Dec 21, 2014; Tampa, FL, USA; Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Josh McCown (12) drops back to pass against the Green Bay Packers as the Green Bay Packers beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20-3 at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: David Manning-USA TODAY Sports
When the Cleveland Browns signed quarterback Josh McCown in February he joined a long, but less than distinguished, fraternity in franchise history.
McCown is the latest “bridge quarterback” who will try and help the Browns will while holding the quarterback position warm until the next great quarterback arrives at First Energy Stadium.
General manager Ray Farmer said as much, without actually using the phrase bridge quarterback, in announcing the signing.
“Josh is your consummate professional,” Farmer said back on that late-February day. “He’s known to be a great guy in the locker room and will be great for the quarterback room. He knows how to get an entire offense on the same page and get a team to rally behind him. He has been exposed to a lot of different types of offenses and we think still has the drive and skill set to be a successful quarterback in this league.
“We are excited to get him and believe he will help continue to move us in the right direction and help us build the type of team that will bring winning football to Cleveland.”
Head coach Mike Pettine threw his support behind the “McCown in 2015” campaign recently when he confirmed that McCown is the team’s No. 1 quarterback as of right now.
“I just want to serve our team and help everybody in that locker room, do my best to help everybody in the locker room be better at their job and they’re going to help me, too. I’m just excited about coming in and being a part of a team.” – Josh McCown
“Josh has proven in the right circumstances that he can be successful,’’ Pettine said during an appearance on 92.3 The Fan. “I think it was pretty clear to us when we looked into the results of what happened for him a year ago that a lot of those circumstances were outside of his control that made the year as difficult as it was.
“We just look back to when he was in Chicago, when he had a pretty good supporting cast around him, and he was able to be more than functional. He had a very successful year. When you build the team right, it minimizes the importance of the quarterback.”
The Browns have tried to cross this bridge several times in franchise history – especially since returning to the NFL in 1999 – with less than stellar results.
The gold standard for the bridge quarterback, if you will allow us a loose application of that phrase, is Gary Danielson in 1985.
Danielson was brought in that season to play quarterback until rookie Bernie Kosar was ready to take over. Danielson started six games that season, and played in two more, while posting a 4-2 record while being juggled in and out of the lineup with Kosar.
The Browns would make the playoffs that season with an 8-8 record while employing a two-quarterback system that, if Pettine tried it now, would cause Twitter to explode. But the bridge was at least complete, as Kosar took over in 1986 and led the Browns on the last sustained run of success the franchise has seen.
Having 2015 play out in a similar fashion would excite the Browns and their fans alike. But the memory of Danielson and 1985 becomes more faded with each passing day. While it is fun to dream that McCown will be the bridge to a better day, the veteran quarterbacks the Browns have brought in over the past 15 years paints a different reality.
Next: The One-Half Wonder
The Browns swung a deal with San Francisco for veteran quarterback Ty Detmer in February of 1999 and the promptly signed the 31-year-old quarterback to a seven-year contract.
The plan was for Detmer to hold down the quarterback spot for the expansion Browns until Tim Couch, who the club would make the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft later that spring, was up to speed. (And so that Detmer, rather than Couch could take the punishment of playing behind an expansion team’s offensive line.)
That plan, naturally, went into the trash bin at halftime of the season’s first game with the Browns trailing Pittsburgh 20-0 in a game that would have a final score of 43-0.
Detmer was six-0f-13 for 52 yards and an interception in that one half against the Steelers before being replaced by Couch as the starting quarterback, a move that head coach Chris Palmer reportedly made on his own.
“What difference does it make if (Couch) starts after the eighth game or the tenth game?” former team executive Carmen Policy said in the 2004 book, False Start. “He didn’t need to take that kind of beating. Our plan was to start Detmer and carry it through at least 10 games. Chris just changed it.”
In many ways, the disconnect between Palmer and front office on the first weekend of that first season back set the Browns down a path they are still trying to get off of.
Detmer would only play one more game for the Browns, the season-finale in 1999. He tore his Achilles’ tendon the following year in the preseason and missed the entire 2000 campaign. Detmer was traded to the Detroit Lions on Sept. 2, 2001 for one of the Lions’ picks in the 2002 NFL Draft. The deal came a week before the start of the 2001 season.
The Browns traded Detmer to Detroit for a draft pick a week before the 2001 season started.
“It was a special time,” Detmer told The Plain Dealer in a 2014 article. “It was an exciting time for the fans and the city. It was a neat thing to be a part of that first couple years and just seeing the excitement around town of having football back again in Cleveland.”
Next: Wrong Player, Wrong Coach
After bouncing back and forth between Couch and Kelly Holcomb, the Browns went back to the veteran quarterback pool by signing 34-year-old Jeff Garcia to a four-year contract in March of 2004.
Garcia was coming off a successful five-year run with San Francisco, making three Pro Bowls, but had been released by the 49ers over salary issues.
While Garcia was a talented quarterback, he was also one that excelled in a very specific system in San Francisco that maximized his skills. But for reasons known only to then-Browns head coach Butch Davis, Garcia saw little to no time in the preseason as Davis decided that having the new quarterback become acclimated to his offensive teammates was not a priority.
That was all briefly forgotten on opening weekend, however, when Garcia led the Browns to a win home win over Baltimore – still the last opening-day win for the franchise.
Things quickly went downhill from there for Garcia, as the very next week he posted a quarterback rating of 0.0 in a road loss to Dallas. (Browns fans will remember that game as the one where rookie Kellen Winslow suffered a season-ending leg injury.)
