Picking Dorial Green-Beckham would show the Cleveland Browns are still a joke

So you’re football team has gone through a rough patch. You recently found out that your marquee wide receiver – the guy who was suspended for ten games last year – is in trouble again for violating the NFL Drug Policy. And both of your first round picks from 2014 have problems. The quarterback is still in rehab per Mary Kay Cabot of Browns.com, while the cornerback, according to your GM via Scott Petrak of the Chronicle-Telegram,  was bad last year because of ‘very personal issues.’ The week before he said he needed to grow up.

You know what you don’t under any circumstances do?

Draft another guy with issues off the field.

So one would hope that the Browns are not seriously thinking about adding Dorial Green-Beckham to their team.

We get why the media will ask fans if they want him. On the field there is a lot to like.

He’s got the height, weight and speed to make scouts drool. Green-Beckham is a smooth runner who accelerates quickly and has a second gear for after the catch. He has excellent hands, adjusts well to throws and has outstanding body control. While he does struggle against press-coverage, he can get stronger in an NFL weight room while not sacrificing speed or flexibility.

The problem with Dorial Green-Beckham isn’t on the field. It’s off the field.

He was arrested in 2012 along with Torey Boozer and Levi Copelin for being in possession of 35 grams of pot (along with two other players who were not arrested or named) and was suspended by Missouri for the next game (along with the other four players). On January 10, 2014 he was again arrested on a marijuana charge, though he was then released.

In April of that same year, ESPN reported that Green-Beckham was kicked off the team for the drug-related issues and an incident in which he allegedly forced open an apartment door and pushed an 18-year-old woman down several stairs, though he was not charged for that.

For Cleveland though, no matter what he says, Dorial Green-Beckham should be kept at arm’s length.

Listen, teams will talk to Green-Beckham and decide whether or not he’s learned his lesson, just as they will with dozens of other players both known (Jameis Winston) and unknown.

For Cleveland though, no matter what he says, Dorial Green-Beckham should be kept at arm’s length.

This team has already burned through whatever honeymoon period it had with its fans with all the mess from last season. They seem to have put together a culture of enabling players and their worst instincts. Maybe that’s not the case, but it’s what seems like the reality from the outside looking in.

It’s hard not to buy into, right? You’re looking at a team which claims it didn’t know about Johnny Manziel’s partying and personal life prior to the draft.

As Frank Schwab of Yahoo says in that article ‘Either Haslam is lying or the Browns are the worst organization in sports.’

Neither of those things are good, but either way the organization just looks stupid when they do things like that and it costs them trust from their fans.

Meanwhile it certainly seems like the inmates are running the asylum on Cleveland, as they let themselves be burned repeatedly by Josh Gordon and somehow overlooked issues with both Manziel and Josh Gilbert.

Does this seem like the right environment for Green-Beckham?

I mean, he might like it since it seems they have a high tolerance for dope-related shenanigans, but if he’s going to reach his potential, he needs a firmer grip.

Which is really the reality for the players already in Cleveland, though it seems as if they haven’t seen that yet.

Selecting Green-Beckham with all his off-field issues and red flags may not be the worst choice ever, but it would appear to be. I can only imagine the Cleveland Browns fanbase setting things on fire (well, message boards at least) over the pick.

On top of that, it’s hard not to think that the pick itself would end in disaster, as the Gordon pick has and as the Manziel and Gilbert picks appear to be.

Cleveland has a solid group of players. They have holes, they need to keep adding talent, but at its base, the Browns have a good foundation. If they do so wisely, people will start taking them seriously. They almost did last season and that was with Brian Hoyer at the helm.

If they take Green-Beckham in the 2015 NFL draft though, it’s going to look like the same ill-conceived plans (or lack thereof) which has left them with those holes to begin with.

It will be the same old Cleveland Browns, same old sad-sack team in a tough division.

Same old Factory of Sadness.

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