Can Cody Kessler Become a Legitimate NFL Starter with the Cleveland Browns?

The Cleveland Browns are facing an identity crisis at quarterback. Or just a crisis. Take your pick.

I’ll optimistically go with the first form of crisis there, and please note that lingering questions with the draft still fresh might not be such an awful thing. Because at this point, there are no bad ideas at quarterback for a team that hasn't sniffed playoff football since 2002.

Let’s not dwell on the past, though, because these are the new Browns. Yes, the new Browns, a team with analytics as its sacred guiding light, the front office presence of a man known for his role in a baseball revolution, quarterback whisperer Hue Jackson as the new head coach and…Cody Kessler?

How much you want to believe Kessler has a legitimate shot at being the Browns’ Week 1 starting quarterback and, more importantly, their long-term pivot beyond that depends on how much you believe anything here in early May.

We’re only a few days removed from the moment when Cleveland surprisingly made Kessler, the former USC standout, their third-round pick. And we’re even less removed from when Browns executive vice president of football operations Sashi Brown took to the podium for a post-draft press conference, then hauled out his industrial-sized air pump to overinflate Kessler’s tires.

"I do think Cody is a guy that I would not want to sleep on at all if I wanted to be the starting quarterback of the Browns,” he said, per Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com.

Then he named-dropped Robert Griffin III, the discarded former Offensive Rookie of the Year (2012) whom the Browns signed to a two-year deal worth $15 million, with $6.8 million guaranteed. That’s not starter money, though it’s still a whole lot of NFL couch change to be handing a potential backup quarterback.

But in these early days of the league's silly season, it seems Kessler has a legitimate shot to win the position battle and hand Griffin that title.

“Robert has four years of NFL experience, is tremendously athletic and serious about becoming a starting quarterback in this league,” Brown added. “There's no reason he can't, but this is going to be a competition.''

If a frantic search for an offensive identity takes shape in Cleveland later this summer, we can look back at that comment as the springboard.

It’s one thing to encourage competition. It’s another to do it with a quarterback who avoided joining the following group by a mere five draft slots, as Football Perspective's Chase Stuart noted:

Had Kessler even slid to the beginning of Day 3, that still would have surprised most talent evaluators. He has the fundamental tools to be effective and maybe enough of them to be an NFL starter one day. Just not right now, and he certainly can’t be the kind of starter the Browns need.

Draft analyst Rob Rang of CBSSports.com—who wrote that Kessler “simply lacks ideal size and arm strength to fit in most NFL offenses”—projected the 6’1” and 220-pound quarterback to be either a seventh-round pick or an undrafted free agent. Then there’s NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein, who was a little more generous with his predraft prediction of a fifth- or sixth-round pick while noting that the 22-year-old “doesn't show poise or the arm strength for deep routes.”

Those assessments don’t echo Brown’s stance that Kessler is worthy of starting consideration immediately. But there’s another important opinion at play here from a man who knows something about maximizing quarterback strengths and making weaknesses fade away.

The floor is yours then, Jackson. Tell us why Kessler appealed to your sharpened quarterback eye, as captured by the Associated Press' Hayden Grove:

“Over my history the guys who can complete the ball, and throw the ball straight with accuracy and make great decisions that are intelligent, and know how to lead football teams, they’ve been successful,” he said. “And I think this young man has an uncanny ability to throw the ball with accuracy.”

Broadly, that’s difficult to argue with, and it’s easy to understand why Jackson may see a sprinkle of Andy Dalton in Kessler.

The Cincinnati Bengals quarterback who had Jackson as his offensive coordinator was among the league’s most accurate passers in 2015, finishing with a completion percentage of 66.1. All Kessler did was set a school record in that category during his college career.

It’s not exactly earth-shattering stuff to say the ability to complete forward passes is sort of important for any quarterback, in any draft. But it’s remarkable how many teams still make the mistake of drafting an otherwise talented passer too early, hoping he can fix his wonky crosshairs when the competition gets tougher (looking at you, New York Jets and Christian Hackenberg).

That’s not an issue for Kessler, which is why he has a special place in Jackson’s quarterback-nurturing heart. The 2010 high school All-American finished his career at USC with a completion percentage of 67.5.

He provides a foundation for Jackson to work with and mold. That is encouraging, at the very least, because as ESPN Stats & Info noted, potential has been in short supply among recent Browns quarterbacks:

Kessler’s accuracy shows up in other areas as an extension of his quality decision-making.

He didn’t have a double-digit-interception season during his time at USC. Between 2014 and 2015, he threw an incredible 68 touchdown passes and just 12 interceptions.

