The Browns have the second overall pick of the draft and a need for a quarterback that stretches back as long as the team’s been back in the league, two things that can be linked closely to the arrival of Hue Jackson as the team’s new head coach this offseason.
Finding that quarterback would go a long way toward making Jackson the man who stops the game of musical chairs in that job and that’s going to be one of Jackson’s top priorities this offseason. He got his first exposure to Jared Goff, Carson Wentz and Paxton Lynch at the combine and said he saw “potential,” but that the the team is “not anywhere close” to knowing what they’ll do when they get on the clock.
“I need to keep seeing them,” Jackson said, via Cleveland.com. “You take [the combine] into consideration, but again that’s not enough time for me. You’re asking how did I feel? I felt good watching them compete and walk across the stage and come into meetings and do all that, but at the same time I can’t wait to go see them in a whole different environment and spend more time with them.”
Jackson was adamant that the Browns won’t take a quarterback just to take a quarterback -- “then all of the sudden we’ll be making the same mistake that everybody else has made” -- but he was direct about the team’s need for one driving their work this offseason. That makes it likely that they’ll be taking one and that the decision about which one to take will help define Jackson’s tenure in Cleveland.