BEREA: For once for the Browns in the NFL Draft, logic, not emotion, ruled.
If we learned anything about the new Harvard triumvirate in the front office Thursday night, it’s that they can wheel and deal with the best of them. And they have a firm grasp of how to rebuild as quickly as possible.
After trading away the No. 2 pick on April 20, they orchestrated a trade down from No. 8 to No. 15 to select the top receiver on their board, Baylor’s Corey Coleman.
With the Browns’ rebuilding project sure to take at least two drafts and perhaps three, stockpiling picks for players who are a perfect fit for coach Hue Jackson’s schemes was wise. It also brought them a windfall that should enable them to trade up for their quarterback of the future, whether he’s in this year’s second tier or next year’s draft.
All of a sudden, multiple wide receivers don’t seem out of the question for a team that passed for only 20 touchdowns, eight of those to wide receivers. Last season, Biletnikoff Award winner Coleman led the nation with 20 touchdowns and set a school record with 33 for his career.
The Browns now have five picks in the top 80, supposedly the strength of this year’s draft, and seven in the top 100. That might accelerate the timeline back to respectability, providing of course that there are no Johnny Manziel-like missteps along the way.
If the Browns hit on those seven, including Nos. 76 and 77 and 99 and 100, they will have made a giant leap in one year.
“We don’t really operate on a timetable here. Our expectation is to win now,” executive vice president Sashi Brown said. “We’re not going into the fall thinking we’re putting off a losing season. Every year we go in with the expectation to win the AFC North. I would not say amassing this draft capital accelerates any timetable.”
Tennessee’s desire for a left tackle, in this case Michigan State’s Jack Conklin, prompted the Titans’ trade-up to No. 8. The Browns gave up Nos. 8 and 176 (a sixth-rounder) for Nos. 15, 76 (third round) and a second-rounder in 2017. That gives them maneuverability and ammunition this year and next.
When they selected Coleman, Brown, chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta and vice president of player personnel Andrew Berry also unceremoniously put the Ray Farmer era to bed.
Former general manager Farmer’s biggest gaffe, besides being responsible for picking hard-partying Manziel at No. 22 two years ago, was considering receivers an afterthought. Farmer devalued the position even as the NFL became more and more of a passing league. He collected a bunch of smurfs, admirable young men but by no means dynamic playmakers.
The Browns began to right that wrong with the selection of Coleman, a 5-foot-11, 190-pounder who ran the 40-yard dash in 4.38 seconds, has a 40½ vertical jump and is deadly after the catch.
Asked if he wanted a receiver coming into the draft, Jackson said, “As fast as I could get one.”
Brown admitted that the Browns maneuvered “maybe more than fans wanted us to.” Former baseball analytics expert DePodesta said he didn’t spend much time researching the effectiveness of trading back twice in the same draft.
“It just hasn’t happened all that often,” DePodesta said. “We have looked, but there wasn’t much of a sample size to take much from it. The big thing for us was trying to figure out how to get not only the players we really wanted, but also to have as much draft capital as possible. We’re trying to build a great organization over a long period of time here. Tonight hopefully is a perfect example of that. We got a combination of a player we really wanted that we thought was a great fit for us now and yet we also got a few more bites at the apple, not just only tonight and tomorrow but also next year.”
DePodesta pointed out that in 2017 the Browns now have two first-rounders and two second-rounders and may end up with a couple thirds and fourths.
“We literally may have in effect two drafts in the first four rounds,” he said. “And we also have a extra second-rounder in ’18.”
If there’s a quick way out of NFL oblivion, that would seem to be it. And if by the time the weekend is over, Brown carries the reputation of a wheeler-dealer, he sees no negatives in that.
“I’m OK with it,” he said.
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read her blog at www.ohio.com/marla. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.