@welsh-brown said:

Greetings to you, Welshman! McCarron is one of most mediocre QBs in the draft. Mariota, Mettenberger, Manziel and Hogan will all be drafted before him. Maybe Murray and Carr, too.

@the-gipper said:

yep I am from Wales, place called Llanelli, no can't say I am familiar sorry

@welsh-brown said:

Are you from Wales? Are you familiar with our Cotswald cronies?

@welsh-brown said:

People are kidding themselves and are NCAA honks if they think that kid is gong 2nd round. I LOVE the fact he tells the NCAA to go fuck themselves I'll sign 7k autographs if I feel like it cause I got damn well earned it. That kid is Drew Brees with way more wheels and maybe even a stronger arm.

I don't think McCarron is the answer, and Hundley, while terrific in college,

I don't know that he is the guy who has "it" and sees the field.

There's Mariota, who I would think fits the bill for the Browns,

and the kid from Miami. But it's so early, I can't bring myself to work up

a stupid mock draft right now. There's the kid from Stanford...but...

I think Mariota is the qb I'd draft with one of the two first round picks.

Manziel is too short for my liking, (by the way, I'm confused, some have Bridgewater at 6'3" and Boyd at 6'1",

some have them reversed I think...?) and his arm strength isn't all that. And, he's a nutjob. He doesn't fit

the Browns' lockerroom.

We have a whole QB prospect thread here:

http://thebrownsboard.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=26799

Bridgewater

Boyd

McCaron

Hundley

Anybody else?

What are your thoughts on Manziel?

@rugbydawg said:

Really like your write up, RD. Well written with plenty of well-reasoned depth... especially for as early as it is for such an effort.

Love your Bama conection. I still am not thrilled with DQ against the run and think AJ is a nice fit for a Defense oriented team.

After seeing him spin Roby like a top most of the nite, I fell in love with Jared Abbrederis (WR, Wisconsin). I know it's bad to fall in love with a player, but... JA is a nfldraftscout.com projected 3rd rounder at present, but stock is rising.

One area where I think it is time to spend a high pick on is interior line. "Common wisdom" 'round here is you don't spend a 1st on an OG. I think our 2nd #1 or our #2 goes there this year. There are five OG's in that range at present, with Gabe Jackson (Ms St.) squarely in the mix.

@dab7291993 said:

Evans has great speed for a guy that's 6'5", very good hands and I don't think he's as unpolished as you make him out to be. He's Johnny's bailout guy, and we've seen that all year, he goes up and gets all those terrible throws made by Manziel.

A lot of those "terrible throws" are by intent, if not design. Manziel trusts Evans to "rebound" them...

That said, at the next level it is not Evans' speed that will be in question, it's his agility.

@brownorange said:

Don't forget. You don't need to find a franchise quarterback in the first round.. and you don't need to give up a bunch of picks to get one.

You don't have to, but the odds drop spectacularly once you get outside of the first round.

@tim-couch-pulls-out said:

I think it's pretty obvious we'll be going QB with our first pick.

Nah, Hoyer needs another WR to complement Gordon. All the atrocious teams are going to pick the Bridgewaters up before CLE, anyway.

@jcam222 said:

I hope you are wrong. Hoyer proved he could be a serviceable to very good NFL QB to me anyway. First round QB picks are like Powerball tickets, odds aren't so good they work out as planned. I would most definitely rather see a 2nd to 4th round QB or even two with other picks to bolster the oline and d in general.

I hope I'm wrong as well but I doubt it's the case.

There's too much to risk by passing up a QB.

Hoyer may be our next franchise QB but if we decide not to draft a QB and then we find that he's not franchise material, we'll have missed our boat.

We have the ammunition to conceivably add a franchise QB, a talented ILB, a solid RB, a starting RG and then still have a third round pick to take BPA.

@tim-couch-pulls-out said:

I hope you are wrong. Hoyer proved he could be a serviceable to very good NFL QB to me anyway. First round QB picks are like Powerball tickets, odds aren't so good they work out as planned. I would most definitely rather see a 2nd to 4th round QB or even two with other picks to bolster the oline and d in general.

