By virtue of a New England Patriots win in Week 18 over the Buffalo Bills, both the Tennessee Titans and Cleveland Browns have moved up in the order for the 2025 NFL Draft, and they now find themselves in position to potentially take a franchise quarterback with the 1st and 2nd picks respectively. For the Browns specifically, this is a tricky subject to navigate, and not just because Deshaun Watson recently suffered a setback in his recovery of a torn achilles.

In fairness, even before the setback — or the achilles injury that preceded it — Watson's time as a franchise guy in Cleveland was already over. In fact, it never even started. The once promising QB brought troubling off-the-field issues with him to Northeast Ohio, and as expected, he was never greeted with a hero's welcome. Even if he had played up to the potential he showed in Houston, it's unlikely he would've won over Browns fans. And that leaves Cleveland in a familiar spot… looking for a quarterback.

It's not as if the Browns haven't had any bites at the proverbial apple. Since 1999, when the franchise returned to the NFL after a three-year hiatus following Art Modell's decision to move the team to Baltimore, 40 different quarterbacks have started a game for the Browns, starting with Ty Detmer in the season opener in 1999 to Bailey Zappe in Cleveland's Week 18 loss to Baltimore this past Saturday. None of these 40 quarterbacks have proven to be the quarterback the Browns have been searching for.

That search could very well come to an end this April, when the Browns will have the opportunity to pick 2nd in the NFL Draft. There hasn't been a firm read on what the Titans are expected to do with the top pick. It feels as if both of the top two quarterbacks, Shedeur Sanders and Cam Ward, are options for Tennessee, as well as do-it-all Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter. I'm here to tell you that if you're a Browns fan, there's a specific way you should be hoping this goes down.

Browns opportunity to select Cam Ward is four decades in the making 

Miami Hurricanes quarterback Cam Ward (1) looks on from the field before the game against the Virginia Tech Hokies at Hard Rock Stadium.
© Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

In 1985, the Cleveland Browns managed to acquire University of Miami quarterback Bernie Kosar in the supplemental draft. Kosar was a native of Ohio and lifelong Browns fan, and he skipped out on the opportunity to be selected in the NFL Draft — upsetting numerous teams in the process — in order to give the Browns the chance to select him over the summer.

Bernie Kosar was not the star that AFC contemporaries such as John Elway, Dan Marino, or Jim Kelly were, nor did he win a league MVP like Brian Sipe did. But he's probably the closest thing that the Browns have had to a franchise quarterback since Otto Graham, and he was responsible for leading the Browns to the Playoffs in five consecutive seasons between 1985 and 1989, including their only three AFC Championship Game appearances since the NFL-AFL merger.

40 years later, the Browns may find themselves in position to select another Hurricanes quarterback, and coincidentally, they'd be pairing him with a 42-year old head coach who was born in the state of Pennsylvania — Marty Schottenheimer in Kosar's case, and Kevin Stefanski in Ward's. That doesn't really mean anything, but at the very least, it's an interesting nugget you can share with friends if the Browns do end up selecting Cam Ward.

This is about where the similarities end between the two quarterbacks. Kosar was a high-school All-American who went to Miami and started as a redshirt freshman on a team that would go 11-1 and win the National Championship. On the other hand, Ward received just one single scholarship offer (Incarnate Word), lit the FCS on fire, transferred to Washington State, and then finally ended up at The U with a year of eligibility left.

Kosar was known for his high football IQ and his ability to identify defensive coverages pre-snap. The main selling point for Ward is an absolutely outrageous amount of arm talent and ability to make plays off-script. But frankly, the story writes itself, and in a city that despite a 2016 NBA Title still feels just a little bit cursed, this would be the opportunity to re-write their tortured history after Kosar and the Browns came up just a little bit short on multiple occasions.