When you’ve been blogging for nearly five years, there may come a time when it turns out that you were actually right about something.
Back on draft day, right after the Joe Thomas pick, I posted an item entitled “Round One Goes to Charlie,” in which I quoted Phil Savage’s previous votes of confidence in Frye. Obviously, that verdict proved premature. When the GM pulled off the first of his three Dallas draft day deals and landed Brady Quinn as well, I was supportive, although I wrote, “I can’t imagine Frye and Quinn co-existing for long.”
So I hereby extract that selected sentence to declare my prescience.
It’s a storyline that transcends football. In 2005, you had the makings of a classic rags-to-riches tale: the rural kid who didn’t have the eye-popping physical measurables or the stand-out stats. Settling for a mid-level area university whose program lacked both reputation and continuity, the fair-haired farmboy did apparently have that one quality you can’t teach: “it.” Those preferring brand-name descriptors arrived at “moxie.”
His lifelong favorite team chose him on the draft’s first day, immediately grooming him as the quarterback of the future, as the Browns’ new regime began a concerted push to stock up on local talent as part of its rebuilding effort.
Old hand Trent Dilfer, wearing #8, was the Browns’ eighth starting quarterback in seven years. By December of his rookie year, Frye, #9, became the ninth. Dilfer wanted out and got it. Frye was handed the starting reins from early in 2006, but the team’s sclerotic scheme, patchwork line, erratic receivers, and slow backfield left blame to spare when the team’s record backslid to its pre-purge .250 level. Still, where was all that moxie? Where was the upbeat music that movies of this type play when the hero starts to turn heads?
It all turned topsy-turvy:
- The guy who scouts said just made things happen instead was revealed as a dink-and-dunker who locked onto receivers, scrambled into sacks, and forced the ball where it wouldn’t fit.
- The ex-Zip who extended plays with his wheels got hurt and was replaced by a pocket-passing Beaver, who somehow won that game with the team’s longest run of the season.
- Frye’s bum wrist cost him 3 1/2 games, but it wouldn’t end his season. No, not when the alternative — once Derek Anderson’s shoulder gave way — was the pocket change received in the Dilfer trade, the much-maligned Ken Dorsey. They mustered just two field goals in losing to woeful Houston.
- The keys to the car, granted unconditionally before the season, were yanked and thrown up for grabs. Some handicappers thought DA had the reach; others felt Charlie had more “ups.” No one figured Dorsey for either. But what if they jangled onto the floor?
- Then came April 28. The Willard guy who, just two years ago, had been featured, along with his Bernie Kosar poster, in so many feel-good local-kid stories, watched the Browns giddily yield two high picks in order to give his job away. And to whom? Another Ohioan — suburban, telegenic, pro schooled at Big Name U — whose spotlighted slippage, complete with blonde hottie companion and cutaways to his pre-school Bernie jersey, become the top drama of the draft.
- Then the new offense. The brave front. The open competition. The Quinn holdout. The coin flip. The rotating series. The rookie’s sudden surge. The short starting leash dangled before Frye, game by game by game.
- And finally, the opener that became a closer. What of the mettle-forging adversity and much-vaunted increased mental toughness? After a full season as the unquestioned starter, Frye was yanked before halftime. He played with all the confidence you’d expect of someone whose successor had already been hired by his bosses (for more money up front than he’s earned to date) and been heralded rhythmically by the hometown crowd that had not so long ago once dressed up as fast food to celebrate his own delicious arrival.
- Then he was sent west, young man, whither Dilfer had whenced.
- Dumping Charlie made new room for the QB the Browns had wanted to keep but not field, not even for a meaningless season finale. That’s the “veteran mentor” Ken Dorsey, a full four months older than Frye and with 12 NFL games under his belt, compared to Frye’s 21.
An unsmiling Phil Savage told the press that Frye was “a good soldier all the way through,” but ultimately the production was lacking. Took too many sacks. Two-plus years into developing a guy they were glad to get in the third round, they were glad to discard for a future sixth. Luke McCown, hell, even Spergeon Wynn yielded a better return.
And when Tony Grossi asked what the experience level of the remaining QBs said about the team’s immediate prospects, Savage snipped: “Our team is serious about winning. Some people think we’re doing some kind of experiment up here, but we’re not. We are trying to win.”
Glad for that clarification. But then not five minutes later, the GM quoth: “We develop Brady Quinn in the right way: that is the most important thing that we have to do this year, and that’s what we’re attempting to try to do. And win.”
The Browns don’t want to do to Quinn what they did to Tim Couch. And now Charlie Frye.
So when the Seattle Seahawks fly into town Nov. 4, the first home game after the bye week, the Willard boy will witness how well the Browns have accomplished their “most important thing.” And win.
