Commander of Awesome;1743225 wrote:Heading to the 480 bridge
Offense
Quarterback: Josh McCown, Browns
Contract Flaws: Paying for the Outlier, The Marginal Talent
McCown, the subject of a bidding war between the Bills and Browns this offseason, was a replacement-level backup for years before producing a stunning 224-pass sample with the Bears in 2013. That run was driven by a totally unsustainable interception rate of 0.4 percent, 10 times below his previous career average of 4.0 percent. The Buccaneers bit on the premise that McCown’s 2013 was more meaningful than his first 1,113 attempts and found that he was still Josh McCown; despite possessing Vincent Jackson and Mike Evans at wide receiver, McCown threw interceptions on 4.3 percent of his throws and saw his QBR fall from a league-high 85.1 in 2013 to 32.8 last year, a figure that only topped that of Jags rookie Blake Bortles.
OK, so lesson learned, he’s still the same Josh McCown. But then why are the Browns convinced that last year was really the fluke? After McCown was paid about the veteran’s minimum for years and then struggled mightily last year, Cleveland outbid Buffalo for the right to give McCown another chance. The Browns guaranteed $6.25 million to McCown over the next two seasons to serve as their veteran stopgap ahead of Johnny Manziel, which doesn’t seem to fit any logical plan.
The Browns aren’t one competent quarterback away from competing, and even if they were, McCown is 36 and has delivered one competent half-season of play during a 13-year career. If you think Manziel has a prayer, don’t pay meaningful guaranteed money to put somebody in his way. And if you don’t, at least try to find somebody with even a modicum of upside. Brian Hoyer wasn’t the answer, but there was at least some logic in using Hoyer, who had some tools and hadn’t been given much of a chance to prove anything about his professional future. We know what Josh McCown is by now.
(Side note: Where’s Jay Cutler? While it’s amazing just how far Cutler’s stock has fallen in one year, it’s also true that this was a deal the Bears really couldn’t get out of doing. At the end of 2013, Cutler was a 30-year-old starting quarterback about to hit unrestricted free agency after a season in which he was above-average in
just about every facet of performance. Cutler had also
been just below league average during his five seasons in Chicago, and given how bad his offensive line was for his first three seasons in town, it was fair to project him to be about a league-average starter in 2014. You can fault the Bears for not signing him earlier or for structuring the deal in a way that basically guaranteed he would stay on the roster through 2016, but teams don’t give away league-average quarterbacks for nothing.)
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-nfls-all-bad-contracts-team/