The jersey is Cleveland sports and internet legend. Twenty-three names cascading far below a crossed-out COUCH on a Cleveland Browns No2 road white. Each piece of tape listing the name of some poor sap the Browns organization has started at quarterback since the team relaunched in Cleveland in 1999 and drafted Tim Couch No1 overall.

Detmer. Wynn. Pederson. Holcomb. The names go on and on and on and get ever-more depressing. Come September, it’s likely a new piece of tape will be added with GRIFFIN III on it, giving the jersey a total of 25 names and putting the (temporary) bottom of the list just inches from dragging on the ground, well on the way to eclipsing the length of Princess Kate’s wedding gown train.

The takeaway from seeing the sad piece of creatively-tailored sports art is clear: the Browns are terrible because they are incapable of finding a franchise quarterback. But like most memes, the truth isn’t as simple as it’s presented. In fact, Cleveland’s quarterback situation isn’t even its top problem. Cleveland’s problems are so many, they can’t be captured on just one jersey – 53 jerseys, maybe.

The 2015 season proved again that NFL teams can win, even championships, without a top-tier quarterback. A simply somewhat effective offense works just fine as long as it shares a locker room with a ferocious defense. And not to get too far afield by redebating the abilities of 2015 Peyton Manning, but: yes, the Broncos did win Super Bowl 50 with their worst player under center. Manning’s quarterback rating this past season, in both the regular season and the playoffs when he was supposedly healthy, is below the career rating of one Brandon Weeden, the guy the Browns drafted in the first round when he was 28. The football punchline who started his NFL career by getting trapped under a flag.

But that’s the very point. The Broncos won the Super Bowl in dominating fashion despite getting sub-Weeden play at quarterback, while Cleveland’s 2015 primary quarterback, Josh McCown, actually put up numbers good enough to finish in the top-half of all quarterbacks. Instead of lifting the Lombardi Trophy, the Browns finished 3-13, fired their coach, released their most recent first-round quarterback and are picking No2 overall in the draft.

With that No2 overall pick, the Browns are projected by many to take still another quarterback, making Jared Goff or Carson Wentz the franchise’s latest attempt for a single-shot franchise savior. But the Browns aren’t one guy away from turning the franchise around. They haven’t been for 17 years. The Browns keep trying to land the next Tom Brady or (vintage) Peyton Manning, thinking all will be well and good from then on, but Brady or Manning would’ve been failures in Cleveland, too, because the real problem isn’t at quarterback.

The problem is everyone and everything around the quarterback. Jeff Garcia won a playoff game with the 49ers. Jake Delhomme almost won a Super Bowl with the Panthers. Trent Dilfer is the patron saint of the “bad QBs can win Super Bowls” argument. The Browns had them all and lost with them all because they are the Browns and not the 49ers, Panthers or Ravens.

In the 17 years since Browns football has been back in business, the team has had the league’s 21st ranked defense, or worse, 12 times. Only twice have the new Browns been even ranked higher than 15th, their best-ever unit finishing No9 overall in 2013. After starting a somewhat respectable 4-5, those 2013 Browns lost their final seven games while giving up an average of 29 points per game. What a fearsome and historic defense!

If the list of Browns quarterbacks is unbelievably long, the list of modern Browns defensive stars is as bafflingly short. There’s cornerback Joe Haden. He’s had some good years. And then there was ... uhh ... Shaun Rogers maybe? The most memorable Browns defense play in 17 years might just be when punter Spencer Lanning slowed Antonio Brown down a little bit by positioning his face under Brown’s cleat.

It’s hard to uncover a franchise quarterback at the top of a draft, but teams regularly find defensive stars early. Yet the Browns have used first-round picks on the likes of Courtney Brown, Phil Taylor, Barkevious Mingo and Justin Gilbert, failed selections all. Their 2015 first rounder, defensive tackle Danny Shelton, totaled 19 tackles and zero sacks in his rookie season. If the Browns had hit on all those picks, or just most of them, their fortunes would have been very different – as would those of the QBs they drafted (although Johnny Manziel’s off-field problems mean he is a liability no matter who he plays alongside). Every organization, even the Broncos and Patriots and Steelers of the world, have draft misses. But the Browns almost always miss. And at every position.

If the Browns somehow land their Brady, what tools would he have at his disposal? Cleveland’s most recent offensive skill position player taken in the first round – excluding Manziel and Weeden – was Trent Richardson No3 overall in 2012, a running back so bad that he is mocked as much as historic QB busts. Whoops. Travis Benjamin, their leading wide receiver this year, has left for the Chargers as a free agent and Cleveland released Dwayne Bowe after paying him $9m last season for five catches and 53 yards.

Their top pass-catcher was 30 year-old career backup tight end Gary Barnidge almost by accident. Even when Cleveland hit on a skilled player in nabbing Josh Gordon in the 2012 supplemental draft, they lost him to drug suspension. What quarterback is going to descend onto a Browns team with no defense or skill position players – same as it has been since 1999 – and save the day? Certainly not RG3 or a rookie fresh out of Cal or North Dakota State.

Browns fans want, and even deserve, a savior after all these years of misery. But unfortunately there is no quick fix. Cleveland don’t need a quarterback. They need an everything. Every position, including – and especially – in the front office. Their best bet might be to build the most boring team they can – one that can simply block and tackle well. The last piece, not the first piece, should be a quarterback. Not a quarterback to save the day. Not what they’ve been looking for for decades. Just a capable guy who won’t mess it all up. Even a few of the names on that infamous jersey could work.

The Browns have 99 problems. A quarterback is just one.



