The Cleveland Browns quarterback carousel continued to spin last week as they traded last year’s second round pick DeShone Kizer.  Green Bay acquired Kizer, and swapped fourth and fifth round picks in exchange for corner Damarious Randall.  Seems like quite a bargain for an top two round caliber quarterback.  Kizer was not without his detractors coming out of college.  Many believed that he should have stayed in school at least one more year to hone his craft.  He didn’t do much to change that thought process during his rookie year, throwing only 11 touchdowns with 22 interceptions.  It’s tough to judge any rookie quarterback, let alone one who played for as miserable team as the 0-16 Cleveland Browns.  Not many quarterbacks already in the NFL could have been successful on that team.

What we do know about Deshone Kizer is he’s a big quarterback (6’4″ 233lbs), with a very big arm.  This is a player who threw for nearly 3,000 yards, and had a 26/9 touchdown to interception ratio in his final year at Notre Dame.  Talent is not in short supply with this player.  What many around the league think Kizer needed was to sit behind a veteran starter for a year or two before becoming a starter.  If that’s the case, Pittsburgh is as good a place as any for him to land.

Yes, we’ve all heard Ben Roethlisberger now wants to play three more years.  What if he changes his mind again?  What if Ben gets hurt?  Why not have the next guy in-house just in case?  Opportunities like this don’t come around very often.  Cleveland took a quarterback in the second round last year, now they have a chance to take a “better” one this year with the first pick.  That makes them willing to trade a player most teams would never move.  Green Bay is in a very similar situation as the Steelers are, and they jumped at the chance.  Both teams have aging super-star quarterbacks, but now the Packers may have their next guy.  It’s a very real possibility that in three years Kizer is winning games in Green Bay, while the Steelers are still searching for the heir apparent to Roethlisberger.