The Browns’ history with quarterbacks since 1999 is well documented. They’ve either picked the wrong one, signed the wrong one or passed on the right one.
Browns new General Manager John Dorsey vows to change that.
He has given the team’s scouts an assignment to rank the top-12 quarterbacks in the 2018 class.
“There are some positive and legitimate prospects here that would make any Browns fan happy if we went in that direction,’' Dorsey said Tuesday on the club’s in-house radio show Cleveland Browns Daily on WKNR 850 via Mary Kay Cabot of cleveland.com.
Dorsey told Peter King of SI’s Monday Morning Quarterback that he has watched Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield six times this season and admits he likes the Heisman Trophy winner.
The winless Browns likely will have the top spot in the 2018 draft, and they own Houston’s first pick, which currently is No. 6 overall. Cleveland gave up a chance to draft Deshaun Watson last spring for the Texans’ first-round choice in 2018.
The Browns drafted DeShone Kizer in the second round. Dorsey said the Chiefs had Kizer rated fourth among quarterback prospects. Kansas City traded up to take Patrick Mahomes in the first round.
“He played big-time football,’' Dorsey said of Kizer. “He had the physical skill set you could see could transfer into the National Football League. Now the one thing people don’t realize how young he is (21). He was very young coming into the draft process. [But] he had a degree of maturity about his person that a normal 20, 21-year old person did not have.
“I thought he handled himself very well when we brought him in. When I was in Kansas City, we brought in seven quarterbacks, and he did a wonderful job answering the questions. When they actually sat him down and began to do the terminology, the technical aspects of football, the coaching staff walked away pretty impressed with him.’'