Browns exec explains why Carson Wentz isn't worth a No. 2 pick
Browns exec looks back at why the team felt Carson Wentz was not worth the second pick in the draft.
On the heels trading away slated starting quarterback Sam Bradford over the weekend, the Philadelphia Eagles will be breaking in a new starter headed into their season opening contest against the Cleveland Browns this Sunday, rookie Carson Wentz. Wentz was the second pick in May’s NFL Draft, spot that the Eagles traded into with none other than the same Cleveland Browns team they will face off against this week.
Now ironically, he will be popping his pro football cherry against a team that ultimately passed on him in the draft by trading the pick to the Eagles, shortly after signing Robert Griffin III.
So why did the Browns, a team that has QB turnover like none other, decide to pass on the opportunity to select the player who the Eagles jumped up the draft to fill their ever-popular ‘quarterback of the future’ role for a reclamation effort with RGIII? According to Browns’ chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta, it was because they simply did not think he was that good.
Speaking to Tony Grossi of ESPN, DePodesta made it clear that the club did not believe that Wentz had what took to become a top-tier signal caller, so they did what they could get the most of the pick from a team that would take the gamble on the former North Dakota State star.
While he did not go as far to bury Wentz as a player, he made it clear that he felt that the second slot in the Draft was too high for him to go. DePodesta explained:
“I think the hardest part, and where we have to stay the most disciplined, as much as you want a player, you can’t invent him if he doesn’t exist. In a given year, there may be two or three NFL-ready quarterbacks at the college level. In another year there may literally be zero. There just may not be anybody in that year who’s good enough to be a top 20 quarterback in the NFL.”
Although he framed it in the context of looking at the field as a whole, he basically came out and said that the club does not believe that Wentz is who the Eagles obviously believe him to be, as they were willing not only to trade five picks over this year’s, as well as the next two drafts, but also add him to roster where they brought back Bradford and also signed long-time backup Chase Daniel to contracts as well.
Continuing on, DePodestra spoke to the overall industry trend of risking it all to find the guy at QB, and why that was a risk that they were not willing to take this year:
“Even though you have a desperate need for one, you have to resist the temptation of taking that guy just become you have a need. If you don’t believe he’s one of those 20 guys at the end of the day. I think that’s the hardest part, just maintaining your discipline because you have the need. That’s what we did this year.”
Ultimately, that is the right practice and perhaps that is what the Browns were best served in doing. More than any team, they need as many picks as possible to remedy their perpetually poor showing and with a new management team both in the front office and on the sidelines, a larger fresh start than pinning it all on one, unproven player is the smarter road.
And without a doubt, Wentz himself landed in a better situation in Philadelphia, and has now emerged as the starter just weeks after being nearly redshirted for the season. But regardless of the facts and logic, it has to be a motivating factor for Wentz to see a team with the worst quarterback track record in football –and one that decided he wasn’t up to par— staring across the sidelines at him to start his career off.
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