Browns Lose, But What Will They Learn?

We have been saying all along not to expect too much from the Cleveland Browns in 2016. They shed most of the veterans from a squad that went 3-13 a year ago, so this is a year to lay a foundation for future success.

Therefore, we are not going to judge today’s 29-10 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles that harshly. The best chance Cleveland had for a win today was poor play by the home team’s rookie quarterback, but Carson Wentz made enough plays to bring home a winner.

That doesn’t mean the Browns blew it by passing on Wentz either. A year ago, the Titan’s Marcus Mariota was fantastic in the season opener, and in week two, the Browns, yes the team that won only three games, handed the rookie his lunch.

Our point is that it is way too early to judge Wentz.

Here are some of our observations for Game 1:

Positives. Many of the rookies looked good, particularly Emmanuel Ogbah and Carl Nassib. The latter seemed to be in the Eagles’ backfield a lot, batted down two passes and had a sack.

Derrick Kindred was another rookie who stood out, with five tackles.

Corey Coleman caught two passes for 69 yards, including a 58-yard play. Coleman was also open on Robert Griffin III’s interception, but the ball was way behind him. If the throw was on target, it would have been a big game.

The run defense was solid, allowing the Eagles just 3.9 yards per carry. Not great, but much better than we saw in the pre-season.

Last year’s first round picks, Cam Erving and Danny Shelton, looked better than a year ago, except for…

Negatives. …the Browns ran 50 offensive plays today and Erving had 49 good snaps. However, the one bad snap kind of changed the momentum of the game, as it resulted in a safety.

Griffin missed a lot of plays with inaccuracy, one that resulted in his only interception. He also missed an open Andrew Hawkins for a touchdown, and an open Terrelle Pryor on a sideline pass. You can’t leave plays on the field consistently.

Joe Haden showed a lot of rust after missing a lot of time last season, giving up a long TD pass to Nelson Agholor, and Jordan Matthews had over 100 yards receiving.

The third down woes reared its ugly head again, as the Browns were just 2 for 10. The inability to stay on the field led to the Eagles having the ball twice as much as the Browns.

Also, the running game struggled early. Running the ball helps keep the defense on the sideline and also will help the passing game. Cleveland simply has to get better running the football. Perhaps Duke Johnson should carry the ball more.

We know Hue Jackson is trying to set a tone with his football team, but it seemed like he gambled a lot today and none of his gambles paid off. Going for it on 4th and 5 in your own territory in the first half is a tad reckless, and the last Eagles’ touchdown was because he went for it with less than three minutes to go.

None of the negatives should be picked apart until they see them raise up on a weekly basis. If the Browns learn from what they did wrong, that’s great. That’s really the purpose of this season.

Same with the things that went well, unless you can do these things every week, it’s can’t be considered a building block.

Those critical of today’s performance are missing the point. This isn’t a good football team. If they are a lot better by the end of the season, then Jackson and his staff are doing a good job. That’s what they should be judged on.

Browns Not Tanking, Just Using Common Sense

Last week, we started hearing it, the dreaded “T” word.

Tanking. Mostly, you hear about it in the NBA, when the prize for getting the first pick in the draft is a player like LeBron James or someone like that.

In basketball, having a superstar is a huge advantage because there are only five players on the court.

Both the local and national media alike are claiming that the Cleveland Browns are tanking, trying to lose purposefully to gain the first overall pick in next spring’s draft.

Our question is if the Browns are tanking this year, what have they been doing for most of the last 16 seasons since they returned to the NFL?

Face it, the Browns aren’t tanking.

What they have been doing to getting rid of veteran players who have no upside and played for a team that went 3-13 a year ago. And that just seems like common sense.

Have we fallen asleep and not realized Cleveland unloaded Tom Brady, J.J. Watt, and Jim Brown in the off-season?

No. They pared the roster of a lot of players over 30 years old who were on the downside of their careers, or rid themselves of players who didn’t produce much in the time they were here.

You could make a better case that Ray Farmer was tanking when he let Jabaal Sheard and T.J. Ward flee the team in free agency.

We have said it time and again, the only thing worse than being a bad team is being a bad, old team. Why not start playing a bunch of younger players, who may get better with experience, and see where the chips fall?

If you are tanking, the coaching staff tends to not play the best players. We don’t see any indication of that, unless you are a member of the media, and you still have a love affair with Josh McCown.

The Browns have tried a lot of different ways to improve their fortunes, but they haven’t tried going with a bunch of young players and let them develop, so why not give that a shot?

