NFL: Brown Players Wishing For Bridgewater?

Browns players -- they're just like us! How do we know? Because one anonymous Cleveland football player is curious what the Browns would look like if they had Teddy Bridgewater instead of Johnny Manziel.

Recalling a conversation following Manziel's first start in the Browns-Bengals game, an anonymous Browns player told Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report he questioned to a teammate at the time what life would be like with Teddy.


"Think about where we'd be now," the player told Freeman he said at the time. "If we had drafted Teddy Bridgewater."

This isn't uncommon. In writing about the Browns' reported interest in drafting Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota, we pointed out how Cleveland completely ignored an expensive study -- and common sense -- in favor of listening to a homeless guy by passing on Bridgewater for Manziel.

Cleveland taking Bridgewater wouldn't have been a weird thing at all. Of course, Cleveland also could've taken Odell Beckham, Jr., too. Call it revisionist history all you want but even after trading down with the Bills in the Sammy Watkins deal, Cleveland was in need of a receiver (knowing Josh Gordon faced a suspension).

Snagging Beckham (the best receiver on the board when they were on the clock) and pairing him with Bridgewater? Woo boy things would be different in Cleveland today. Less draft-day ticket sales, sure, but the end product would've been substantially better and might've even resulted in a playoff berth.

Instead a miserable end to the season happened, along with a 7-9 record and an offseason full of questions about the future of this franchise once again.

You definitely don't need to be an anonymous Browns player to wonder "what if?" when it comes to the 2014 NFL Draft.

Topics: Johnny Manziel, Odell Beckham, Sammy Watkins, Teddy Bridgewater, NFL Draft, Will Brinson, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, NFL