Is Winning A Priority For Browns?

If the plan of the front office of the Cleveland Browns’ was to play the “long game” with the trade for Deshaun Watson, then they got their wish, because the team was basically eliminated from playoff contention with the 23-10 defeat in Cincinnati at the hands of the defending AFC Champs.

We say that because we have heard it from so many places, including some media people we respect greatly. And if that’s the case, our question is simple, why do so many fans invest so much love into the Cleveland Browns?

They simply don’t give a damn about the fans.

First, from a talent standpoint alone, getting Watson was a good move. He thought going into last season he was one of the top five quarterbacks in the league, and we still believe he will be again once he gets more acclimated to playing.

It’s been a long time since the Browns have had a franchise quarterback, probably the first since Bernie Kosar was on the field.

Even without Watson, the offense kept up their end of the bargain, but the defense didn’t, and despite the last two contests, that unit is the reason Cleveland is sitting at 5-8 today.

The Browns’ vaunted running game has sputtered a bit lately, mostly since center Ethan Pocic was injured. We love when people call Pocic the “third string center”, which he was going into training camp behind Nick Harris and Michael Dunn, but when he went in, he played as well as any center in the league.

His absence and the decline of Jack Conklin because of injuries have limited the effectiveness of the running game, which was the team’s bread and butter, especially with Watson suspended.

We know you can point to stats for everything, but Sunday was the third time this season Cleveland rushed for less than 100 yards. They are 0-3 in those contests.

Kevin Stefanski is taking a lot of heat for the fourth down call on the first drive of the game, but it was poor execution. Donovan Peoples-Jones are open and a better throw results in six points. Frankly, considering what was at stake for the Browns, we thought the play book would be opened up more. The Browns needed this game badly.

Instead, the Bengals used more trick plays. One worked for a touchdown, the other resulted in a sack by Myles Garrett. We are guessing had Cincinnati lost, fans would be calling for Zack Taylor’s job because of the latter. Or does that only work in northeast Ohio?

Cleveland has four games left. There is nothing to be gained by losing. They have no first-round draft pick.

So, they should do everything they can to win the remaining four on the slate. They need to establish an importance on winning not only in the locker room, but throughout 76 Lou Groza Blvd. That’s what the Ravens (the next opponent) has, it’s what the Steelers have.

And we fear until the Browns have that mentality among the front office, this cycle is just going to continue. They will keep finding reasons why it’s okay to lose.

As for the coaching staff, there needs to be changes made going into next season, but we would stay with Stefanski in charge unless he has the stubbornness issue and is resistant to make changes on the staff.

One playoff win in 28 years should be enough to put a huge emphasis on winning. Doesn’t seem like it today, right?

Why Do The Browns Get Most Of Our Sports Love?

We have said many times that our favorite sports are baseball and basketball, making us a minority in a city that presents itself as a football city.

That doesn’t mean we don’t follow and root for the Browns, we certainly do, and find it crazy that there are people in town who are die-hard followers of the brown and orange, but pay no attention to the Guardians or Cavaliers.

We are lucky to live in a city with three major league professional franchises and we don’t take that for granted.

Our question though is why do the Browns get so much love and loyalty in northeast Ohio, and do they deserve it?

For older fans like us, it could be because the Browns were the only winning team in our youth, that being the late 60’s. The Cleveland Browns were one of the premier franchises in the NFL from the time they entered in 1950 until basically 1970.

At that time, there were no Cavaliers (started in 1970-71) and the Indians were just starting a malaise that lasted from 1960 through 1993.

After pretty much a dormant period in the 70’s and early 80’s (excluding the Kardiac Kids season of 1980), the Browns reemerged as Super Bowl contenders in the late 80’s, led by Bernie Kosar, Hanford Dixon, Frank Minnifield, etc., coming up just short in some of the most excruciating ending to seasons you could imagine.

However, if you were growing up in the 90’s, the Guardians and Cavaliers have been far more successful than the Browns have since returning to the league in 1999.

And maybe that’s it. Perhaps the loss of the team for a few seasons has created a fear that if people aren’t zealous in their support of the Browns, they will move again.

Or maybe we are just grasping at straws.

