Surprisingly savvy football moves for the Browns

The Browns have signed two veteran QBs to one year deals to backup Brian Hoyer. This is huge. Why?

Read the sentence again. Did I say “to backup Johnny Manziel/Teddy Bridgewater/Blake Bortles/Jimmy Garoppolo?” I did not. If the Browns are genuinely going to let the rookie they draft — and they will draft a QB, almost certainly on the first day — develop for a full year, this is precisely the way to do that. Make sure you have decent veterans in case Hoyer gets hurt again.

Tyler Thigpen can throw footballs, most of the time in the right direction. He started for one year in the NFL, played either slightly below or slightly above average (depending on your preferred metric), and then never started again. Vince Young had a very good rookie season, improved in a lot of ways in his sophomore campaign (except for the “throwing footballs to teammates” part of the equation), and had a respectable season in 2009. I’m more excited about Young as an actual player, but I think we genuinely don’t know enough about Thigpen to make a reliable judgment.

Incidentally, this leans me even further away from wanting Manziel at #4. I just can’t see him sitting a year. Whoever drafts him will play him, maybe not Week 1, but by Week 8 at the latest. I do not want the n00b starting, unless it’s because the team is already in the toilet and they want him to get some reps. That’s it.

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