Who drafts worse, the Browns or Cavs?

One of the main reasons for failure that has been pounded in Cleveland’s collective head is the poor draft record of all our teams. I don’t disagree with this notion, but I wanted to do a breakdown between the Cavs and Browns over the last few years and determine who exactly has been the suckiest of this bunch of sucks. I am starting my analysis from 1986 until now and will only be looking at the first two picks for each team for each year (since we can’t go any further than that for the Cavs after ’89). Each pick will be awarded either a:

0 – total bust
1 – marginal player at best
2 – productive starter and/or backup
3 – superstar (needless to say, not many of these will be awarded)

I will also include a bonus point up through ’89 if any steals were found in the later rounds of that year. No drafts for the Cavs from 96-98 will be included since the Browns had some time off. Since this is all completely subjective, any and all second-guessing/scrutiny is welcome (unless you’re from Pittsburgh, in which case I’ll have to ask you to stop playing with this here computer, pick up your mop and get back to work).

1986

Browns:
Webster Slaughter – 2 (I know some people would consider him to be a superstar, but let’s be realistic)
Nick Miller – 0 (if I don’t know who he is and he only played one year for us, that’s a bust)

Cavs:
Brad Daugherty – 3
Ron Harper – 3

Total: Browns 2, Cavs 6 (they hit the motherload this year)

1987

Browns:
Mike Junkin – 0 (this pick screwed us for years to come, read it here at http://www.kidcleveland.blogspot.com/)
Gregg Rakoczy - 2

Cavs:
Kevin Johnson – 3
Kannard Johnson – 0 (when you play a total of 12 minutes for your career, it might be safe to say you are a bust)

Total: Browns 2, Cavs 4 – (I am giving the Cavs an extra bonus point for this year since they drafted Chris Dudley in Round 4)

1988

Browns:
Clifford Charlton – 0
Michael Dean Perry – 2

Cavs:
Randolph Keys – 1
Winston Bennett – 1

Total: Browns 2, Cavs 2

1989

Browns:
Eric Metcalf – 2
Lawyer Tillman - 1

Cavs:
John Morton – 0
Chucky Brown – 2

Total: Browns 3, Cavs 2

1990

Browns:
Leroy Hoard – 2 (the only reason why I’m giving him a 2 is my fatt butt used to pretend I was him in our pickup football games)
Anthony Pleasant - 2

Cavs:
Stefan Rusconi – 0 (who the? – I also think Ron Harper was traded around this time for the rights to Danny Ferry - ouch)

Total: Browns 4, Cavs 0

1991

Browns:
Eric Turner – 3
Ed King - 1

Cavs:
Terrell Brandon – 2
Jimmy Oliver – 1

Total: Browns 4, Cavs 3

1992

Browns:
Tommy Vardell – 1 (based on the expectations)
Patrick Rowe – 0
Cavs:
None – 0

Total: Browns 1, Cavs 0 (is anyone surprised by this?)

1993

Browns:
Steve Everitt - 2
Dan Footman – 1 (he did have one monster season in 96 with the Colts and had 10.5 sacks, but that doesn’t do us any good)

Cavs:
Chris Mills – 2

Total: Browns 2, Cavs 1

1994

Browns:
Antonio Langham – 1
Derrick Alexander - 2

Cavs:
Gary Collier – 0

Total: Browns 3, Cavs 0 (side note: I know I am not including any later round picks for bonus points, but the Browns did take Romeo Bandison in the 3rd round of this draft)

Total: Browns 3, Cavs 0

1995

Browns:
Craig Powell – 0
Eric Zeier - 1

Cavs:
Bob Sura – 2 (I always liked him for some reason)
Donny Marshall – 0 (definitely not to be confused for Donyell Marshall, who also went to UConn)

Total: Browns 1, Cavs 2

1996-1998

No points are given due to the Browns absence, but the Cavs might have made up some ground here with Z being drafted

1999

Browns:
Tim Couch – 1 (I hate to call him a total bust due to the circumstances and the fact that no more tears need to be shed)
Kevin Johnson - 2

Cavs:
Andre Miller – 2
Trajan Langdon - 1

Total: Browns 3, Cavs 3

2000

Browns:
Courtney Brown – 1
Dennis Northcutt – 2

Cavs:
Chris Mihm – 2 (hard to believe, I know, but he’s still in the league)

Total: Browns 3, Cavs 2

2001

Browns:
Gerard Warren – 1
Quincy Morgan - 1

Cavs:
Desagana Diop – 2
Brendan Haywood – 2
Jeff Trepagnier – 1

Total: Browns 2, Cavs 5

2002

Browns:
William Green – 1
Andre Davis - 1

Cavs:
Dajuan Wagner – 1
Carlos Boozer – 3 (curse his bulbous head and hard-nosed playing style)

Total: Browns 2, Cavs 4

2003

Browns:
Jeff Faine – 2 (D’Oh!)
Chaun Thompson - 1

Cavs:
Lebron James – 3 (I think he has shown the potential to be really good)
Jason Kapono – 2 (who knew?)

Total: Browns 3, Cavs 5

2004

Browns:
Kellen Winslow – 3 (I am giving him this grade because my brown and orange colored glasses think he’s the closest thing to a superstar that the Browns have)
Sean Jones – 2 (this might change in a year or two)

Cavs:
Luke Jackson – 1

Total: Browns 5, Cavs 1

2005

Browns:
Braylon Edwards – 2
Brodney Pool – 2

Cavs:
None – (Hello Jiri Welsch!) – 0 – is it possible to give a double 0?

Total: Browns 4, Cavs 0

2006

Browns:
Kamerion Wimbley – 2
D’Qwell Jackson – 2

Cavs:
Shannon Brown – 1
Daniel Gibson – 2
Ejike Ugboaja – 0 (who?)

These are based off of first impressions, so these are definitely subject to change in the future.

Total: Browns 4, Cavs 3

Now, let’s do a quick rundown via a tabled representation of these scores:

Year Browns Cavs
1986 2 6
1987 2 4
1988 2 2
1989 3 2
1990 4 0
1991 4 3
1992 1 0
1993 2 1
1994 3 0
1995 1 2
1999 3 3
2000 2 2
2001 2 5
2002 2 4
2003 3 5
2004 5 1
2005 4 0
2006 4 3



Total
Browns - 49
Cavs - 43

What does this tell us? Absolutely nothing. But it does show that although they are both terrible at drafting, the Cavs have been even worse than the Browns (if that's possible). The average scores for the Browns and Cavs with their first two picks over this time span has been 2.7 and 2.4, respectively. That means, according to my scoring system, they have been drafting a little more than one solid player with their first two picks per draft. Not good! The Cavs have by default a better team due to the fact that Planet Basketball decided to send down its Chosen One in the form of Lebron James and for some reason, picked Northeast Ohio to place him in our midst. Go figure.