the Browns would have matched what the Redskins offered for the second overall selection in the 2012 draft? Grossi’s take meshes with a rumor that owner Randy Lerner wanted Griffin, that Holmgren deliberately didn’t try hard enough to get Griffin, and that Holmgren then blamed it all on the Rams.
As to one of the primary free-agency options -- former Packers quarterback Matt Flynn -- Grossi says that Flynn wasn’t seriously considered because he’s “no bigger than McCoy with a similarly popgun arm.”
And so Weeden was the guy they got, and it looks like he’ll be the guy they go with in 2012.