Since 1995, the Indians/Guardians have made 12 post-season appearances (likely to become 13 with this season) and have played in the World Series three times, losing twice in heartbreaking circumstances.

That shouldn’t be held against them, see our earlier comments about the Browns of the late 1980’s.

The Cavaliers have played for the championship of their sport five times in this span, and cashed in 2016, the only professional title in a major sport the city has seen in the last 58 years.

The Browns? They made the playoffs twice since 1999.

That’s why we don’t understand the undying loyalty of sports fans in this area.

What about ownership? We understand baseball fans here don’t like the Dolan family because they rarely go “all in”, but it’s not like the Haslams or Gilberts are on the same par as Bill Veeck.

Haslam has had business issues and is very impulsive. How many regime changes have the Browns gone through since he bought the franchise? Gilbert inherited LeBron James, but he did everything he could to bring a championship to the city.

We understand the midwest is by and large a football haven. The NFL has it’s roots right in Canton, which is why the Hall of Fame is there. High school football is a big deal in Ohio, so the leaning toward the pro football team is understandable.

Again, we aren’t saying to not root for the Cleveland Browns. We would love nothing more than a Super Bowl berth for them. But, they certainly don’t give fans here a great deal to be proud of, instead they have given us a tremendous amount of anguish.

We guess the heart wants what the heart wants, even if it doesn’t make a great deal of sense.

Remembering Marty

It was sad to hear of the death of former Browns’ coach Marty Schottenheimer. A man who won 200 regular season games in the NFL, but unfortunately never got to the Super Bowl despite all that success.

Schottenheimer’s first two attempts to get to the title game ended in heartbreaking fashion, the first known as “The Drive”, the second known as “The Fumble”.

We wanted to share our impressions of him from a fan’s point of view, our point of view. We didn’t know the man, although we met him once, sitting next to him at a Cavs’ game in the late 80’s. He had his son with him, and we remember Marty reminding a young Brian Schottenheimer that he lived in Cleveland and should root for the Cavaliers.

Our thought was wow, he really is as intense as he was portrayed.

Schottenheimer ranks fourth in Browns’ history in wins as head coach, behind Paul Brown, Blanton Collier, and the man he replaced in Sam Rutigliano, but overall, you would have to rank him as the third best coach in Cleveland history, behind Brown and Collier, both of whom won NFL titles.

By the way, Kevin Stefanski is tied for 10th in wins after one season at the helm.

Schottenheimer took over a 1-7 team in 1984 and guided them to a 4-4 record, one of the losses was in overtime, the rest of the season.

The next season was the beginning of the last halcyon period in the history of the franchise.

Paul McDonald was replaced at QB with veteran Gary Danielson, and they drafted Bernie Kosar in the supplemental draft in the first round. GM Ernie Accorsi took advantage of the USFL folding to bring in RB Kevin Mack, and CB Frank Minnifield and the Browns improved to 8-8 and won the AFC Central Division.

After building a 21-3 lead over Miami in the first half of the playoff game, the Browns played very conservatively behind the rookie, Kosar, in the second half, and Dan Marino led the Dolphins to a comeback 24-21 victory.

That was kind of the beginning of what came to be called “Martyball”.

What followed was three more playoff appearances in a row, two of them coming as a result of AFC Central Division titles.

In 1986, as the story goes, Kosar pleaded with the coach to be aggressive in a divisional showdown vs. Cincinnati in the second last game of the year. Kosar won the argument, hitting Reggie Langhorne with a long pass on the game’s first play, and the Browns wound up winning 34-3 to take the division title.

We won’t forget our feeling in the AFC Championship Game at old Municipal Stadium when Kosar connected with Brian Brennan for a 48 yard TD pass to give the Browns a 20-13 lead with just over two minutes to go. Surely, Cleveland was going to make their first Super Bowl appearance.

John Elway and the Broncos felt differently.

At the time, many fans and media wondered about switching to a prevent defense after bottling up Elway for 58 minutes. But Schottenheimer’s background was on defense. He played linebacker in the old AFL and was a defensive coach and then coordinator. He wanted to put the game in the hands of the unit he felt most comfortable with.