It gets better, as overall in this draft, Kessler’s accuracy percentage—a better gauge of throwing talent as it removes dropped passes, throwaways, spiked balls and instances when the quarterback is hit while winding up—of 78.2 was third in the 2016 class, according to Pro Football Focus' Steve Palazzolo.

But there are limitations to that accuracy and that one number. That's why there are limitations to Kessler and what the Browns should realistically expect.

Any gauge of a quarterback’s throwing precision requires context. And a simple fact is overlooked too often when we skim the surface by citing completion or accuracy percentages. The five-yard checkdown to a running back is marked off as a completion right alongside the 25-yard deep heave lobbed over a cornerback’s head.

Both of those skills are essential, as short-to-intermediate-range accuracy is vital too. But it’s deep accuracy and the ability to smack those home run throws over the fences that separates middling quarterbacks from the All-Pro level.

It’s not by accident that when we look back on 2015 that those with the highest completion percentage on balls traveling 20-plus yards downfield are widely considered to be among the league’s best quarterbacks.

Quarterback	Comp % on +20 yard throws
Ben Roethlisberger	50.7
Drew Brees	50.6
Russell Wilson	49.2
Cam Newton	47.9
Andy Dalton	47.3

The league’s highest tier of passers typically hovers around the 50 percent mark on deep throws—or slightly below. In 2014, five quarterbacks connected on half of their 20-plus-yard throws. Looking back further to 2011, 14 quarterbacks hit the 50 percent plateau over that five-year span, an average of nearly three per year.

No sound-minded evaluator is expecting Kessler—who, again, narrowly missed being a Day 3 pick—to be on that level now, or perhaps ever. But it’s important to highlight the NFL’s high-water mark for deep-passing accuracy, because it plants the seed for Kessler’s woes.

Ideally, you’d like to see a baseline from your developmental quarterback fueling hope he may one day reach the top tier of deep passers. Pointing to proven accuracy beyond easier, high-percentage throws is critical if you’re talking seriously about giving someone like Kessler a starting opportunity in his first season.

Pushing an offense downfield requires successfully converting long throws into completions, keeping the defense honest. Without that ability, safeties can creep closer to the line, pounce on short throws and providing extra run support. And as a quarterback, you sink toward the (gulp) "game manager" label without a strong arm, a tag that’s progressed from cliche to insult in football language.

Tony Dejak/Associated Press

Kessler is a game manager right now, and there’s no dodging it. He doesn’t offer a promising jumping-off point as a deep passer. Instead, his presence alone would create an offense that leans heavily toward being one-dimensional after he posted a 37.5 percent accuracy rating on 20-plus-yard throws in 2015, per Palazzolo.

That ranked 31st in the nation and puts him in an area code well behind the upper echelon of top passers in the NFL. For perspective, had Kessler posted that same deep accuracy as an NFL quarterback in 2015, he would have slotted in right beside the Miami Dolphins’ Ryan Tannehill, who’s known as a weak downfield thrower.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with being a game manager. When a quarterback slides into that drawer, we’re saying he can execute fundamental, low-risk throws well. We’re also saying he does that with minimal mistakes, which certainly describes Kessler. Over his final two seasons at USC, he threw just seven interceptions on 635 pass attempts when dealing with a clean pocket, again per PFF.

But being a game manager means you’re safe and not flashy. It means you’re conservative and risk-averse. And it means as a quarterback, you live in the areas of the field where completions are easier.

For Kessler, all that means he’s the exact opposite of what the Browns need and want.

They just invested a first-round pick in wide receiver Corey Coleman. He’s a vertical-threat blur and recorded a 40-yard dash time of 4.37 seconds at his Baylor pro day workout.

An emphasis on field stretching is clear between Coleman and fifth-round pick Rashard Higgins out of Colorado State. If it’s chunk yardage you seek, then Coleman and Higgins can supply it in abundance, as ESPN Stats & Info highlighted:

That doesn’t jibe with Kessler’s skill set.

Kessler still has a promising future, even if he’s a poor deep thrower right now. And even if, as Zierlein observed, he’s shaky when the pocket breaks down, with “footwork that’s unsettled by perceived pressure.”

He has ample core skill running through his arm and nimble enough legs. His accuracy on short and intermediate throws already puts Kessler ahead of many developmental quarterbacks. That can be massaged and turned into a key building block by Jackson—the same quarterback coaching wizard who coaxed two Bengals wins out of AJ McCarron starts in 2015.

With time and patience, Kessler could mature into a quality starting quarterback. Just not in 2016.