The Sunday Five: Browns Fans Show Faith in McCoy, but Not Hardesty

In this week's edition of "The Sunday Five" we take a look at the outcome of how our members voted in polls, including whether the Browns should deal Colt McCoy, if fans still have faith in Montario Hardesty, and who the team's starting fullback should be.

Let's recap some of the results of the polls we ran this past week in our position previews for training camp. The first question was, "If the Browns were offered a 5th round pick in the 2013 NFL Draft for Colt McCoy, should they make the trade?" Only 35% of the voters would trade McCoy for a fifth-round pick; the other 65% would rather retain him as a backup. I would fall in the category who would make that trade. If Brandon Weeden gets hurt, McCoy has not shown me enough in all of his starts to make me think, "man, this guy gives us a much better chance at winning than Wallace." It would also give the coaching staff a chance to see more of what Thaddeus Lewis has to offer. In St. Louis, fans thought Lewis was capable of being the team's backup quarterback to Sam Bradford, so he may not be your typical "fourth guy on the depth chart." Cleveland would net a fifth-round pick, which is only a two-round drop for a quarterback who won't be a starter in Cleveland, but could receive an opportunity elsewhere in an injury situation.

For running backs, there really wasn't a good poll question to ask about Trent Richardson since he is the clear starter. The juicy information involves the backups, which is why I asked the following question: "If the Browns only kept one player between Montario Hardesty and Brandon Jackson, who should they KEEP?" 88% of the voters preferred to keep Jackson on the roster, while only 12% preferred to keep Hardesty. I was pretty surprised by the results of the poll. While I would also take Jackson over Hardesty right now, I did not expect so many people to be in favor of Jackson by such a large margin. As I discussed in my write-up, I don't think the club will have to make that decision. Unless Hardesty looks very poor in training camp, there's no harm in keeping him around on a cheap contract, and he can probably pound it inside better than Jackson.

Sticking with the running back position, I asked the following question: "Will Chris Ogbonnaya make the 53-man roster? If so, choose the appropriate answer for the reason." 71% of the voters believe that Ogbonnaya will make the 53-man roster, while 29% thinks he will not make the roster. Of the people who think he will make the roster, 63% of people thinks it will be because he beats out Hardesty, who will be cut; the other 37% think the team will end up carrying four running backs. Taking both polls into consideration, it sounds a good amount of fans are ready to move on from Hardesty. That's not to say we won't root for the guy -- if he can suddenly flip the switch and be the guy Tom Heckert hoped he was drafting, it's a nice bonus.

Last up on our review of the polls involves the fullback position, where I asked the following question: "Who do you think will be the Cleveland Browns' primary blocking fullback for Trent Richardson this season?" 52% of fans think Owen Marecic will be the primary blocking fullback, while 48% of fans think it will be Brad Smelley. My prediction was that Marecic will be the guy paving the way for Richardson, because I can't imagine them tossing their fourth-round pick from a year ago aside for a guy who wasn't a full-time fullback in college. If Smelley starts, there is no need to keep Marecic. If Marecic starts, you can keep Smelley and use him in a versatile role.

Thanks to everyone who sent in questions for Saturday's first-ever edition of the DBN Mailbag. If anyone wants to design a nifty-looking weekly graphic I can use for the feature, feel free to share it in the comments section. Also, remember to send your questions in early and often to pokorny@pfcritics.com. In other site news, later today, we'll start focusing on the defensive line position for training camp previews.