The following year had the Browns with a 10-5 record, and they once again advanced to the AFC title game, this time in Denver. The Broncos got off to a 21-3 halftime lead, and after the Browns scored first in the second half, the defense allowed an 80 touchdown pass to make it 28-10 Denver.

Kosar rallied the Browns back and had them on the doorstep of tying the game when Earnest Byner fumbled, another crushing defeat.

It was the last time the Browns were that close to playing in a Super Bowl.

Schottenheimer and Art Modell had some disagreements about the makeup of the coaching staff after the ’88 season (10-6 and a wild card berth despite injuries to Kosar and his backup, Mike Pagel) and resigned.

He went on to the Chiefs for 10 seasons, winning 101 games, before coaching Washington for one year, and the Chargers for five seasons, has last year there producing a 14-2 record.

Although the Browns got to the conference title game in 1990, Marty got there once more as well, with the Chiefs in 1993, losing to Buffalo, 30-13.

However, 200 NFL wins is an incredible career. It places him 8th all time, 6th among men who coached after the merger. The names ahead of him read like a who’s who of NFL history: Don Shula, George Halas, Bill Belichick, Tom Landry, Curly Lambeau, Andy Reid, Paul Brown.

RIP Marty. And thank you for leading the Browns the last time they were a yearly power in the NFL.

It’s The Steelers Again This Sunday.

It dawned on us last night that the Browns’ last two playoff games have come against the Pittsburgh Steelers. So, this will be Cleveland’s third straight post-season contest against our neighbors just a couple of hours away.

After beating New England in 1994, Bill Belichick’s squad was bounced by the Steelers for the third time that season, 29-9 at Three Rivers Stadium. The most memorable thing to us in that game was QB Vinny Testaverde getting called for intentional grounding…on a fourth down play.

In 2002, the brown and orange’s most recent playoff appearance, Cleveland was again beaten twice in the regular season, and then lost at Heinz Field, 36-33, in a contest where the Browns had a 24-7 lead early in the third quarter.

This year, the two AFC North rivals split their two meetings, and have to play in consecutive weeks. That same scenario occurred in 1988, when the Browns had to beat the Houston Oilers (now Tennessee Titans) 28-23 at old Municipal Stadium with Don Strock at quarterback to get in the playoffs.

The following week, Mike Pagel was at the helm on the lakefront, as Bernie Kosar was hurt, but the Browns dropped a 24-23 decision. That was also Marty Schottenheimer’s last game as head coach of the team.

While some may be disappointed in Sunday’s 24-22 victory which put Kevin Stefanski’s squad into the playoffs because the Steelers sat several regulars, including QB Ben Roethlisberger, it still was a win, and it was the 11th of the season.

We understand the special feeling we have in northeast Ohio for Pittsburgh backup QB Mason Rudolph, but he did play very well Sunday (22 of 39, 315 yards and two touchdowns), and the starting wide receivers for Mike Tomlin played as well.

Don’t forget. The AFC was stacked this season with eight teams getting 10 or more wins, including Miami, which didn’t make the post-season tournament.

The Browns didn’t back their way in to the playoffs. They won 11 games, the franchise’s most since that 1994 squad.

And while the Steelers are the Steelers, which means they are always tough, and they have a great head coach and a future Hall of Fame quarterback, remember they started 11-0, and finished 12-4, so they haven’t played their best football since Thanksgiving Day.

The biggest question for the Browns is since the game will be played Sunday night, what will be Denzel Ward’s status? Ward is on the COVID-19 list, and depending on several things in the protocol, could be ready to go for the playoff game.

His presence would be much needed since DE Olivier Vernon, who played tremendously in the second half of the season, tore his Achilles tendon in the last game of the season, and obviously will not play.

That means most of the burden to get to Roethlisberger falls on Myles Garrett, who no doubt will be double and triple teamed by the black and gold.

We expect next Sunday’s game to really have no resemblance to the season finale. We are sure both coaches will have some wrinkles to use. Stefanski was pretty vanilla with his offense on Sunday, so could we see Jarvis Landry limbering up his throwing arm again?

And on the Pittsburgh side, can Roethlisberger make the downfield throws Rudolph made? Remember, the Steelers had three completions over 40 yards downfield.