@miktoxic said:

i thought they could leave after sophomore year?

On O, the O-Line clearly needs addressing. But, hopefully Schwartz plays like he did at the end of last year, not the start of this/last year. Then we're set there. G is a question mark - Greco has looked OK but not great, Cousins should find himself a home in the CFL, Pinkston and Luavao are the guys we need to become legitimate starters and really pull in the run game. If one does, then we're probably ok for starters, and with Gilkey behind them actually looking like a solid enough backup, depth is fine. Another TE would be nice opposite Cameron - but can Barnidge be that guy? We've seen a limited amount of him and he's looked reasonable, neither explosive in the passing game nor liability in the blocking department. Can Greg Little become a proper #2 WR? Probably not. But can we use him in other areas of the field? Such as the backfield? He's good with the ball in his hands and has shown above average blocking skills, so perhaps that might be his ultimate position.

And then Weeden. He will not be our starter next season, no two ways about it. Our FO hates him, Chud and Norv were willing to take a gamble, and it looks like he's not progressing quickly enough to get up to speed before retiring. He might stick around as a backup, but I think there's a distinct possibility he's traded in the offseason to be someone else's backup and we draft a top QB to compete with Hoyer, and possibly pick up a low-round flier to develop as the third guy (like the OSU backup, that'd be a nice story).

That being said, I'd say our needs are pretty much as follows (in my opinion)

QB - there's no way we don't take one high in the draft; placing all of your faith in a guy who has 3 career starts (excluding buffalo) who's coming off of an ACL tear is potentially suicidal.

WR - Little isn't developing in to the player we'd hoped. We go and get a real threat to complement Gordan - you can see the impact he makes when he's in the team against when he's not. Given his potential to be out for a year, we can't afford to not have someone else to share the load.

DB - we're light at safefy and CB. Hopefully one of slaughter/mcfadden steps up and makes us less light, but having Chris Owens as the #3 corner isn't a great state of affairs.

RB - Lewis is quick/shifty, but we will be getting someone to complement him, probably a power runner. This also frees lewis to be involved in the return game.

ILB - as discussed, someone to provide depth, spell Jackson/Robertson and eventually become a starter in that position.

OG/OT - we're light on depth at tackle and light on talent at guard. We need to address one of these sooner rather than later.

Going in to the lower rounds is even more of a crap shoot, so we're hopefully just looking for BPA, more of those low round fliers that could really pan out, and if they don't it's no worry - like slaughter, gilkey, bryant from this year, and people like miller from last.

As an end note, I'd also be not-very-surprised-at-all to see billy cundiff not on the team next year, so a late round K would be a sensible move.

Round 1:

1st pick: QB- Tough call here, since it is hard to say who will be available. My guess is either Boyd, Hundley, Mariota or Manziel.

2nd pick: WR- Mike Evans if available, Marqise Lee if not. The Browns probably will pass on Watkins with his failed drug test.

Round 2:

3rd pick: OG Xavier Su'a-Filo. I don't see him being available later, and he is ranked #1 guard by Walter Football. He seems like a class act, too.

Round 3:

4th pick: RB, I think this is the ideal round to pick a running back, and this season for the Browns will probably demonstrate why we shouldn't wait until later. There are only a couple of RBs that might be worthy of going sooner, so it seems like a good value to pick. Hard to say who is available at this point so I'll leave it at that.

5th pick: Maybe at this point you pick up a CB, but I'd still rather see this fill an offensive need.

@mld-woody said:

i thought they could leave after sophomore year?

@d-bone said:

I agree with you about Weedster, which will blow up your draft prognostication. The guy has qb flaws that IMHO cannot be fixed. & will be 31 next year. I'll let the season play out, but it won't surprise me if Brandon ends up on IR before the end of the year due to his lack of pocket presence and sloooow release.

McCarron??? LOL the guy IS a younger version of Hoyer, and I have serious doubts we're going that route.

Without naming names, our first three picks will be qb, wr, cb in no particular order.

Other than that, props to the OP on a well thought out post.