Browns gonna Browns, right?

When it comes to writing about this little engine that couldn’t, I don’t take as much pleasure in bashing the team as I once did. Maybe I’m growing up a little — or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been living in Northeast Ohio for a few years — but I’ve come to realize how sick and tired Cleveland Browns fans are of a mediocre product and poor management.

The latter is a perfect transition into the latest head scratching development concerning the good ol’ Brownies.

A report from this past weekend indicated that several of the Browns key scouts were fired during the NFL draft after they were high on drafting North Dakota State University quarterback Carson Wentz with the second overall pick. The Browns would eventually trade down from the pick with the Philadelphia Eagles, who secured Wentz with that same second overall pick.

The team then decided to place their faith in the hands of Robert Griffin III (RG3), who has the body of a Nature Valley bar that has been in your backpack for a few weeks. He’s unsurprisingly out with a shoulder injury for several weeks.

Meanwhile, Wentz is 2-0 with the Eagles and is showing signs of becoming a legit franchise quarterback. I know it’s only two games, and we tend to overreact both good and bad with rookies in sports, but if he continues to trend in this same direction, he’s going to be legit. Granted, they haven’t played a respectable defense yet in the Bears and those same Browns we’re discussing here.

The sad reality of it is Wentz should be yours, Browns fans.

I wasn’t completely sold on him coming out of college so I am not going to act like I knew this all along, but what I do know is that the decision to pass him up in favor of the fragile RG3 is maybe the most Browns move of all time.

Yes, the team did acquire several picks in the Wentz trade, but what did they do with that first round pick? They took a wide receiver which, last time I checked, it helps to have a viable quarterback to, you know, throw him the ball.

it is without further adieu that we place Wentz’s name on the long list of failed Browns quarterbacks and not because he has failed as a quarterback. His career and story are just beginning. We’re placing him on that list because Browns management failed its fans for the umpteenth time. In a division in which the team has no real shot of winning, what harm would it have been to take Wentz?

He succeeds, you have your quarterback. He fails, you’re right where you were all along.

Hindsight can be both revealing and dangerous. It can be somewhat lazy, like in this column. It’s easy to understand what should have been done in real time as opposed to what really happened. And it’s easy to dwell on what we wish would have been, in both sports and life.

So Browns fans, I ask this of you: write Wentz’s name right below Johnny Manziel’s in the long line of failed Browns quarterbacks. Ponder it for a moment and then move on with your life because there’s no time for despair around these parts.

We cannot change what is already done. After all, the Cavs are reigning world champions and the Indians may bring that World Series trophy home in about a month’s time. Life’s not all bad in Cleveland.

Matt Poe is a columnist, contact him at [email protected].