It’s nice to talk about playoff football once again, and we have a hunch, this isn’t a one year deal for the Browns. The organization is set up for sustained success, and the defense is far from what anyone would call a finished product.

It’s a fun time to be a Browns fan. Finally.

Dorsey And Kitchens Reeling In Expectations

Yesterday, Browns’ GM John Dorsey said he didn’t like the hype surrounding the 2019 edition of the team.

After second round draft pick Greedy Williams proclaimed the Browns were going to the Super Bowl after they drafted him, head coach Freddie Kitchens told people he was going to talk to the rookie and explain that his team wasn’t going to behave like that.

Really, both Dorsey and Kitchens were telling everyone, fans included, not to get carried away.

And they are right.

We get it. The Browns have been a doormat for so long, people are excited that finally there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Since Bernie Kosar was released in 1993, Cleveland football fans have waited for a franchise quarterback, and it appears they picked one last year in Baker Mayfield.

Mayfield’s a natural born leader, and he can play the position as well, throwing for an NFL tying record of 27 touchdown passes, as well as displaying uncanny accuracy.

On the other hand, he’s started all of 13 games, and the only playoff team he guided the team to a win against was the Baltimore Ravens. And the score of that game was 12-9 in overtime.

This isn’t to doubt Mayfield. We believe he will develop into one of the top passers in the NFL and it could be as early as next season. But those are the facts.

Without question, the Browns have added a lot of talent from last year’s roster, which did make a quantum leap to 7-9 from 0-16 in 2017.

Dorsey acquired an elite wide receiver in Odell Beckham Jr., a very good pass rusher in Olivier Vernon, and a solid defensive tackle in Sheldon Richardson. Those were the biggest additions in the free agent/trade market.

And the expectation is the rookie Williams will team with Denzel Ward to give the Browns a pair of shutdown cornerbacks, which is a great thing to have in today’s pass happy NFL.

We like Kitchens too, and he did a great job with the offense in the second half of last season, but he’s never been a head coach at the NFL level, so he is another unproven commodity.

We do like that he did things the players were comfortable with and putting the players in positions where they can succeed is one of the basic rules of coaching.

But how does he handle losing two games in a row, or three out of four. Does he keep the team together and maintain the players’ faith in him.

We feel Kitchens will handle it fine, but until it happens, it is up for question.

The biggest thing the GM and the coach are guarding against is a sense of accomplishment. Despite all of the excitement around the area and the country, the Browns are still a team that has made one playoff appearance since 1994.

The fans should be excited. This promises to be the beginning of a renaissance for a once proud franchise, one of the NFL’s flagships up until the franchise was moved.

On the other hand, for the players, this is a squad with something to prove. They’ve done nothing. No playoff wins for 25 years.

Dorsey and Kitchens want to remind them it takes a lot of work to become a playoff team. And that’s what they should do.

Browns’ Draft Thoughts

In two months, the endless draft talk regarding what the Cleveland Browns should do after a pair of horrific seasons which netted one win in 32 games.

Looking at the draft, we agree with the notion that former Browns GM Ernie Accorsi has said, the two most important positions in pro football are quarterback and a guy who can get to the quarterback.

Certainly, the brown and orange need a passer. They haven’t had one since Bernie Kosar was unceremoniously released in 1993.

They got a guy who can get to the QB last season in Myles Garrett, but like pitching in baseball, you can never have too many pass rushers.

We think Emmanuel Ogbah can develop into a great bookend with Garrett, but we think GM John Dorsey will look for another player who can get to the opposing team’s passer.

Still, we feel the offensive and defensive lines are the team’s strengths, although the Browns have to be on the lookout for Joe Thomas’ replacement whether or not he retires prior to next season or not.

Besides quarterback, in our opinion, the biggest needs for the organization are the secondary, including linebacker, and running back.

We would also say that anyone who feels the Browns can pass on a passer with the first overall pick are crazy. Again, it’s been 25 years since Cleveland has had a top 10 quarterback in the NFL.

Which one of the college QBs would we take? The guy who has the highest floor, the one who has the lowest bust factor. We think that is Josh Rosen.