Garcia would start 10 games for the Browns, posting a 3-7 record, before separating his shoulder in a November loss to the New York Jets. He would only appear in one more game for the Browns, throwing a single pass (which he completed for five yards) in a December road loss to Buffalo.
The Browns would move on from Garcia as they released him in February of 2005, less than a year after they signed him.
Despite things not working out his first time in Cleveland, Garcia reportedly reached out to the team in 2013 about a tryout. Luckily, the Browns were not interested in going down that road again.
Next: No Mentor, This One
You would think after mismanaging the Jeff Garcia situation in 2004 the Browns would have tried something new in 2005.
The problem, however, was that the team still needed a quarterback while waiting for third-round draft pick Charlie Frye, so they made a trade with Seattle for Trent Dilfer.
Dilfer was a former No. 1 overall pick by Tampa Bay, and won a Super Bowl with Baltimore in 2000 by basically staying out of the way of the Ravens’ defense. After spending four seasons in Seattle, the Browns were hoping that Dilfer could resurrect his AFC North success, while also mentoring Frye and Luke McCown.
“He’s a winner and he’s a tremendous man,” then-Browns general manager Phil Savage said at the time in comments eerily similar to Farmer’s. “You look at the mountaintop highs and valley lows he has struggled with. But through his career he’s figured out what it takes to win in the NFL.”
Much like Garcia, Dilfer’s time in Cleveland peaked early as he led the Browns to a Week 2 win on the road against Green Bay.
Dilfer would go just 4-7 as the Browns starting quarterback as the Browns made the slow transition to Frye as the starter. Dilfer also suffered a partial tear of the patella tendon in his right knee that required off-season surgery.
Dilfer chafed during the season at having to help Frye (so much for being a good mentor) and at the play calling of offensive coordinator Mo Carthon (we have to give Dilfer credit there).
“Honestly, the only thing that was a bummer was I had the worst offensive coordinator I’ve ever had in my career,” Dilfer told The Plain Dealer in a 2014 article. “If you ask anybody on that team that year, they’d say the same thing. It was a terrible hire by (then-Browns head coach Romeo Crennel). It put all of us in a terrible situation. That’s the only reason. I made it very clear that I was not going to play one more snap as long as (Carthon) was there.”
The Browns gave Dilfer his wish in the off-season, trading him to San Francisco and closing the book on yet another failed bridge quarterback.
Next: Jake's Final Ride
The 2010 Cleveland Browns once again found themselves searching for a quarterback.
The Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn daily double had washed out over the previous two seasons, and for some reason the club thought that Jake Delhomme was the answer.
(Jake Delhomme) reminds me a little bit of Brett Favre.” – Eric Mangini
The 35-year-old Delhomme had been released by Carolina after throwing 18 interceptions in 2009. The Panthers were so over Delhomme that they let him go despite still owing him $12 million. And, just to add to the confusion, the first year of Delhomme’s new contract with the Browns included $7 million signing bonus in addition to his $900,000 salary, meaning he was guaranteed more than $19 million.
Did we mention Delhomme was coming off the worst season of his career when the Browns signed him?
“I don’t like making comparisons, but I will,” then Browns coach Eric Mangini said of Delhomme. “He reminds me a little bit of (Brett) Favre that way. He enjoys practice. He enjoys being around the guys. He’s able to be serious and still keep things light. He has a good rapport with the offensive guys, defensive guys and you just see it in their interaction in the weight room and all the different areas. It’s positive, really positive.”
Yeah, Mangini was about as good at making comparisons as he was at coaching football games.
Delhomme would start four games for the Browns (and appear in one more) while going 2-2 that season. (Making him, percentage wise, one of the best quarterbacks the team has employed since 1999.) He would throw seven interceptions while adding just two touchdown passes in his time in Orange and Brown.
The club released him the following summer and Delhomme would play just one more NFL game, with Houston in 2011, before retiring.
Next: What Does It Mean for 2015?
So now that we’ve established the history of the Browns and bridge quarterbacks since 1999, does that mean the past is prelude to the future?
Well, not necessarily.
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As we pointed out a few weeks ago, the Browns clearly have a better offensive line than Tampa’s, and that was before adding Cameron Erving in the draft. Pro Football Focus ranked Tampa’s offensive line as the 25th-worst in the NFL last season, meaning that McCown should see his sack numbers go down.
The Browns also have a better running game that the Buccaneers, who were led by Doug Martin (494 rushing yards) and Bobby Rainey (406 yards). So that should help take some additional pressure off of McCown.
But as a soon-to-be 36-year-old quarterback, McCown is what he is at this stage of his career – a placeholder until someone better comes along, whomever that may be.
Hopefully, McCown knows his limitations and won’t try to do what he can’t in the offense. And with the team’s renewed emphasis on the running game, there is a chance that McCown won’t be asked to do much and can be serviceable.
So, no, just because the Browns have repeatedly tried and failed every time they’ve entered the veteran quarterback market since 1999 doesn’t mean that history will repeat itself again this fall.
Of course, we tell ourselves the same thing every spring when the NFL Draft rolls around and the Browns are linked to a quarterback in the first round. The club has yet to draft a viable quarterback in the first round since entering the NFL in 1950, despite repeated attempts.
So why should this be any different?
How comfortable are you with the thought of Josh McCown as the starting quarterback in 2015?