Cleveland Browns: Grading every 2018 offseason trade

Cleveland Browns trades have dominated the football world, but how do John Dorsey’s first swaps as GM stack up? Time to bring out the red pen.

Armed with bountiful supply of draft picks and more salary cap space than a GM could dream of, the Cleveland Browns HAD to do something, compelling a 1-31 mark the past two seasons.

New GM John Dorsey didn’t mess around, making four moves that ultimately make the Browns better than they were when the historically bad 2017 season ended.

Collectively, the Browns improved, but how do the trades break down on an individual basis? It may not be as great as you think.

Browns get: Tylor Taylor; Bills get: 2018 third-rounder (No. 65 overall); Grade: B

Cleveland traded the No. 1 pick in the third round (65th overall for Taylor).

It was amusing to see the Browns’ season ticket grew go to work on Twitter following the deals for Tyrod Taylor and Jarvis Landry.

You can’t fault the poor salespeople, who’ve been waiting years for anything to sell to the public.

But Tyrod Taylor? Really?

He just led a team to the playoffs that has no viable backup and they ditched him for the 65th pick of the draft.

Meanwhile, The Factory of Sadness went from having zero wins in its quarterback room to someone with a  22-20 mark.

Huzzah! We’re moving up to mediocre. Where do I get those tickets at?

I’m aware Taylor’s a bridge quarterback, in addition to a capable player who should actually win the Browns a few games in 2018.

But, meh. He’s going to protect the ball and the Brown are going to go 7-9 until he hands the job off to the starter in waiting, but you’ve got to start somewhere.

Wouldn’t  A.J. McCarron be a more intriguing option for 2018? His signing wouldn’t have steered the Browns away from taking a quarterback first overall.

But what if plays too well, ala Derek Anderson stunting Brady Quinn‘s growth following the 2007 season.

Yeah, capable quarterbacks are bad assets to have. Don’t blame DA for what happened to Quinn, blame the organization. If Phil Savage puts his fut down and identifies Quinn as “The guy” then there is no debate. Who knows how it would’ve played out.

The Bengals didn’t blink after John Kitna played well in 2002. Carson Palmer started in 2003 and Cincinnati didn’t look back.

This trade pans out well for the Browns, only because the state of the position was so deplorable.