Flashback Friday: What if Cleveland Browns had traded for A.J. McCarron?

The Cleveland Browns almost traded for quarterback A. J. McCarron, to lead coach Hue Jackson’s offense, but fortunately, it fell through. But what if it had succeeded?

One of the reasons Sashi Brown was fired as GM of the Cleveland Browns was that he botched a trade for former Cincinnati Bengals quarterback, A.J. McCarron, a favorite of Browns coach and quarterback whisperer Hue Jackson. The Browns haggled till the last minute and then filed incorrect paperwork with the league, and the trade did not go through.

Some people felt that Brown might have been motivated to torpedo the deal on purpose, believing it was a bad decision from an overbearing owner. That cannot be proved, but what can be proved is that it was a bad idea.

There is nothing really wrong with McCarron, a lanky 6-foot-4, 214 pounder from Mobile, Alabama who starred for the University of Alabama Crimson Tide, leading them to back-to-back titles.

McCarron is one of those guys who does not have the cannon of say, Baker Mayfield does, is not exceptionally mobile, but he is smart, and has started and won two games in the NFL, which is pretty good for a backup.

On the other hand, McCarron is now on his fourth club, so any rumor that he is secretly a franchise quarterback should probably not be believed. Perhaps the low point in his career was getting a free agent contract from the Buffalo Bills but being traded before the start of the season.

Second-string quarterbacks are very valuable, but usually command only a sixth or seventh-round draft pick, rather than a second and third-round pick.

The best reason for trading for McCarron would be to bring Katherine Webb-McCarron to Cleveland. The former Miss Alabama is so astonishingly beautiful that a cameo appearance at the broadcast of the college championship game, got her 90,000 Twitter followers in three hours.

But what would have happened if the Browns had not had those two draft picks?

In this alternate reality scenario, McCarron would probably have been good enough to win a game for Hue Jackson in 2017 so that the team would not have gone 0-16. Coach Jackson would not have had to jump in Lake Erie after a “successful” 1-15 season.

In this alternate timeline, approaching the 2018 draft, the team believed (sort of) that they had a franchise in McCarron. So, in the 2018 draft, they select Saquon Barkley in the first round, then trade back with the fourth overall pick (used for Denzel Ward in our reality). They take a deal from Buffalo in which the Bills give up 12th overall plus a 2019 number one, and the Browns draft Marcus Davenport, a defensive end.

In the second round, the Browns would have only one pick rather than two. In any case, they have no need to think about Nick Chubb since they already have Barkley. Drafting a guard probably still makes sense, though Sashi might like Will Hernandez better than Austin Corbett, who was John Dorsey’s find. However, the Giants drafted ahead of the Browns and would presumably still take him, meaning the Browns would be stuck with Corbett.  That appears to be their karma.

It would be a much different team, to be sure. There would be no Baker Mayfield, and no Chubb. In their places might be a defensive player and Barkley as their primary running back.

How long would A.J. McCarron have survived in Cleveland?

As a guess, that would not have unfolded any better than it did in real life for Tyrod Taylor. Air Jackson probably would have run aground by midseason 2018, and the Browns would probably get a new coach and general manager for 2019, maybe even the ones that we have now.

Extending the story further, there would not have been an OBJ trade, so the Brown would have an extra draft pick and they would still have Jabrill Peppers. Brown would have continued to sock away draft picks and salary-cap space, though by 2019 it would be time to make a try for the playoffs.  That sounds okay.

But, wait a minute, there is no quarterback. We probably do not even want to think about who Sashi Brown would have obtained as a quarterback, though we do know that he tended to take quarterbacks in the mid to late round of the draft and eschewed veterans.

In retrospect, it’s a good thing that John Dorsey was the point guard for the 2018 draft. Dorsey was better at evaluating talent than Brown, though his management of the cap left something to be desired.