Left tackle Joe Thomas has spent his whole career with the Browns and he’s spent time blocking for more than his fair share of quarterbacks over the years.
That might make you think that Thomas would be banging the drum for the Browns to take a quarterback with the first overall pick this year. That’s not the case however.
“I would say you want to go defense,” Thomas said on The Dan Patrick Show. “I think you need to get a pass rusher. ... You gotta be careful reaching for a quarterback at No. 1 because if they fail, they don’t help your team at all. Whereas if you pick a defensive lineman and maybe they don’t live up to the hype, you can still find a place to get him on the field and to have an impact. We’re a team that needs guys that can come in and start and that can contribute. I think that’s the risk of taking a quarterback.”
The question for the Browns is whether they would be reaching for a quarterback with the No. 1 pick or if the player they’d be taking is the right choice in that spot. As the Browns know, you could wind up with Tim Couch a year after Peyton Manning went in the same slot and it’s hard to know for sure which side of that fence you’re going to fall on when you’re handing the envelope to the Commissioner.
That makes the next few months of evaluation all the more important for the Browns, who also have the 12th overall pick to use to bolster their roster. If there isn’t a quarterback that fits their bill and they don’t trade down for the second year in a row, Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett could wind up as their choice.