Rest easy, the Browns lead the league in NFL starting quarterback candidates

I can't remember who said it, but as somebody once said: "If you have six quarterbacks, you have no quarterbacks." Come to think of it, I believe it was Hue Jackson who said that. Whatever. It doesn't matter now, except that it does matter now. It matters now because the Browns have six, count 'em, SIX quarterbacks listed on their roster. Not one, not two, not three, not four, (hold on, I'm catching my breath), not five, but six alleged quarterbacks. Five, if you count Deshaun Watson. Here is a fun party game you can play the next time you attend a Browns Backers function: If you added up the uniform numbers of all six of the Browns' quarterbacks, what would that number be? Give up? Thought so. That number would be 47, or 51 if you count Deshaun Watson. Friday night, the Browns, and their battalion of quarterbacks — or maybe they only brought half the battalion, it's hard to tell from this distance — were at Bank of America Stadium in North Carolina, to play a pre-season game against the Carolina Panthers. On paper, the game figured to be too close to call, given that the teams' combined record last year was 8-26. Did the Browns have all six of their quarterbacks with them? Maybe, maybe not. But assuming the gang was all there — most of them, anyway — as a public service, here are the names and uniform numbers of all the Browns' quarterbacks (so far): Joe Flacco-15; Dillon Gabriel-5, Tyler Huntley-7, Kenny Pickett-8, Shedeur Sanders-12, Deshaun Watson-4. Add up all those uniform numbers and the total comes to 51, which, ironically, or perhaps not so ironically, was the uniform number the late, great Hall of Famer Dick Butkus wore all by himself during his playing days with the Chicago Bears. However, many were there in Carolina on Friday night, the Browns' fleet of quarterbacks were, to put it mildly, on the numerous side. It seems unlikely, and because these are the Browns, almost everything is unlikely — that Cleveland will carry six so-called quarterbacks with them to every game. But, as history has told us, these are the Browns, so one never knows. After years of not having a quarterback worth his clipboard, now the Browns have too many — too many quarterbacks, that is, not clipboards. As any NFL equipment manager will tell you, quarterbacks come and go, but you can never have enough clipboards. To that end, the Browns began their preseason Friday night stocked to the gills with quarterbacks, clipboards and question marks. In other words, it's business as usual. As is the norm with most NFL teams that only won three games last year, the Browns have not officially anointed a starting quarterback for this year. Not yet, anyway. But that's not for a lack of candidates. The Fighting Stefanskis are kicking butt in the quarterback inventory race. Did I mention that they have six, count 'em SIX candidates for the job (five if you don't count Deshaun Watson)? So they've got that going for them! Friday night's game against the Panthers was the first chance for the Browns' staff to begin gauging how close anyone in this year's Browns' stable of quarterbacks measures up to, oh, well — let's just throw it out there: Patrick Mahomes. Hey, you never know until you get it on film! Speaking of film, the Browns have plenty of that on Super Joe Flacco, who saved Cleveland's season two years ago, then was summarily thrown out onto the street by the team before he had taken his uniform off after the last game. Arguably the most popular Browns quarterback since Bernie Kosar, Flacco showed more class, certainly far more class than the Browns deserved, in agreeing to come back this year to potentially reprise his season-saving role for a team that seems to be perpetually lost in the woods. Indeed, Flacco's "break glass in case of an emergency" persona is exactly what's needed for a team whose games too often degenerate into one long, 60-minute, glass-breaking emergency, a.k.a, the Browns being the Browns. Ironically, the best role for Flacco is the one he played two years ago, when the city of Cleveland was crazy-go-nuts euphoric over his leading the Browns to a crucial late-season victory over the Jets that paved the way to the Browns reaching the playoffs. In truth, however, an argument could be made that Flacco should be the Browns' starting quarterback this year, so that all the understudies in the quarterback room can watch and learn how and what it takes to become a quality NFL quarterback. To accentuate the point, Stefanski should order Flacco to wear his Super Bowl ring, not just into the quarterback room every day, but into the huddle during games. Hey, these are desperate times for a desperate team. Contact Jim Ingraham at jingraham4@gmail.com.