What’s the worst that can happen? In three years, they are still putting together 5-11 seasons? If that’s happening, then once again, Jimmy Haslam will be looking for a new coach and a new general manager.

The coaching staff and the players will want to win, and hopefully the young players will improve as the season progresses, and finally the Browns will have a foundation on which to build something.

If they were tanking, then Jackson would announce that Cody Kessler is the starting quarterback and they would have traded players like Joe Haden, and maybe even Joe Thomas.

Now, once the season starts and you are let’s say 2-10, you may not go out of your way to play veterans, so you can get an extensive look at more young players, the ones who haven’t been in there all year.

On the other hand, with all of the young players on the field, you hope to see improvement as the season goes on, and hopefully the Browns can be in a position to win those late season games.

The tanking issue is ridiculous. This was a bad football team a year ago, and they weren’t tanking then.

The Browns are trying to build something that will grow over the next few years, and doing it with young players is the way to do it.

When you really think about it, it’s just common sense.

Browns’ Final Roster Not Shocking

No one should be surprised that all 14 of the draft choices made by the Browns’ new front office made the initial 53 man roster yesterday.

How many of them are still there after Sashi Brown, Hue Jackson, and the personnel staff scour the waiver wire is a good question, but our guess is that most of the 14 will still be wearing orange and brown.

Let’s face it, it’s a new front office staff, and the team they inherited went 3-13 a year ago. The question should be why didn’t they just replace most of the players who were on the team a year ago.

After the 2015 season ended, the roster had too many players over 30 for a team that had the second overall pick in the draft.

Now, there are just seven, and only three (Joe Thomas, John Greco, and Gary Barnidge) are starters, and it would not be a shock if two more, Andrew Hawkins and Tramon Williams, are released after the organization reviews the players cut by other teams yesterday.

There are now only three players, Thomas, Williams, and back up QB Josh McCown who have been in the NFL for ten years or more.

Perhaps the biggest surprise yesterday was the trade of former 1st round selection Justin Gilbert to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a sixth round pick in 2018.

We understand Gilbert was a polarizing figure here in his two plus seasons, but we thought he was buried by the old coaching staff, and when he did play, he wasn’t burned consistently by wide receivers.

His reputation was that he didn’t take well to coaching, and we get that.

On the other hand, it is interesting that both Gilbert and another first rounder, Barkevious Mingo, were both acquired by teams with a history of winning football in Pittsburgh and New England.

If either become contributors with their new squads it will say volumes about the talent evaluation of the Cleveland organization, both past and present.

Our opinion of Mingo, in particular, is that he is an athletic freak. His interception of Peyton Manning against Denver last year may have been the most amazing play made by a Browns’ defender all season. Why any coordinator here couldn’t find a place or scheme in which to use him is a fail by Cleveland.

The current roster has 18 rookies or first year players, and 10 second year guys. That’s 28 of the current 53, which even a non-math expert knows is more than half.

That’s how you build a football team.

You also have to make a commitment to the coaching staff, so they don’t have to worry about accumulating wins while playing young players.

That was the weakness of previous regimes here. They wanted to get younger, but they also wanted the coach to win. That’s why the Randy Starks, Donte Whitners, and Karlos Dansbys of the NFL were brought in.

We trust that Brown and Jimmy Haslam have told Jackson not to be concerned with the Browns record in 2016.

How should we judge the coach this season? Focus on the progression of the team. If the Browns are a better, more competitive football team when they take the field on January 1st against the Steelers than they are next Sunday, then Jackson has done his job.

In the meantime, the next few days should be interesting to see who will dress a week from today, and who won’t be a part of phase one of the building process.

What Did You Expect From Browns?

It was shocking to read and listen to both fans and media alike being irritated by the Browns’ performance Friday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

What did these people expect? Did they believe Hue Jackson’s team was suddenly going to dominate another NFL team?

After Jackson was hired and Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta took over control of the franchise, the management has made no bones about the direction of the team. They were going to get younger and build through the draft, really the only tried and true method of building a winning football team.

If you have read this blog since the beginning of 2016, we have advocated and predicted that Brown and DePodesta were going to rid the roster of most of the over 30 years of age crew.

After all, the only thing worse than being a bad team is being a bad, old team.

The purge started with Donte Whitner and Karlos Dansby, Dwayne Bowe followed, and now Paul Kruger and even punter Andy Lee were moved off the squad.

And we believe that Tramon Williams, Andrew Hawkins won’t be here for week one, and we have a feeling that Josh McCown won’t be either.

