5 Cleveland Browns quarterbacks who were not as bad as we thought

Maybe some of the Cleveland Browns past failures were not the fault of the quarterback.

One of the lessons of Super Bowl LV is that you can literally take the best quarterback in the world and surround him with less than adequate talent, and the results can be disastrous. Patrick Mahomes looked terrible in the Super Bowl, even though everybody — everybody — knew it was not really a reflection of his ability or desire.

It was simply the fact that too many of his teammates were banged up and playing out of position, especially on the offensive line. Tampa Bay was able to put pressure on him and make him look bad. But he was not and is not a bad quarterback. Let’s file that factoid away for future reference.

This opens up the possibility that there may be other good quarterbacks out there playing for terrible teams who may be much better than they appear. We saw that to some extent in the AFC North, when the Steelers had an offense running like a well-oiled machine when they had a healthy offensive line and a strong running game gaining 100 yards each game to start the season.

Early on, Ben Roethlisberger looked like he was a shoe-in for NFL Comeback Player of the Year. Now, there is great doubt whether he will ever play again. Injuries on the offensive line and the collapse of the running game made Roethlisberger look absolutely terrible as the Cleveland Browns beat him in the playoffs this season, and the Steeler faithful have turned on him.

More to the point, the Dawg Pound has endured terrible teams for most of the past 23 seasons, with the quarterbacks taking most of the heat. Most of the Cleveland Browns are highly knowledgeable about the game of football and understand the ins and outs of offensive line play, defensive formations, Cover 2, Prevent Defenses, 21 Personnel groups and all that. But there’s a vocal minority that has pinned the lack of success exclusively on the quarterback, or more precisely, the lack of a franchise quarterback (whatever that is).

Over the years that franchise guy came to take on a Messianic quality, and the theory was that he was going to solve all the Browns problems if the Browns would only have had that player, the team would start winning Super Bowls. Prior to Baker Mayfield, many fans believed that the team was cursed, condemned to put up with horrible Shakespearean tragedies at the position. Remember the Internet meme with the Tim Couch jersey, with all the quarterback names crossed off on it?

It’s probably true that the Browns never had a superstar at the level of Brady or Roethlisberger. But they did have quarterbacks who were good enough to lead a team to a winning record and playoff contention. That is, if the Browns had been able to provide a better than average offensive line and skill position players, they had quarterbacks who were good enough to finish among the Top 20 among NFL quarterback ratings and lead the team to eight or more wins. Someone who was at least good enough to not embarrass the city.

Let’s start with the first quarterback, Tim Couch, who is falsely accused of being a bust. How can he be a bust when he led the team to the playoffs in his fourth year? Couch’s problem was that he got injured, with a torn labrum and torn rotator cuff in his throwing shoulder and could not play at the same level after one playoff season. If he was cursed, it was jinxed by injury, not lack of talent or will to win.