Player A is Josh McCown and player B is Robert Griffin III since the 2013 season began. I know I said that I wanted to lose more games this year when in a total rebuild mode, so why argue for McCown’s stats being better than RGIII? The answer is in the long term picture. As I mentioned, McCown is a true stop gap in a probable sense that he will retire in two years and there’s no problems making him the backup for a younger QB.
Looking at the contract RGIII got, the Browns have to envision him being able to be a starting NFL QB or they could have signed other veteran QBs for much less money if they didn’t want McCown. The problem will lie with how RGIII plays.
While his two year contract makes sense when regarding his injury history, it can prove to be tricky in the sense of if they use him as a stopgap. If he does terrible, they paid at least 7.5 million for a guy that will not be in the future plans for the team and taking away valuable reps from the rookie QB. I’ll go into the start/sit and offensive line argument later on. Going back to his contract, the bigger problem is if he surprisingly does well. Now the Browns are stuck in the quandary of what to do.
It’s hard to justify trading away a player that performed well at the most important position in football to make room for a guy who sat the whole year. They can’t hold onto him for another year because then he becomes a free agent and can leave. It’s not like the NBA where you could do a sign and trade to get a return on your investment.
He would just walk for nothing or the wonderful late round compensation picks the Browns love. Could they also justify and feel confident with his past giving him a contract extension? Also, what does that do to the confidence of your number two overall pick? If the Browns decide to go with RGIII longterm, they will not get back anywhere near the second overall pick that they spent on a player to sit on the bench the entire time. The whole situation becomes complicated. Now there’s the factor of McCown and him having to be on the trading block.
The Browns almost have to trade him for whatever they can get now. If he’s not traded, then they are paying RGIII five million this year and McCown four million. That’s nine million dollars in money spent on QBs that are not their future on a maybe three win team. That’s bad business. What else is bad business is the Browns will have another high draft pick not be on the field.
It’s hard to get fans excited for that. For the people that say to release McCown, doing so will cost the Browns 6.25 million in dead cap this season. So you can look at that as paying RGIII 11 million dollars this season to be a stopgap QB. What needs to stop are absurd ideas like that.
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