The Browns are accumulating young players and draft picks, and when you play a lot of inexperienced players, losing usually follows. At least at the beginning.

The expectation is the team will build around the players taken last season that weren’t really given a chance to play, the 14 draft picks taken last April, and all of the picks the front office has accumulated in the 2017 and 2018 NFL Drafts.

That doesn’t mean the players and coaching staff will not try to win every week, of course they will, that’s imbedded in the DNA of competitive people.

However, they are usually going to be outmanned in each game, mostly because of a lack of experience.

What the front office is trying to decide is who can be a contributing player in 2018 or 2019, when this team is ready to make a legitimate playoff run. If it happens sooner, then great, all that means is the Browns will be winners and still have a boatload of draft picks.

Gone is the philosophy of bringing veterans to patch some holes and keep the team somewhat competitive, perhaps winning five or six games so the coaching staff can say the Browns are improving.

Instead, the organization is throwing a lot of stuff against the wall and hoping some of it sticks.

The rookies and second year players are going to get to play and prove themselves. If they get better as the season progresses, the coaches and front office will determine them to be keepers. If they can’t get it done, they will be replaced by younger players acquired in the next two drafts.

It’s not a mystery. Every signal given by the folks in Berea indicate just that.

So, don’t be surprised if this team loses in the early part of the season, and sometimes, the games will be flat out ugly.

And if the team doesn’t show some improvement as the season goes on, then you can be concerned, because that’s the plan.

In the meantime, get ready for more veterans to depart and more young players, particularly players cut after the final cut this weekend, to be brought in.

Frankly, we are puzzled as to why people were expecting anything different.

Browns Good At One Thing: Promoting Themselves

While many fans have complained about the fortune of the Cleveland Browns on the field since they returned to the NFL in 1999, they have established excellence in one area. And that is being in the forefront of the Cleveland sports media.

This “tradition” didn’t start in with the rebirth of the franchise. It really goes back to the early 60’s, and Art Modell.

The former owner of the Browns was a media darling, always glib and very friendly with the local scribes and broadcast media alike.

Modell started the practice, which continues today, of having one of the local television anchors as the team’s radio play-by-play people. Since the mid 1960’s, we have seen Gib Shanley, Jim Graner, Nev Chandler, Jim Mueller, Casey Coleman, and now Jim Donovan at the voice of the Browns.

That way, the broadcaster and station has a vested interest in covering the local professional football team.

A few years ago, when the Browns’ local radio contract was up for grabs, they did something that can be considered ingenious, making both of the city’s sports talk stations the “Home of the Browns”.

They even have their own self-serving show on daily on WKNR, Cleveland Browns Daily, which runs year round, and is hosted by Nathan Zegura, listed on the Browns’ website as Senior Media Broadcaster.

Can you imagine the Indians or Cavaliers asking any radio station in the northeast Ohio area to put a daily, hourly show to talk about either of these franchises.

Apparently as part of this deal with the two stations, listeners get to hear the head coach’s daily press conference in which he gives very little to no information.

Terry Francona and Tyronn Lue speak to the media everyday before the game during the season too, it’s just that no one is interrupting the normal broadcast schedule to put them on the air.

When the Browns’ play a game, it is hard to find a station that isn’t carrying the broadcast, as they also include 98.5 FM as a “Home of the Browns”, and they have other stations in the Akron area too.

If you do a scan on your car radio during a Browns’ game, more often than not, you will find a station broadcasting the football game.

You have to admire the job they’ve done in this regard, and wonder why the other teams in the market don’t do the same thing.

Particularly, the Cleveland Indians, who need all the help they can get getting air time on local sports talk stations.

The past two days, with the Tribe in a prime position to make the playoffs, the bulk of the air time on sports talk radio was devoted to Josh Gordon, a receiver who has been suspended for 27 of the Browns’ last 32 games.

The stations will tell you the fans will provide the direction of their shows, but why wouldn’t fans talk about the Browns when it is all around them?

We have said in the past that the Indians made a terrible miscalculation by staying on WTAM, which dedicates very little non game time air to the team. If they had gone to either WKNR or 92.3FM, do you think there would be more discussion about the team that fills their airwaves on most summer nights?

The Cavs have LeBron James and are NBA Champions. They will hold the area’s interest no matter what they do for the foreseeable future.

You have to tip your hats to the way the Browns handle this part of their business. Now, about the on the field stuff…

Good And Bad So Far From Browns

Thank goodness that half of the NFL’s preseason schedule is over for the Cleveland Browns.