Rosen was the premier prep quarterback coming into college as a freshman, meaning he was at the top of the class then, and he has maintained that position.

That said, we like Baker Mayfield a lot too. And if Dorsey and his cadre of talent evaluators think he is the answer, then we would have no problem with the Browns selecting him.

After all, if they are right, then the Browns are a step closer to competing for a Super Bowl.

There are a lot of draft “experts” who rate Penn State running back Saquon Barkley as the best player in this year’s draft.

While we certainly have seen running backs help teams transform into winners the past two seasons with Zeke Elliott in Dallas and Leonard Fournette in Jacksonville, we don’t put Barkley in the same category.

Barkley is a home run hitter, but we have questions as to whether he can take the pounding of getting 20-25 carries every week in the NFL.

Besides, this year is purported to be a deep running back draft, so you can get a solid back with one of your second round selections.

We would be more intrigued with CB/S Minkah Fitzpatrick from Alabama, DE Bradley Chubb from NC State, or CB Josh Jackson from Iowa, all of whom would fill a big need for the Browns.

We would probably look for Thomas’ replacement with one of the four selections the Browns have from pick #33 through #65, as well as one of the spots they didn’t fill with the fourth overall choice.

Trading down? We would stay away from that, in fact, we would probably look to trade back up for another first rounder.

If they would consider moving down, it should only be to drop two or three slots, so you can still get the guy you like.

There will be plenty of speculation between now and April 26th, particularly this week with NFL Draft Combine going on. Although, none of the candidates have played a game since January.

There. We got that out of our system. No more draft talk until at least April.

Browns Endless Search…For A Pass Rusher

As a follower of the Cleveland Browns since the mid 1960’s, we are acutely aware that it has been a long time since the team had a solid quarterback.

We are all aware of the great Otto Graham in the 50’s, and Frank Ryan was at the helm for the last Browns’ championship. Ryan was acquired in a trade with the Rams, and took the Browns to the playoffs for the next few years.

He was followed by Bill Nelsen, picked up in a trade with the Steelers, of all teams, and Nelsen led the Browns to two NFC title games in 1968 and 1969, albeit on rickety knees.

Needing a replacement for Nelsen, Cleveland made the ill fated trade for Mike Phipps, dealing Hall of Fame WR Paul Warfield, and you can make the argument that deal signaled the end of the halcyon days for the franchise.

Since then, there were a few seasons of greatness from Brian Sipe, including one MVP season in 1980, and then Bernie Kosar arrived and so did three losses in the AFC championship game that will be remembered forever.

However, besides quarterback, there is another thing the Browns haven’t had even dating back to the mid sixties, and that is an elite pass rusher, someone opponents have had to game plan against.

Sure, there have been single years or maybe two straight years where Cleveland has had a guy who can get to the quarterback, but they’ve never had that “guy”.

There was Jack Gregory for a year or two, and the trade in 1980 for Lyle Alzado. Later in the 80’s, Cleveland drafted Chip Banks, who had a troubled career here until he couldn’t get along with Marty Schottenheimer, who traded him to San Diego.

Courtney Brown was supposed to be that guy when he was the first overall pick in 2000, but his knees wouldn’t allow it. Paul Kruger had one year (2014) where he had 11 sacks, but that was an aberration.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a guy you can depend on for 10 sacks every year?

That guy could be Myles Garrett. Many of the draft gurus have compared him to Julius Peppers, and if he could be that, we’ll sign up right now.

Look at the Browns’ all-time sack leaders. Clay Matthews is the leader with 62, but those were accumulated over 15 seasons. Matthews should be enshrined in Canton, but he wasn’t known as a pass rusher.

The others in the top five are Michael Dean Perry (a nose tackle), Rob Burnett, Carl Hairston, and Reggie Camp. The latter three were solid defensive ends, but weren’t players opponents were planning against.

Let’s go back to Peppers, who has accumulated 143.5 sacks in his career. That’s more than double Matthews club record. If Garrett can get half of that total if he is drafted by Cleveland, he would be the new record holder.

So, while we get the “quarterback hysteria”, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone who can put pressure on the other team’s passer?

