TRENT: THE ALL-TIME #1

Lots of words written lately about the Browns’ recent quarterbacking history and our current prospects. How we could have had Kurt Warner in the 1999 expansion draft. How we should have drafted Tom Brady over Spurgeon Wynn when shopping for a QB prospect in 2000. How our assortment of #1 draft picks, former Pro Bowlers, Heisman Trophy winners, and Super Bowl champs has produced virtually nothing except more expectations for local boy Charlie Frye to step up in his second year, when many quarterbacks, indeed, do step up.
Is he good enough? Will he be? That got me to thinking about past quarterbacks who have won the Super Bowl. How good do you really need to be? And I realized that you could make a strong case that the three worst starting quarterbacks ever to have won the Super Bowl have all suited up for the Browns.
  1. Trent Dilfer
  2. Mark Rypien
  3. Jim McMahon.
And if you count only NFL stats, you might even add Lenny Dawson to the list. But for these three, as it happens, the more they played for the Browns, the worse career QB they happened to be.

Perhaps I am feeling bitter about Dilfer. I suppose I was suckered into rooting for him as a kind of underdog with a compelling personal story (which is one definition of pathetic). It turns out he was just another egomaniac jock who talked a good game for a while (team player, mature mentor, etc.) but really couldn’t hack it on the field, couldn’t handle getting benched, and couldn’t do right by Browns fans by just honoring his generous contract and playing a certain role on an ascendant team.

But is this list really fair to Rypien and McMahon? You would have to conclude that some other Lombardi-winning QB was a worse overall player. The candidates would be Doug Williams, Joe Namath, Jim Plunkett, and Jeff Hostetler, none of whom were blatantly poorer players than Rypien or McMahon, and all of whom had more interesting personal story lines attached to their Super Bowl appearance.

So there you have it. I think Charlie Frye will prove good enough to join those three and get his ring while wearing an orange helmet, rather than the blue star his hero-turned-mentor was forced to sport. But don’t worry, Trent, Frye won’t be bad enough to oust you from this particular #1 position. Barring another Big Ben brain cramp, you’ve got this one locked, no matter what Mo Carthon and the rest of the world might say.