Browns’ owner says quarterback situation must get ‘fixed’

“We’ve got to get a quarterback and got to get it fixed,” team owner Jimmy Haslam told The Chronicle-Telegram. “What I would say to our fans is, we’re going to continue to work really hard to find that quarterback who can make us a championship team.”

The big question is whether that quarterback is already on the roster.

“We don’t know yet,” Haslam said. “We’re going to work till we find the right person, and I’m not slighting Connor [Shaw] or Johnny or Brian [Hoyer] -- if he were to come back.”

Hoyer is set to hit the free agent market and struggled badly down the stretch in 2014, eventually getting benched in favor of Manziel. Shaw is an undrafted free agent signee who threw just 28 passes in his rookie season.

The big question for Cleveland, therefore, is whether they can count on Manziel to get his act together and become the franchise passer they hoped he would be when they scooped him in the first round last May. But after a slew of off-field issues, including a late-night brawl and sleeping through a training session late in the season, Manziel’s maturity is still a major question mark.

“Johnny has to show on and off the field he can be a professional,” Haslam said. “He knows that. Everybody in the organization has told him that. It’ll be up to [new offensive coordinator John DeFilippo] and [head coach Mike Pettine] to decide whether he can be the kind of quarterback we need him to be. He knows what we expect of him on and off the field and it’s up to him to prove he can do that.”

DeFilippo has similar concerns, telling the media during his introductory press conference that he’s not sure “if our starting quarterback is currently in the building or not.”