Cleveland’s Costly Miss - They Said No to a Franchise-Changing MVP
The Cleveland Browns once had a future NFL MVP keen to turn their fortunes around, and instead, they passed on him in the draft despite having two first-round picks.
The NFL is never that simple, and hindsight is a wonderful thing. But when considering the Cleveland Browns‘ track record, it seems inevitable that they would pick the wrong player.
Head coach Kevin Stefanski was a breath of fresh air for the Browns when he joined in 2020, with two playoff finishes in his first four seasons.
However, some critical decisions from Browns GM Andrew Berry, most importantly the decision to hand Deshaun Watson the largest guaranteed QB contract in NFL history, have proved disastrous.
Berry was not the man responsible for passing on the future NFL MVP, but his decision-making has followed suit. The Browns had two first-round picks in 2018 and took Baker Mayfield and Myles Garrett, and actually passed on two future MVPs!
Josh Allen wanted to ‘be the guy who turns around the Cleveland Browns’, they drafted Baker Mayfield instead
Former Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen, now the franchise quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, once said he would be ‘fortunate’ to be on the Cleveland Browns.
Allen was passed on by two teams taking a quarterback before the Bills took him at seven: the Cleveland Browns and the New York Jets.
The Jets took Sam Darnold, who is now with the Seattle Seahawks after a career renaissance in Minnesota last season, while the Browns took Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield.
Speaking with CBS in 2018 ahead of the NFL Draft, Allen had said: “If I’m fortunate enough to become a Cleveland Brown, you can expect everything from me.
“I want to be the guy that turns around the Cleveland Browns. The guy that does that is going to be immortalized in Cleveland forever.”
The Browns’ era with Baker Mayfield showed strong signs of promise before Andrew Berry decided to trade for Deshaun Watson in 2022, tanking their relationship.
Mayfield saw his career go downhill after he was traded to the Carolina Panthers, only for an elite comeback with the Rams to make him a hot commodity once again.
It’s also important to note that John Dorsey also passed on Lamar Jackson, the two-time NFL MVP, who was taken by their AFC North division rivals, the Baltimore Ravens.
Mayfield and Allen led game-winning drives in Week One of 2025 NFL season, Browns stuck with veteran QB
With all due respect to Super Bowl winner Joe Flacco, who the Ravens moved on from after taking Jackson, he is clearly not the Browns’ franchise quarterback.
Yet it is Flacco who finds himself as the Browns’ QB1 after a bizarre five-way battle in the offseason, now cut down to three after Kenny Pickett was traded and Tyler Huntley was cut.
If there was anything to show how wrong the Browns were about not taking Allen, and also moving on from Mayfield, it was how they played in NFL Week One.
Josh Allen showed exactly why he is the reigning NFL MVP in a stunning 15-point comeback against the Ravens, while Mayfield led another game-winning drive against the Atlanta Falcons.
Mayfield and rookie Emeka Egbuka connected on a 25-yard touchdown pass in answer to a dramatic late Michael Penix touchdown, cool, calm, and collected in the face of pressure once again.
The fact that the Browns are just hoping that either Dillon Gabriel or Shedeur Sanders turns into their franchise quarterback says it all about the comparative situations.
Packers’ Colby Wooden Fires Back at Critics After Dominant Run Defense Performance
Micah Parsons, a contrarian opinion had taken hold, too–the Packers defense would get chewed up in the running game.Three days before the Packers were to play the Detroit Lions in their 2025 opener, defensive lineman Colby Wooden got a phone call. It was his father. While much attention had been foisted on the Packers in recent days after the stunning trade for pass-rusher
The Packers had to trade away stalwart defensive lineman Kenny Clark to acquire Parsons, and the feeling was, that would be costly in the team’s efforts to handle the run. Detroit, after all, rushed for 2,488 yards last season, sixth in the NFL. Without Clark, surely the Packers would be in trouble.
Wooden, who is helping replace Clark in the middle, took the call from his dad, who said, “Do me a favor, shut ‘em up.”
And he, along with the entire Packers defensive front, did just that, holding the Lions to 46 yards on 22 carries, their lowest rushing output since Week 6 in 2023. Wooden, Devonte Wyatt and Karl Brooks held the line admirably in the middle all day for the Packers.
Colby Wooden: ‘I Took That Personal’
Wooden, for one, was insulted by the questions about the team’s inability to hold against the run.
“I for sure took that personal …” Wooden said. “So I just, did my job, went out there, stopped the run. I took it personal. Honestly, I felt like it was kinda disrespectful, like, ‘Oh, they gonna run the ball.’ So I made it my mission—we, excuse me—we made it our mission to shut them down.”
That’s not easy to do against the combo of Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery, nicknamed Sonic and Knuckles.
“We know what they want to do,” Wooden said. “Last year, they wanted to run. They call them Sonic and Knuckles, or whatever. They want to run them 30 times. So we know they want to run that ball. We’ve got to do our job to stop the run so they can get back and let (Parsons) go get them.”
Packers Filling Roles With Micah Parsons on Board
Wooden said the effect of having Parsons on the field was obvious, and it works both ways. When offenses focus on corralling Parsons, the other Packers must step up.
“Everybody’s got a job to do, everybody got a role,” Wooden said. “Everybody’s got to buy into their role. We know what attention and what he comes with. And we know we got to stop that run, go help him out, if he is getting is getting chipped, doubled or whatever, now it’s somebody else’s turn to win their one-on-one.”
Packers Have Commanders Next
And despite the obviously encouraging results, Wooden is not getting ahead of himself. The Commanders will be next on the docket, with fearsome young quarterback Jayden Daniels on hand.
“It’s just one week,” Wooden said. “It’s Week 1. It’s great to start off with a win, dominate. But we’ve got to keep it going. We got a good team coming here on Thursday, we know we got to be ready to stop that run and contain that quarterback. So we just gotta keep going, keep getting better, keep jelling.”
