When Hue Jackson looks at DeShone Kizer, the Browns coach expects the rookie passer to invariably draw comparisons with an AFC North rival: Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
"I don't know that I've coached a guy with this kind of skill set," Jackson told the team's in-house radio show, Cleveland Browns Daily, per The Plain Dealer. "But he's a big powerful man, so I know he's going to get compared to another guy on another team in our division."
Jackson himself stayed away from drawing specific parallels between the two players, saying: "I'm not going to talk about (Big Ben) because he's that big and he has that kind of arm. He's very mobile. So again, I don't like to compare players and I know people will, but (Kizer's) got to come in and do what he can do and be the best version of him and that's what we're going to allow him to do."
The Browns were thrilled to watch Kizer fall to them at the No. 52 overall pick of last week's draft. In a quarterback room with Cody Kessler, Brock Osweiler and Kevin Hogan, the Notre Dame star gives Cleveland something juicy: a 6-foot-5, 235-pound athlete with a major arm.
Kizer also arrives with concerns over his mechanics, field vision and less-than-stellar record at Notre Dame, leading one scout to tell the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "He is the classic boom or bust. In terms of arm strength, athleticism, talent, intelligence, he's the highest-end guy. At the same time, he's also the one with the most flaws."
Jackson made it clear Thursday that all of his quarterbacks would have a chance to "compete" for the starting role, adding that the group is "ahead of where I thought they'd be."
Kizer, though, will be watched closely by fans after the team bypassed another Big Ben-like quarterback during last year's draft in Carson Wentz.
"We've got to coach him from the ground up, but we're working with a guy that's very talented," Jackson said of Kizer. "This is a guy who has a skill set that's going to allow us to push and prod and get him to where he needs to be. ... I don't think we're going to rush to stick him out there but, at the same time, I'm not going to stop him from being out there if he demonstrates those skill sets very quickly."
