Red Right 88

“The greatest trade ever” brings Mike Phipps to the Browns

The Cleveland Browns hold two first-round draft picks in the upcoming NFL Draft.

While many expect the Browns to use one of those picks on a quarterback, history shows that drafting a quarterback – especially one in the first round – has been an exercise in futility for the Browns.

Since joining the NFL in 1950, the Browns have drafted six quarterbacks in the first round and none of them have worked out.

In Part One of our series on those six quarterbacks, we looked at Harry Agganis, the team’s first-round selection in 1952. Part Two featured Bobby Garrett, the first Stanford quarterback taken No. 1 overall in the draft.

Today we focus on Mike Phipps, the All-American quarterback from Purdue taken in the first round in 1970.

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The Browns, quarterbacks and the draft – a cautionary tale

The NFL Draft will open on May 8 in New York City with the Cleveland Browns holding two selections in the first round and 10 draft picks over all.

Over the course of the three-day draft, Browns general manager Ray Farmer will face a puzzle that has continually befuddled his predecessors ever since the Browns entered the National Football League in 1950.

How can the team find a quarterback to lead them to their first championship since 1964?

Anyone who has watched the Browns since they returned to the league in 1999 knows that quarterback has been the one position on the team that has been a continual nightmare. But the problem goes back even further than that.

Since the mid-1970s, when we first started spending our Sunday afternoons with those guys in the orange helmets, the Browns have had exactly two good quarterbacks – Brian Sipe and Bernie Kosar. You can throw in Vinnie Testaverde in 1994 and Derek Anderson in 2007, if you’d like, but they were both one-year wonders and neither was drafted by the Browns.

And therein resides the problem.

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