The Cleveland Browns stunned the sports world on Wednesday when they traded running back Trent Richardson to the Indianapolis Colts and while many fans are wondering why the team made such a move, the answers are numerous and actually could make some good sense.
The Browns are sitting at 0-2 with an injured starting quarterback and a sputtering offense that is seemingly going nowhere. With a new regime in place with a new head coach, owner and general manager from the group that drafted Richardson, there were no loyalty ties to the player and the fact that head coach Rob Chudzinski doesn't run an offense that fits the style of Richardson, which factored into it as well.
The new regime looked at Richardson and his injury history and felt that getting a first round pick for him was a worthy deal. While some may argue against that, the Browns now feel comfortable heading into next season, as they right now are the best positioned team in the NFL draft. Next year's class is expected to be better and deeper at the quarterback position than this year and now the Browns have a stacked amount of picks for next year, including two picks in the first round, two in the third round and two in the fourth round.
The team tried to package a deal to the Rams before last season to get the number two pick and the right to take RG3, but once that broke down the team drafted Richardson instead. Not that Richardson is a bad player at all, but the Browns felt that he himself was not taking them to the Super Bowl and felt trying to get a valuable pick for the future was a worthy move. Last season Richardson rushed for over 900 yards and scored 11 touchdowns, but this season he was off to a slow start and clearly the team felt it was the right time to pull the trigger.
Trades don't usually happen very often in the NFL and rarely this early in the season, but with the Browns struggling at 0-2 and looking 0-3 right in the face with a road game against the Vikings this weekend, they felt that was their only shot to try and turn things around for the rest of this season and into the next season as well.
The Browns are already starting a new quarterback after Brandon Weeden injured his hand and now Brain Hoyer will take over despite Jason Campbell being the backup listed on the depth chart. The Browns may set themselves up to take Johnny Manziel or Teddy Bridgewater next year in the draft depending on how things shake out and they may look back on this and laugh, as they could be riding high five years from now. But if Trent Richardson is the second coming of Adrian Peterson, the Browns will look very foolish.
It is a rare thing for a team to be able to say that they have the first and third players picked in one draft, but the Colts can say that now.