After the first exhibition game against Green Bay, where the Packers stopped just short of bringing fans out of Lambeau Field to play against the Browns, last night we got to see the brown and orange play against legitimate players, at least for the first half.

Yes, Cleveland lost to Atlanta at First Energy Stadium last night, but at least now we can make some judgments on this football team, as they head into a week of practices against Tampa Bay next week, followed by the “dress rehearsal” a week from today in Florida.

Robert Griffin III has shown flashes of why he was the 2nd overall pick in the draft a few years ago. He has a big arm, has been accurate for the most part, and has learned how to slide when he runs with the football.

We said in the off-season that signing the former Heisman Trophy winner was the ultimate low risk, high reward gamble. After all, it’s not like Griffin is replacing Tom Brady, the alternative is veteran journeyman (and media favorite) Josh McCown.

The right move is finding out if Griffin can play, and so far, so good.

A year ago, Mike Pettine and his staff cut Terrelle Pryor right before the regular season started, then brought him back later in the season and virtually ignored him.

We realize that Pryor has greatly improved his wide receiver skills in the off-season, but you still have to wonder why the previous regime didn’t feel the need to work with him more. After all, the guy is a special athlete.

The running game looked good last night as well. Isaiah Crowell and Duke Johnson have been effective and Terrell Watson has looked good against second team defenders. We’d like to see him with the first unit next weekend. If the Browns are going move the ball effectively and try to shorten games, they must run the football.

And we would also like to see rookie Carl Nassib with the first team defense at times. You can’t help but notice the 6’7″ kid from Penn State, and not just because of his size. He’s all over the field when he’s in.

The problems on defense continue to be the inability to stop the running game and not being able to get off the field on third down. Those two issues have plagued this franchise since they returned to the NFL in 1999.

If you can’t run the ball and you can’t stop the run, you can’t win in the NFL despite it becoming a passing league. The Cleveland defense seems to be consistently in second and short situations, and if they do get to third down, it’s usually at a make able distance.

We would also like to see more of the young wide receivers. We still believe that Andrew Hawkins will not make the opening roster, but so far, we haven’t seen a lot of the rookie wide outs taken this spring. We know injuries play into that, but it’s still a problem.

We understand this is still pre-season and much of the game plans are very vanilla. However, it is easy to spot these trends.

On the other hand, we are halfway done in regards to the exhibition games. Based on the quality of these game, be very thankful for that.

Hue’s Decision At QB Was A Logical, Simple One

Imagine you are an NFL head coach and you are taking over a team that went 3-13 a year ago, and hasn’t had a winning season since 2007.

Your bosses have tried several way to build a successful franchise, and in the off-season, they traded away or cut several veterans, and let a few more leave via free agency.

So, there isn’t a lot of pressure on you to win immediately, but the owner, the front office, and the fan base would like to see some progress as the season goes on.

You have several candidates for the starting quarterback position–

One is the former second overall pick in the draft after winning the Heisman Trophy, and in his rookie year took his team to the NFL playoffs. He blew out his knee in that game, and hasn’t been the same since.

The second candidate is a 37-year-old journeyman with a career record as a starter of 18-39, and over the last two years, seasons in which he started 19 of 32 games, his record is 2-17.

He has started just 57 games in a 13 year career.

You also have on the roster a third year QB who started five games in his second year in the league and was pressed into service to start two more games with your team a season ago, both of which were losses.

And you have a rookie third round draft pick from one of the elite college programs in the country. He’s a guy you really like and you went out on a limb to take him where you did. Still, he’s a rookie and you don’t want to expose him to the NFL before he’s ready to play.

The team in question of course are the Cleveland Browns and the quarterbacks at Hue Jackson’s disposal are Robert Griffin III, Josh McCown, Austin Davis, and Cody Kessler.

Jackson picked Griffin, and really, didn’t have much of a decision. That’s the logical move.

The Browns’ players and coaching staff will no doubt try to win every game, but there is little expectation going into the regular season of the playoffs.

Let’s face it, the only QBs currently on the roster who have a chance to be a quality NFL signal caller are Griffin and Kessler, and once again, the latter is a rookie.

The organization knows what McCown is. He’s a terrific teammate, a hard worker, and a guy you can put into a game without your franchise being embarrassed.

They also know what he isn’t, and that’s a quality NFL starter, and a guy with a history of winning football games. McCown is good enough to give you a decent performance and he will keep you in a game, but likely you won’t win.

