Cleveland Browns Free Agent Review: QB Tyrod Taylor

With free agency approaching on March 13th, it’s time to take a closer look at all of the Browns’ unrestricted free agents, starting with QB Tyrod Taylor.

Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

How and When He Joined the Browns: The Browns acquired Taylor via a trade with the Buffalo Bills last offseason, agreeing to terms just before the start of free agency. Cleveland gave the Bills a third round pick and took on Taylor’s $16 million cap hit for 2018.

Productivity Level Last Season: Last season, Taylor was named the team’s starting quarterback right away, even with the team later selecting QB Baker Mayfield with the first overall pick. Hue Jackson stuck with that decision throughout all of training camp and into the start of the regular season. It wasn’t too controversial of a decision, as it was believed that Taylor would be pretty effective as Cleveland’s top quarterback, to the point where he could boost his stock for another team to consider him in 2019.

And then...the regular season happened. Taylor started the team’s first three games, but was completing less than half his passes and had 2 touchdowns to 2 interceptions. The best part of his game remained his running ability, but that also helped lead to him suffering a concussion in prime time of Week 3’s game against the Jets. That paved the way for Mayfield to take over, win the game, and never look back.

Why Keeping Him Could Make Sense: The Browns do have QB Drew Stanton on the roster, but it does not seem likely the team could win any games with him if he were thrust into the starting lineup. If Mayfield were to get hurt, Taylor would still be a respectable starter to have — he proved in Buffalo that he was much better than his shaky start under Hue Jackson.

What the Browns Should Do: Let him go. Taylor may still be considered a low-level starting quarterback and will be looking to get paid as such. I was turned off by how his game was as a Brown — too many sacks and not staying with his progressions before taking off.

If Taylor was happy being a backup at this point of his career, then I would talk a little more seriously about Cleveland trying to retain him. Jacksonville might test the waters on him, and a contending team like the Saints might also be intrigued in him being an insurance policy.

Let us know below whether or not the team should try to re-sign Tyrod Taylor!