As former Browns GM Ernie Accorsi once said, the two most important players in the NFL are the quarterback, and someone who can get to the other team’s quarterback.

Kosar Should Be Involved With Browns In Some Way

A stir was created over the weekend when Browns’ legend Bernie Kosar said he would like to be the guy to turn around the moribund franchise’s fortunes.

We are all aware of the trials and tribulations of the brown and orange since they re-entered the NFL in 1999 as an expansion franchise.

Two winning seasons, one post-season appearance, and for the most part, the leadership, under both owners, Randy Lerner and Jimmy Haslam, can’t seem to stop tripping over their collective feet.

Can Kosar help straighten out this franchise?

Well, the knee-jerk reaction is he couldn’t possibly do any worse than the guys who have tried and failed over the years.

We used to say back in the 80’s, that the best job in baseball was the GM of the Indians, because if you succeeded, you would be hailed as a genius, and if you failed? You were just another person who couldn’t turn it around.

The Browns are in the same boat right now.

That could be why Kosar decided to throw his hat in the ring. There is nowhere to go but up, and it’s an opportunity to be a savior in Cleveland once again.

However, this much is clear. The legend knows the game of football. Anyone who has watched him provide analysis on pre-season games over the years can see that.

He was a thinking man’s quarterback. He saw the game differently than many players who had superior athletic ability.

Why not use that asset to help the Cleveland Browns?

We don’t know that Kosar could be or even want to be the general manager of the Browns, or even the president of football operations, and quite frankly, we couldn’t say he would be qualified for either of those positions.

On the other hand, what would be wrong in making Bernie a consultant to Haslam, helping him guide who the owner hires going forward on the football side?

The one thing we can say about Haslam is he has had a problem hiring the right people. The league seemed to have forced Joe Banner on him, and Banner made the unfortunate hire of Mike Lombardi as GM.

Had Kosar been involved in that process, the guess here is he would have prevented the latter hire.

He might have been able to save Rob Chudzinski after his one season as head coach. Most people thought Chud got a raw deal, and we wonder if things would have been different had the Browns held the lead against New England in 2013.

You can go back further than that. Maybe Kosar would have prevented the numerous candidates who didn’t seem to want to work for Banner and Lombardi when Chudzinski got the gig.

People who succeed usually surround themselves with people who are smarter than they are. There is no question that Bernie Kosar is one of the smartest football people around.

Why shouldn’t Jimmy Haslam avail himself of this knowledge?

Besides, what can go wrong? It’s not as though the Browns are one of the NFL’s best organizations or dominant teams on the field.

Judge QBs in Games, Not in Combine

Now that the NFL Draft Combine has passed, it is time for the annual debate as to who the Cleveland Browns should draft the next month.

And as usual, since many fans are disappointed when the current quarterback doesn’t remind them of Bernie Kosar, supporters start asking themselves which passer the Browns could take in the first round.

Stop the madness, now!

First of all, just because someone is the best college quarterback available, it doesn’t make them worthy of the 6th pick in the draft.

The flavor of this combine was either USC’s Matt Barkley, who has an injured shoulder, or West Virginia’s Geno Smith.

Keep in mind, neither of these players have played a game since the bowl season ended around the first week in January.

Since Barkley didn’t work out because of his injury, Smith was the player who garnered the most attention, showing a good arm and surprising speed for a player at his position.

Once again, keep in mind that no one was playing defense against Smith during his workout.

And remember that Smith’s West Virginia team started 4-0 and finished at 6-6.

Granted, it wasn’t all Smith’s fault. He and his offense put up an awful lot of points in some of those defeats, scoring 38 against TCU, 34 against Oklahoma State, and 49 vs. Oklahoma.

However, in the other three losses, the Mountaineer offense put up just 14 points in losses to Texas Tech, Kansas State, and Syracuse.

Smith put up good numbers in those games, but remember he played in the Big 12 Conference, a league not noted for strong defensive play.

And the same conference that Brandon Weeden played in a year ago.

The point here is that neither Smith nor Barkley are prospects on the level of Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III, the first two picks in last year’s draft and players who led their respective teams to the playoffs in their rookie year. You can make a very good case that they were the best two players available, regardless of position.

