I know, Cleveland. It’s not fair to bring up the Browns right now as you’re celebrating your first championship as a city in five decades. Congratulations to the Cavaliers by the way. By forcing a game seven against the Golden State Warriors you actually got me to watch the last 10 minutes of a professional basketball game. Something that seemed inconceivable just a week before.
Yes, I’m raining on your parade with this article, but after all that rain sometimes there’s a rainbow. There’s reason for hope, but in order to not repeat the past, we must all learn from it. Sometimes those lesson are difficult to take. Which explains the Browns’ quarterback situation for the last 17 years.
After the Cav’s title, Brokaw Inc., an advertising company in Cleveland, retired its infamous Browns Jersey that listed all 24 names of the Browns’ quarterbacks since 1999.
The jersey on the dummy is a No. 2 and belongs to none other than the subject of this article, former Browns quarterback Tim Couch.
Couch is unjustly maligned in Cleveland, I think. Yes, he didn’t do a great job there, but from 1999-2003 who could? He played under two of the worst head coaches in NFL history, Chris Palmer and Butch Davis for his entire stint in Cleveland. Can you name any elite players those Browns teams fielded? I can’t either and remembering stupid stuff like that is my job.
In his time in Cleveland, Couch 11,131 yards, 64 touchdowns and 67 interceptions. He posted a 22-37 record and had one winning season as a starter (he went 8-6 and missed two games). The Browns made the playoffs that season. It’s the only time the Browns have made the postseason since they returned to the league in 1999. Incidentally Couch didn’t play in that playoff game after being supplanted by Kelly Holcombe.
Tim Couch Cleveland Browns https://t.co/TqRWOxKefG
— Countryboi567 (@Countryboi567) June 23, 2016
Couch and Holcombe traded the job back and forth for a year, then Couch was given the boot. He is, to this day, the franchise’s (old and new) completion percentage leader at 59.8. He set the mark for single game completions (36 against the Tennessee Titans) and the rookie record for touchdown passes with 15. He ranks at No. 8 in the entire franchise’s history (again, old and new) in wins, six games ahead of his only modern era competition, Derek Anderson.
Couch’s career fizzled fast after Cleveland sent him packing. He tried to latch on to a few teams and failed, eventually getting busted for steroids and HGH. He’s been completely out of the league since 2007.
Meanwhile the Browns have continued to flounder at the quarterback position and did little to excite the town this offseason when they traded out of the top spot in the NFL draft and their pick of Jared Goff out of California or Carson Wentz out of North Dakota State. Instead, the new regime of head coach Hue Jackson and general manager Sashi Brown decided to trade the pick to the Los Angeles Rams for a boatload of picks in this draft and in the 2017 draft. I like the move, but it does nothing to solve the team’s decade and a half quarterback quandary.
This is the equivalent to Tim couch saying he's still committed to being a starting QB https://t.co/JhSf7Y0euI
— Jim Stocki (@JimmerStocki) June 23, 2016
Jackson spent one draft pick on a quarterback, a third rounder on USC’s Cody Kessler. He added former Washington Redskins quarterback (and 2012 offensive rookie of the year) Robert Griffin III and currently have Austin Davis, Josh McCown and Connor Shaw on the roster. All three of those guys have started games for the Browns and at least two of them will be out of work come September.
The irony of the Browns’ situation is they’ve so rarely had even a competent quarterback that bad QB play is probably expected. Otto Graham is one of the best quarterbacks, if not players, in NFL history, but after him you have to go to Bernie Kosar in the 1980s to find a guy that would start for any other team, then Frank Ryan from 1962-68 and that’s it. Ryan was the guy that delivered the last championship for Cleveland before a few days ago. But that’s it. That’s the sum total of good Browns quarterbacks.
To the little 5 year old boy wearing a Browns Tim Couch jersey….my deepest condolences.
— Kyle Pavela (@KylePavela) June 22, 2016
Which is why Couch still ranks so high. It’s an insult to say he’s one of the best quarterbacks in Browns history, but it also happens to be true. And since 1999 he’s the best by far. Learn from history Cleveland. Make peace with it and if none of these present guys on the team work out at QB, try again. Don’t be afraid to turn in that first round quarterback card on draft day. Fifty-plus years is too long.
