They can’t. They can’t actually do this. At some point, even the Cleveland Browns have to learn from their past mistakes at the most important position and push themselves back from the table.
Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby is headed to the NFL via the supplemental draft after his college career crumbled following his admission to gambling on his team while at Indiana. No NFL general manager loves shopping in the scratch and dent aisle more than Andrew Berry, and no team could use a talented quarterback prospect more than the Browns. But they can’t do it. Not this time.
I have sympathy for Sorsby and believe he is the latest name in a growing public health crisis across the United States involving gambling addiction and young men in their early 20s. In this instance, however, he can be someone else’s bet.
If common sense isn’t enough of a deterrent, if logical reasoning that drafting a quarterback who is a diagnosed gambling addict and dropping him into one of the most dysfunctional franchises of the last 30 years probably isn’t an ideal business plan, all the evidence they need is 1.3 miles south of Huntington Bank Field down East Ninth St.
On the corner of Carnegie and Ontario, the mere mention of Emmanuel Clase still turns faces green inside the Cleveland Guardians’ executive offices. The most stable, high-functioning team in town over the last 30 years was rocked last summer by gambling allegations that sunk the careers of Clase and Luis Ortiz. Both men have been charged with allegedly rigging pitches and face up to 65 years in federal prison. They will stand trial separately later this year.
The scandal shook the Guardians, infuriated team executives and created far more questions among players in the clubhouse than there were answers.
The Browns, even with the worst quarterback room in the NFL, create enough problems without inviting anything like this into the building.
They are finally, mercifully, entering the last season of Deshaun Watson’s $230 million contract. Shedeur Sanders will likely get an opportunity to start at some point this season if he isn’t the Week 1 starter, and Dillon Gabriel is still lingering, at least for now. Somehow, rookie Taylen Green is the only quarterback on this roster that doesn’t elicit some polarizing response from a divided fan base that has been broken over the team’s quarterback play for years.
From Johnny Manziel to Baker Mayfield, from Watson to Sanders, the Browns haven’t been able to solve their QB woes. Sorsby in Cleveland would be just another toxic dart throw, and the Browns have missed so badly over the years that they have more holes on their walls than in the cork. It’s hard to imagine a Sorsby experiment ending any differently.
Browns coach Todd Monken seems to understand this. It’s tough to know with NFL teams what is real and what is bluster, but Monken was so strong in his rejection of Sorsby earlier this month as a possibility in Cleveland that it would be awkward to unite them now.
“I don’t think we’re in a position to go down that road,” Monken said. “That’s my opinion, that’s not (Berry’s). I like the quarterbacks that we have. I think that’s a slippery slope when you go down that, irrespective of talent, right? In terms of the situation he’s (put) himself in, we all know what it is. He put himself in that situation. And we’ve seen in other sports with players that have been banned for life from playing in professional sports.
“But from my end of it, (it’s) kind of a tough angle to go down that road and think that’s going to be your franchise quarterback if he’s ever eligible to even play in the NFL.”
Monken is right and speaking logically. He also subtly introduced another valid concern for any team interested in Sorsby: He could still face a suspension under the NFL’s broad personal conduct policy, which Browns fans know from the Watson trade. The Browns thought they had a good understanding of what Watson’s suspension length was going to be when they acquired him. But as backlash mounted against Watson amid allegations of sexual misconduct from more than 20 women, the league appealed the initial 6-game ruling and increased the punishment.
Those allegations, of course, are far different than what Sorsby admitted to doing. Nevertheless, the 11-game suspension Watson ultimately served is proof that it’s difficult to know what the league will do until it does it.
The Browns have made a complete mess at quarterback, but betting on a known gambler isn’t the way out. It’s hard to even type that line without chuckling. I don’t believe Watson or Sanders should be on the roster, either, based on performance. The Browns should have moved on from both.
But if forced to choose between the two, it isn’t close. I’d take Sanders every time. There’s clearly no future with Watson.
There isn’t with Sorsby, either. Like most Browns quarterbacks over the last 30 years, he’s a bad bet.
