Cleveland Browns: Drew Stanton a bad signing, worse quarterback

The Cleveland Browns made a blunder over the weekend in signing Drew Stanton, who has been less than ideal at playing quarterback in the NFL

A lot of the moves made this offseason by Cleveland Browns general manager John Dorsey deserve to be applauded. Picking up veteran quarterback Drew Stanton however is not one of those moves.

It’s no secret that the quarterback situation in Cleveland was bad in 2017. They already fixed that however by landing Tyrod Taylor via trade and can make it even better considering they have the No. 1 pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.

So why pick up Stanton? Presumably Dorsey wants to get an experienced backup should something happen to Taylor, who the team plans on starting in 2018.

The question is, how does Stanton provide that?

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Just because he’s 33-years old doesn’t mean Stanton has seen it all. The fact is Stanton has started just 17 games in his career, only two more than DeShone Kizer started for the Browns in 2017. Kizer of course was shipped off for his poor play which consisted of him completing 53.6 percent of his passes for 2,894 yards with 11 touchdowns and 22 picks.

Stanton meanwhile — the experienced “veteran mentor” has been good on just 52.4 percent of his passes and has 20 touchdowns to 24 picks. Sure he has more touchdowns, but Kizer was playing on an atrocious team and did at least offer up the ability to rush, evidenced by his five touchdown runs.

Stanton meanwhile benefited from playing on a good team, which is the only reason he was 9-4 as a starter in Arizona and thus clouds people’s judgement on his actual play, which was bad.

He was so bad that he actually hasn’t completed more than 49.7 percent of his passes in three years — and that span includes him going for 44 percent in 2015, 39.6 percent in 2016 and 49.7 percent in 2017.

Those numbers are ugly. But since a “football guy” made the move, the Stanton signing will be applauded.

Next: Allen in play after his Pro Day?

It shouldn’t be though. Drew Stanton is not a quality NFL quarterback at this point in his career.