Heck, the guy who started two of the three victories by the Browns a year ago, isn’t even in the NFL right now.

We have no idea if Griffin can become a successful passer from the pocket, because his success in Washington was with a hybrid offense. But in a rebuilding season? Why not find out.

If Griffin can make the transformation, the Browns have caught lightning in a bottle. If he doesn’t, you still have Kessler and a likely a high draft pick in next year’s draft.

But this is a year to experiment. That’s why Jackson’s decision was just the logical move.

Right Now? No Complaints

The month of June was certainly a wonderful month for the city of Cleveland.

The Cleveland Cavaliers broke the 52 year drought for the city without a major league sports championship. The whole area partied like never before, and citizens still have a collective smile on their face that may not be wiped off for a long time.

Or at least until the Browns start playing.

And the Indians have gone 21-6 during the month, and currently are riding a 12 game winning streak, one game away from tying the franchise record.

They have stamped themselves as one of the best teams in the American League.

So, right now, there is nothing to complain about with the Cleveland sports scene, and if you can come up with something, you are probably nit-picking.

Sure, some people continue to bring up the Cavaliers possibly trading Kevin Love, but that seems to be more about those people not understanding that Love has sacrificed his scoring for the good of the team.

Also, if you are going to move Love, don’t you have to get somebody better than him? We understand the usual mentality here is a bunch of average players is greater than one all-star player, but for the most part, the players who are better than Kevin Love in the NBA, aren’t being traded by their teams.

There isn’t even any angst about LeBron James leaving the Cavs after opting out of his contract this week. James has publicly stated he is returning to defend the championship, and his agent told people a year ago that he would be opting out of his contracts in 2015 and 2016 to maximize his earning capabilities.

We feel confident also, that the front office will do everything it can do to keep JR Smith on the roster, and Matthew Dellavedova too, unless another team breaks the bank for him.

Do we have concerns about the Indians’ bullpen? Yes, but we’ve discussed this before and with the starting pitchers giving Terry Francona at least seven innings on most nights recently, it’s become less of a factor.

Dead roster spots for the Tribe? Outside of Tito’s obsession with having eight relievers, many of whom sit around in the bullpen eating sunflower seeds, getting paid to watch games, you really can’t complain about someone being on the roster who shouldn’t be.

The club’s 25th man, Michael Martinez, has proved very useful and has actually mixed in some key hits and supplied good defense at several positions. He’s a lifetime .200 hitter, but is hitting .290 with the Indians in limited at bats.

The Browns are a month away from opening training camp and OTA’s are over, so there isn’t anything to worry about there for the time being. Hue Jackson seems to be giving young players, who Mike Pettine seemed to ignore, a new life.

There actually seems like the new front office has a plan in place to get better using young guys, instead of mixing in fading veterans in an attempt to win a few games to stay relevant into November.

It’s good to be a Cleveland sports fan right now. Today.

We are sure something will irritate us soon. That’s the nature of sports.

A Life With The Cleveland Curse

We grew up in the 60’s, but weren’t aware of sports until 1965, meaning we missed the last major league championship in this city by a year.

At that time, the Browns were the hallmark franchise, not just in the city, but in the NFL. They had best overall record in league history since entering the NFL in 1950.

They pretty much were a contender every year. They played and lost the NFL title to Green Bay in 1965, but were in the playoffs in 1968 and 1969 when they lost a chance to go to the Super Bowl in both years, losing to Baltimore and Minnesota respectively.

There was no “Cleveland Curse” then, it was only five years since the Browns ruled the football world when they lost to the Vikings in’69.

At that time, there was no professional basketball in town, as the Cavaliers just entered the NBA in 1970. They slowly built the franchise into a winner drafting Austin Carr, Jim Brewer, and Campy Russell, trading for Jimmy Cleamons, Jim Chones, and Nate Thurmond, and soon they were in the playoffs.

The “Miracle of Richfield” was the first taste of playoff basketball here and we loved it, selling out the old Coliseum, with crowd so loud, those players still talk about it today.

The Cavs won their first round series against the Bullets, and lost the Eastern Conference finals in six games to Boston, despite not having Chones, who broke his foot in practice.

We were thrilled the wine and gold made it that far, and heck, it was just 12 years since the Browns won a title. Surely, a championship would come soon.

The Kardiac Kids gave us all a thrill in 1980, 16 years since a professional sports championship, but it was the Browns of the late 80’s, 1985-1990, that felt like our best chance to bring a title to Cleveland.

