A handshake apparently is worth more than $100,000.
Five years ago, the Browns plunked down six figures on an advanced report regarding quarterbacks in the draft. The report pointed to Teddy Bridgewater as the best option.
But that didn’t matter to Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, who wanted Johnny Manziel. And Haslam’s justification was from a decidedly low-tech piece of scouting.
“[T]he team had soured on Bridgewater after his interview dinner and workout with team brass,” Seth Wickersham of ESPN.com writes in a comprehensive look at years of dysfunction under Haslam’s watch in Cleveland. “[S]omething about Bridgewater’s handshake rubbed Haslam the wrong way, he told team executives.”
While a devastating knee injury on the brink of Bridgewater’s potential breakthrough season has kept him from reaching his potential, Bridgewater remains employed by an NFL team at a time when Manziel isn’t. And Bridgewater may finally get another chance to start for an NFL team in 2019.
As long as his handshake doesn’t betray him, apparently.
