CLEVELAND — Well, at least that’s over. And Lordy, Lordy the Cleveland Browns hit 40.
Much hay is being made about the fact that by appearing in the mercifully final outing of the season yesterday, Bailey Zappe became the 40th quarterback to start a game since the franchise returned in 1999.
A depressingly remarkable feat, to be sure, especially when you consider that the NFL team with the second most starting QBs during that same time period was the Chicago Bears at 30 starters. Not even close! That works out to the Browns having 25% more organizational dysfunction than our closest rival. We’re just on another level.
And of course everyone is obviously busting our beans on The Social about this and saying how pathetic we are. More locals than outsiders, as is usually the case, because if we couldn’t laugh at ourselves we’d have all gone mad many quarterbacks ago.
I get all the razzing, of course. It’s well deserved. But I do take issue with the way that everyone just keeps lumping the 40 quarterbacks together as “the 40 quarterbacks” as if they weren’t individual human beings. They’re more than just a funny, absurdly high round number. These are people. And they have names. And now, to honor the legacy of The 40, I will speak those names.
Tim Couch, Ty Detmer, Doug Pederson, Spergon Wynn, Kelly Holcomb, Jeff Garcia, Luke McCown, Trent Dilfer, Charlie Frye, Derek Anderson, Brady Quinn, Ken Dorsey, Bruce Gradkowski, Colt McCoy, Jake Delhomme, Seneca Wallace, Brandon Weeden, Thad Lewis, Jason Campbell, Brian Hoyer, Johnny Manziel, Connor Shaw, Josh McCown, Austin Davis, Cody Kessler, Robert Griffin III, Deshone Kizer, Kevin Hogan, Baker Mayfield, Tyrod Taylor, Case Keenum, Nick Mullens, Jacoby Brissett, Deshaun Watson, Joe Flacco, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, P.J. Walker, Jeff Driskel, Jameis Winston, Bailey Zappe.
A fraternity of men, forever united by one commonality: They all started at Quarterback for the Browns at some point and in one way or another, it did not work out. Thank you for your service gentlemen.