Too many picks, too few pros – Canton Repository

Much of the trouble with the expansion era began in the beginning.

Dwight Clark, Chris Palmer and Carmen Policy, working collaboratively, established the pattern of making more draft picks than every other team, and delivering the worst results.

The Browns returned to existence in 1999 with, as a point of mercy, two picks in each round after Round 1.

The bonus pick in Round 2 became linebacker Rahim Abdullah, who turned 40 last week, looking back on an NFL career that was over after two seasons.

The extra pick in Round 3 became Akili Smith’s cousin, Marquis Smith, whose career lasted barely longer than Abdullah’s.

The trend continued when the 2000 team had 13 picks. There were two in Round 3, “Touchdown” Travis Prentice (13 career rushing yards after his rookie season) and receiver JaJuan Dawson (52 catches in a three-year pro career).

Granted, having all of those picks would have been a good thing if the 200 Browns had spent one of the late picks on Tom Brady, who was still on the board when the Browns instead plucked Spergon Wynn.

The Browns had more than the standard seven picks in 2001, 2005, 2006, 2009, and 2010. They had 11 picks in Tom Heckert’s last year, 2012, and 12 in Ray Farmer’s last year, 2015.

Now they are sitting on 10. Enough is enough.

People who have never met the new collaberators, Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta, are making strange assumptions.

One of the national draft sites writes that the new regime “will want to get as many picks as possible out of this draft.”

The predictions have the Browns trading down for picks or trading veterans for picks, if they can.

No one should assume the analytics guys are going that way, with so much evidence that expansion-era drafts have been too full of quantity and too devoid of quality.

The new chiefs might stay put and take the best players available. They might even trade up, starting with their pick at No. 32, to acquire targeted players.

When you think about it, acquiring extra picks got DePodesta and Brown their new jobs. That is, the practice pretty much got Ray Farmer fired.

Farmer doomed himself with some ill-fated tinkering at the top of his first draft, in 2014. He started out with the No. 4 overall pick and was on the clock with Khalil Mack, Sammy Watkins and Odell Beckham still on the board.

Looking to the future with a first-year head coach, Mike Pettine, in place, Farmer swapped the pick to Buffalo.

The return:

– The No. 9 overall pick in 2014, soon traded to Minnesota for the No. 8 pick, spent on Justin Gilbert.

Page 2 of 3 – – Buffalo’s Round 1 pick in 2015, which became offensive lineman Cam Erving at No. 19.

– Buffalo’s Round 5 pick in 2015, which became safety Ibraheim Campbell at No. 115.

As things have played out, no general manager in his right mind would trade Gilbert, Erving and Campbell separately or together for Mack, Beckham or even Watkins, who has yet to make a big splash in Buffalo.

Trading down in 2011 cost the Browns a superstar receiver, Julio Jones.

Manipulating their way into 11 picks in 2012 produced James-Michael Johnson, Ryan Miller, Emmanuel Acho, Billy Winn, Trevin Wade and Brad Smelley as the last six picks. They’re all long gone. That’s not even acknowledging the first two picks, Trent Richardson and Brandon Weeden, who went bust.

It doesn’t take a Harvard education to understand that every year is different, that trading down with a high pick in 2016 might be far different than having done so in 2014.

In any year, though, it should be remembered. More doesn’t mean better. The Browns’ roundup of draft picks has been no Golden Corral.

LERNER’S LAST STAND

The inability to trade for Robert Griffin III in 2012 was one of the factors that led to Randy Lerner selling the Browns.

The Browns were coming off a 4-12 2011 when Mike Holmgren made a hard push to get Griffin for his hand-pick head coach Pat Shurmur.

The Browns and Redskins engaged in a bidding war to move up to the No. 2 overall pick so they could get Griffin (the Colts were sitting on the No. 1 pick, fixed on Andrew Luck). The Redskins beat the Browns to Griffin by sending St. Louis:

• The No. 6 overall pick in 2012

• The No. 39 overall pick in 2012

• A Round 1 pick in 2013, which became a No. 22.

Holmgren sounded genuinely upset the day he met reporters to say the Browns would not get Griffin.

“I’m not going to tell you exactly what we offered,” he said, “but I will say what we had offered for the pick was every bit the

offer that was chosen. There are reasons I can’t go into why it didn’t happen.”

Within three months, Lerner struck a deal with Jimmy Haslam. Lerner’s appetite for selling might have been less keen had Holmgren delivered Griffin.

GRIFFIN’S BIGGEST FAN

On of the first people who reached out to Robert Griffin the III after he signed with the Browns was London Fletcher, the former Cleveland St. Joseph star.

Fletcher, 40, was Griffin’s Washington teammate in 2012 and ‘13 before he retired.

A comment Fletcher made late in Griffin’s rookie season speaks to the potential the Heisman Trophy winner was thought to have:

Page 3 of 3 – “He’s what this franchise and this community have been looking for, for more than 20 years, a superstar quarterback. But he’s more than that. He has the persona, the charisma, the talent.”