Cleveland Browns 5 worst draft picks of the past 5 years

Cleveland Browns Draft miss No. 3: Austin Seibert

Austin Seibert was brought into the fold at an interesting time in Cleveland Browns football. The franchise had just transitioned away from an analytical approach and was solely in the hands of a ‘football guy’ in John Dorsey. It was Dorsey’s second draft in Cleveland, and the first without the aid of vice player of personnel and future general manager extraordinaire, Andrew Berry.

The Browns were in the market for a kicker, and Dorsey decided to make the move to acquire one in round five of the 2019 NFL draft. Seibert had an outstanding kicking career at the University of Oklahoma (somehow abbreviated to OU). Seibert made 309 of the 314 extra points he attempted (98.4%) and converted 63 of his 79 field goal attempts (79.7%) while in Norman.

But his kicking metrics were not the reason that Dorsey selected Seibert. In what may go down as the most ‘football guy’ thing of all time, Dorsey selected Seibert because of the way the ball sounded coming off of his foot. True story.

Seibert spent one full season as the Browns kicker, and from a statistical standpoint he performed how you would expect a rookie kicker to perform. Seibert made 25 of the 29 field goals he attempted. However, Seibert’s five missed extra points were a large point of contention heading into the 2020 offseason.

Then as fate would have it, Seibert missed his first extra-point attempt of 2020 and was subsequently relieved of his kicking duties and was cut just before the second game of the season.

In short, you probably shouldn’t draft a kicker unless you consider him a can’t miss type of prospect, and definitely don’t select one based on the thud the ball makes when they kick it.