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Phil Taylor Another Cleveland Browns Draft Bust

By Zac Wassink

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Eight players were selected by the Cleveland Browns at the 2011 National Football League Draft. The last man standing among that group received his marching orders from the Browns on Tuesday.

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The Browns announced on the first day of September that the club had terminated the contract of former first-round draft pick Phil Taylor. Taylor was, at the start of training camp, the final player still employed by the franchise among those taken by the Browns during the 2011 NFL Draft. Defensive end Jabaal Sheard is now a member of the New England Patriots. Wide receiver Greg Little is attempting to save his career with the Cincinnati Bengals. Jordan Cameron is a tight end for the Miami Dolphins, and cornerback Buster Skrine is with the New York Jets.

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Three others are currently out of the NFL. Fullback Owen Marecic, offensive tackle Jason Pinkston and safety Erik Hagg have all retired.

Taylor’s Cleveland career began brightly. He started at nose tackle in all 16 regular season games during his rookie campaign, and Taylor was widely praised for his ability to stop the run. 2011 would, however, be the only time that Taylor would play in 16 games in a season. He appeared in only eight contests in 2012, an injury-plagued year for Taylor. Taylor underwent season-ending surgery in November 2014 after playing in only five games, and it was Taylor’s inability to return to form following that surgery that made it easy for the Browns to cut ties with the player.

Taylor will now be remembered by fans of the Browns as being a component of what was one of the worst trades in franchise history. Cleveland possessed the rights to the No. 6 overall pick of the 2011, a selection that was dealt to the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons selected wide receiver Julio Jones, a stud at the position who has, unlike Josh Gordon of the Browns, remained out of trouble and off of suspension lists. Atlanta recently gave Jones a contract extension that could be worth around $71 million.

The Browns now literally have nothing left from that deal. Along with Taylor, who was selected with the No. 21 pick of the 2011 NFL Draft, the Browns used picks acquired in the trade with Atlanta to draft previously-mentioned players Marecic and Little. That transaction involving Cleveland and Atlanta also played a part in the Browns drafting quarterback Brandon Weeden, who is currently serving as a backup quarterback with the Dallas Cowboys.

But wait. There’s more.

The Browns exercised the fifth-year option on Taylor in 2014 well before he suffered the knee injury that was to be the beginning of the end of his Cleveland career. Had the Browns cut Taylor before March 10 of this year, the team would not have been on the hook for $5.477 million guaranteed to the player. Not only did that not occur. The Browns then drafted defensive tackles Danny Shelton and Xavier Cooper, replacements for a former starter up front on the defensive end of the football, roughly seven weeks after that March 10 deadline, a sign that Taylor’s future with the club was uncertain.

But wait. There’s more.

It is common knowledge among NFL fans that the Browns could have grabbed a superstar wide receiver in the 2011 NFL Draft. Had the Browns not traded down that spring, Cleveland would have been able to acquire a defensive end out of the University of Wisconsin known as J.J. Watt. Watt has, of course, become arguably the best defensive player in the NFL and one of the best overall players in pro football while serving as a cornerstone for the Houston Texans. The Texans rewarded Watt this past offseason with a six-year extension that could be valued at $100 million.

But wait. There’s more.

The Browns could have used the Taylor draft pick to overdraft a quarterback. Both Andy Dalton and Colin Kaepernick went off of the board early into the second round of the 2011 draft. Dalton has failed to win a playoff game with the Cincinnati Bengals, and Kaepernick has had ups-and-downs playing under center for the San Francisco 49ers. Either one of those QBs would nevertheless be above veteran journeyman Josh McCown and second-year player Johnny Manziel on the current depth chart of the Browns.

But wait. There’s more.

In order to select Taylor following the trade with the Falcons, the Browns had to move up later on in the first round of the 2011 NFL Draft. Cleveland found a partner in the Kansas City Chiefs, and part of that deal involved the Chiefs acquiring the No. 70 pick. Kansas City used that pick to take defensive end Justin Houston, who had first-round talent but who dropped into the third round because of character concerns. Houston had 10 sacks in 2012, he finished the 2013 campaign with 11 sacks, and he led the NFL in quarterback takedowns in 2014 with 22 sacks.

The Browns selecting running back Trent Richardson also links back to the 2011 NFL Draft, but Cleveland football fans have probably had more than enough at this point.

Not even the biggest cynic out there can blame the current Cleveland regime for Taylor being another Browns draft bust. Neither general manager Ray Farmer nor head coach Mike Pettine had any say on what the Browns did back in the spring of 2011. Taylor being a flop is a different twist of a knife into the side of an emotionally-battered fan base that has suffered through losing season after losing season since the team returned to the NFL in 1999 because of what could have been for the Browns: Julio Jones. J.J. Watt. A potential franchise quarterback.

No wonder so many fans of the Browns are giving up on cornerback Justin Gilbert and quarterback Johnny Manziel after one year.

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