http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/writer...-browns-owners-make-play-to-execs-for-manziel
2014 NFL Draft: Jaguars, Browns, Raiders owners to make play for QB?
May 6, 2014 12:59 pm
Never underestimate the role an owner might play in the selection of a quarterback. Especially if a team is picking in the top five. And even more so if that team has been struggling for relevancy for quite some time. Add the need for a real stadium, and the desire for more marketing and sales opportunity in what has become a soft financial market relative to the rest of the league, and you have an scenario ripe for owner intervention.
On top of that, let's say you happen to draft in a year when there is a larger-than-life, dervish of a quarterback dubbed Johnny Football who can be dazzling and confounding, and whose very presence creates immediate headlines and attention and can alter the scope of how the franchise is perceived by broadcast partners and corporations and the like. Obviously, we have exactly this situation this draft, with the long-suffering
Jaguars,
Browns and
Raiders in need of life and with Johnny Manziel uniquely equipped to provide a sort of star power that can transform, if not confound.
Every draft pick is a gamble, and while some evaluators I trust have scoffed at the notion of Manziel as a top NFL quarterback, others maintain there is way too much talent there for him to fall from the top 10 picks, much less the entire first round. Polarizing, to say the least, and no matter where he lands there will be some in the league who will point to ownership as being a driving force as to why. At least in Jacksonville or Cleveland.
In Oakland, I hear owner Mark Davis is smitten with quarterback Derek Carr, and that pressure could be mounting on the front office to take him in the first round. Now, No. 5 overall is awful high, but if you hear about the Raiders trying like heck to move back -- as they did a year ago before selecting DJ Hayden, who some viewed as a reach that high -- I'd start penciling in Carr as the possible pick. Keep an eye on that.
Manziel would make all the business sense in the world in Jacksonville or Cleveland, and I wouldn't begrudge those owners one bit for pushing hard to make that happen. I don't believe Shahid Khan would go to great lengths to do so with the Jaguars, and we'll see if Jimmy Haslam, whose brief tenure in Cleveland has been filled with surprising firings, strange coach searches and bizarre behavior, inserts himself heavily in the Browns top pick.
Cleveland also holds pick No. 26, and I have continued to hear the thought process within the football operations department is receiver Sammy Watkins or possibly tackle Greg Robinson with the first pick, and then a quarterback at 26 (Carr, who I don't believe will be there, or Teddy Bridgewater, who the Browns also have been high on). Manziel would be a distinctly good fit in new offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan's style of offense, but trust me, coordinators don't make this pick and especially not guys who were just let go after having their relationship with a young second-overall pick (
Robert Griffin III in Washington) completely implode. It won't be his pick; it very well might be the owner's pick.
If Johnny Football brings his game to the banks of the river there, the pick will have the owner's name all over it, for better or worse. It could be the Browns, with a new coach and coaching staff and reconfigured front office, are about to turn the corner with Manziel under center. It just might be a wonderstroke and consider me among those who have championed the idea that Manziel's game will play at the next level (though it might be a five-to-seven year flash, given his style of play, rather than a steady 15-year career). Regardless of where he lands, intrigue about where Manziel and other top quarterbacks land continues to dominate talk as teams try to anticipate who will be remaining when they pick. And there are no shortage of general managers cheering loudly for as many passers to go as high as possible.
QBs could go anywhere
I continue to hear teams not being linked with quarterbacks will take them, perhaps much higher than anyone anticipates. And I understand that this group, as they continue to get dissected, does not scream out with obvious first-round talent to some evaluators.
But let's consider the economics of the new CBA, as many front offices are. If you are picking outside of the top 10, the cost of the fifth-year option on these draft picks is going to be very cheap. Just look at this first class of optioned players, with the
Texans making out like gangbusters with
J.J. Watt taken with the 11th pick, and not at No. 10 (the equation for compiling option figures for picks outside the top 10 is much cheaper than those in the top 10; Watt's option was only $7M, while top-10 pick
Von Miller's was nearly $10M, for instance).
So you can get a bargain basement rate on a position that is among the most expensive in the NFL (quarterback, defensive end and left tackle are usually right up there), and if you are picking in the late 20s, you can control the player for six years, without ever having to commit to a huge new contract with massive guaranteed money (fifth-year option, and then franchise tag in year six). Conversely, if you take that player in the second round, the contract length is only four years and the player has no option hanging over his head and the reality is, if he is a star, he's got a much better chance of getting paid after his third year in the league. So there is an incentive to take a QB because it is such a costly position
Add in the fact guys like
Carson Palmer and
Tom Brady and
Drew Brees and
Peyton Manningaren't getting any younger, and I continue to believe a team might just grab one of these guys late in the first round. Seeing Bortles land somewhere no one expected, for instance -- if he's the guy who falls -- wouldn't surprise me at all. If the Texans don't trade down a few spots to take him at the top of the first round, might New England grab him at the end of the first? (Texans coach Bill O'Brien has strong
Patriots ties and I could see them liking the same kinds of passers, for instance).
Interesting food for thought, if nothing else, and I'd be quite surprised if the
Cardinals didn't take Carr or Bortles at No. 20, and in some scenarios both might even still be on the board.
