The Cleveland Browns severed another link to the Randy Lerner & Mike Holmgren era on Monday, trading third-string quarterback Colt McCoy to the San Francisco 49ers.
Along with McCoy the Browns threw in their sixth-round selection (173rd) in this month’s NFL Draft. In return they get San Francisco’s fifth- and seventh-round draft picks (numbers 164 and 227, for those of you keeping score at home).
Even by Cleveland standards, McCoy’s story was a strange one.
Drafted in the third round of the 2010 draft after a highly successful career at Texas and because Holmgren saw something in him, McCoy was slated to sit on the bench his rookie year and learn the NFL game. That all fell apart when Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace were sidelined with high ankle sprains – the injury of the year in 2010 for the Browns.
After not embarrassing himself in his first NFL start in Pittsburgh, McCoy improbably led the Browns to wins over New Orleans and New England. In the process McCoy led people who should know better to believe that not only did the Browns have an actual NFL quarterback, but also an NFL head coach in Eric Mangini. (A 2-6 finish to the season cleared up those misconceptions about Mangini; it would take another year for the same to happen to McCoy).
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