Cleveland Browns co-owner Jimmy Haslam made it perfectly clear, at least for now, his stance on drafting Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning.
Speculation began last week when Fox Sports host Colin Cowherd indicated that he thought Haslam would pursue Nick Saban as the Browns next head coach and draft Manning next year also.
Well, Haslam ended all that speculation at least for now, on Tuesday.
“I think if you know the Manning family, I would bet that — and I don’t know Arch at all — I would bet he stays in college two years,” Haslam said. “So, I don’t even really think that’s worth discussing.”
Haslam also made it clear that he did not make the decision to draft Shedur Sanders; that was general manager Andrew Berry’s call, not his.
“If you’d have told me … Friday night driving home, y’all are going to pick Shedeur, I would have said, ‘That’s not happening.’ But we had a conversation early that morning and we had a conversation later that day. I think we had the right people involved in the conversation. At the end of the day, that’s Andrew Berry’s call. Andrew made the call to pick Shedeur.”
Haslam seems to be willing to give Sanders and Dillion Gabriel a chance to win the quarterback position on the team this year and put the idea of the team drafting Manning at least for now, out of the minds of Brown fans.
Doesn’t mean it won’t happen, just means Haslam won’t be pulling that trigger for now. So it looks like Dillion and Sanders will fight it out this season for the startingbackup role for the Browns, but don’t be shocked if that Arch Manning door opens again, especially if Manning decides to come out next year and the Dillion/Sanders experiment fails.