John Elway got in their way all three times, but it had still been just a little over 20 years since a championship in Cleveland. Still, the most heart breaking loss was “The Drive”, an AFC Championship on our home field.

There was no doubt in our mind when Brian Brennan caught the touchdown pass from Bernie Kosar late in the fourth quarter that the Cleveland Browns were going to their first Super Bowl. But you know what happened.

In the 90’s, the Cavaliers were good again, but the best player in the sport, Michael Jordan, got in their way.

By the mid-90’s, the Indians were finally one of baseball’s best teams, and in 1995, they reached their first World Series since 1954. We were just happy to have that streak end, so it wasn’t too disappointing when they didn’t win.

They got back in 1997, and were leading game seven going into the 9th inning before Jose Mesa couldn’t slam the door. It was now 33 years at that time, and that night, we were angry at the gods for taking that chance away. It had become a curse.

It seemed like a long time until 2007 for our next chance. The Cavs drafted LeBron James, one of us, a northeast Ohioan, and he single handedly won the wine and gold their first Eastern Conference title, their first trip to The NBA Finals.

They were swept, but we were sure there would be more trip to come.

That same year, the Tribe had a 3-1 lead in the American League Championship Series, only to drop the final three to Boston, who won the World Series piloted by Terry Francona.

The curse was now at 43 years and counting. This morning, it is now 52 years since a Cleveland major league team has won a title.

By tonight, it may be over. Or it might not be. But this is the closest any of our teams have been in 19 years, and we have the best player in the sport.

We will be on the edge of our chairs tonight, hoping, imploring, and maybe begging that this curse ends.

We won’t know how to act if it does, although we are sure plenty of tears of joy will be shed.

That’s how much we love our sports teams in northeast Ohio.

Grading Browns Draft? Stupid To Do Now

No one can evaluate how the Cleveland Browns did in the NFL draft for several years. Anyone who wants to tell you differently is insane.

All of the analysts who rank the drafts for each team are doing so based on how they ranked each player prior to the selection process.

For example, if the writer/analyst liked Corey Coleman and let’s say, Carl Nassib, then they would probably say the Browns had a very good draft.

If they didn’t like those guys, then they are panning Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta for not taking Laquon Treadwell with the 15th overall pick.

It really is that simple.

That’s why you see a large disparity of grade on the Browns’ draft. Pro Football Focus gave them an “A”. Mel Kiper gave them a “C”. Pete Prisco gave them a “C-“.

Lord knows what famous Browns critic Jason LaCanfora gave them. Is there a grade lower than F?

One thing we can say is Brown and company are trying to make this team younger, and with 14 picks and the acquisition of CB Jamar Taylor from Miami, the roster will have a drastic turnover from a year ago.

We have written several times about the players over 30 years of age on this roster. The choices Cleveland made indicate more of this group will be gone by the time training camp starts in July.

Paul Kruger said a lot of good things at OTA’s a few weeks ago, but with the drafting of Emmanuel Ogbah, Nassib, and Joe Schobert, there doesn’t seem to be room for him to play.

Grabbing Taylor in the deal with the Dolphins likely will mean that Tramon Williams will not be with the Browns for long.

And with four wide receivers being picked, one of them the first rounder, will Andrew Hawkins be in Berea by the end of summer?

If those players aren’t here, that will leave punter Andy Lee, Joe Thomas, John Greco, and Gary Barnidge as the only players on the wrong side of 30.

The lightning rod pick was taking QB Cody Kessler from USC on the third round. That’s what a lot of people want to talk about, with most of the objections being that he was a third round pick.

While that is true, he was picked 93rd, and Cleveland had (at the time) the 99th and 100th overall picks.

If Kessler were chosen with one of those selections, would that appease the critics? In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t mean much difference.

And for the people who wanted the Browns to take local boy Connor Cook? A bunch of teams passed on him multiple times. And to reiterate what we used to say about Brian Hoyer, just because a player is from here, doesn’t need they will be good quarterbacks.

Not everyone from northeast Ohio is Bernie Kosar.

Also, Kessler’s presence may mean another member of the over 30 set could be gone soon. It wouldn’t be a shock if Josh McCown is dealt before the beginning of the regular season.

We knew going into this off-season that the Browns were going to overhaul their roster, and by getting 15 new players last weekend, the process has started.

But judging the draft now, and putting a grade on it is based on bias and is out and out stupid. You also can’t pin the sins of past administrations on Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta.

The Browns are sticking to a plan right now. Whether they can stick to the plan will probably determine how successful they will be.