Also, neither player has done anything on the field to merit moving up from the late first round or second round status they were projected at a month ago. It is simply the desire NFL teams have to find the next Tom Brady, the ever elusive franchise QB, that has these two players rising into the early first round.

You can make the same argument against trading for New England back up QB Ryan Mallett, a third round choice in 2011. What makes him better now than he was then? Two years watching Tom Brady play? If he’s so good, why does New England want to trade him?

The draft is arranged the way it is to enable to have the lesser teams get more talent, to equalize the talent pool. Not taking the better player early in the selection process sets franchises back. That’s why the Browns have been in a constant state of mediocrity for all these years. They’ve made poor selections.

That’s why they can’t take a quarterback with the sixth overall pick in April. They have far too many other holes, in areas where there is talent worthy of top ten selection to reach and take a player ranked in the 20s or 30s overall at their current slot.

Teams in the NFL make a lot of mistakes drafting quarterbacks higher than they should. If the Browns made a mistake last year, then they can’t compound it by doing it again. There isn’t a passer worthy of a top ten pick in April, but someone will take one anyway.

Here’s hoping the Browns aren’t that team.

Browns Are Young, They Will Make Mistakes.

The Browns first pre-season game was a success, at least from the standpoint that they won, defeating the Detroit Lions 19-17.

However, it’s tough to judge what occurred during the game because of the people Pat Shurmur had sitting out due to injuries and/or rest.

For example, the run defense was not good. This is something that has plagued the franchise since returning to the NFL in 1999. But without Ahtyba Rubin and D’Qwell Jackson playing, you really can’t point to this as being a weakness right now.

Neither player is expected to miss any regular season time, so both will be back in there next week.

Of course, everyone wanted to watch the rookies on the offensive side of the ball, particularly QB Brandon Weeden.

The first year passer from Oklahoma State played like, well, a rookie. He hit on 3 of 9 passes for 62 yards, making some good throws (the sideline shot to fellow rook Travis Benjamin on the first series), and some poor ones. He was picked off once, and should have had another, although Bernie Kosar blamed that one on Josh Gordon, yet another rookie, not running a crisp enough route.

He also was charged with a fumble, but that was the result of poor pass protection. That’s not to exonerate the rookie, but he’ll learn when to it’s better to take a sack than risk a turnover.

Look, even though he’ll be 29 years old during the season, he’s an inexperienced NFL quarterback. He will get better the more time he spends on the football field. This was one game. If improvement isn’t made next week, and the week after next, then people can question the Browns’ decision. It’s silly to do so now.

It was encouraging though to see some downfield throws, something not seen often last year. In fact, it was telling on Colt McCoy’s first possession at the helm that he threw a completed six yard pass on 3rd and nine.

McCoy played well statistically, hitting 6 of 8 for 88 yards, the bulk of those a 42-yard strike to TE Jordan Cameron that he had to wait on. Still, Cleveland only mustered a field goal in his quarter of play, against the Lions second team defense.

As for the rookies, 2nd round pick Mitchell Schwartz struggled with the speed of the NFL game, but again, it was his first game and he will likely get better.

Benjamin looked good at WR, catching two passes for 46 yards, and flashed the great speed the Browns talked about when they drafted him. Josh Gordon looked raw, like he hasn’t played in a while, which he hasn’t.

The other rookie that stood out was CB Trevin Wade, drafted in the 7th round this spring. Granted, he wasn’t out there covering Calvin Johnson, but he’s a guy that merits watching throughout the rest of the pre-season.

There could also be a problem going forward with WR Mohamed Massaquoi, who may have suffered another concussion on the first play of the game, a 12-yard reception.

It the diagnosis is correct, it would be his third injury of this type in three seasons, and could put his career in jeopardy. The front office spoke highly of his potential all off-season long, so it was be a tough blow to lose the veteran.

Reserve DT Scott Paxson also went out with a knee injury, as did CB Dimitri Patterson. The Browns are already thin at both positions, so these could be key injuries.

It’s still pre-season, so it’s just step one in the evaluation process. Remember, the Cleveland Browns are a very young football team. They will make mistakes, but if they eliminate them going forward, that’s how they should be judged.