DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Browns Training Camp

"Play-calling is over-rated."
~ Marty Schottenheimer, 1988

I’m not worried about the actual plays that are called. I am worried about the familiarity between the play caller and the players.

I was being semi-sarcastic, although I agree with Marty to a degree. He was fired after the seaon he said those words.

I don’t know how beneficial hitting/physicality is in TC ... but I do think our QB and first team should get literally as many reps as possible, even if it’s on air

j/c:

A couple of things.

--I thought Stef's comments were hysterical because he said he would announce who would be calling plays before the Baltimore game. Well, there would be no need to announce it afterwards because it would be evident who was calling plays while watching the game.

--I also thought it was funny that he said it would either be him or Van Pelt. LOL............was anyone expecting anyone other than those two?

--Regarding Marty.........I always knew what he meant. Execution is far more important than play calling. I do respect great play callers like Shanny and McDaniels. There are a couple of bad ones, but most are competent. Execution is generally far more important.

--More Marty: Rish was talking about TC and how bad it is. I have been to a lot of camps for the Browns, but not all. I never went to Stefs, Hues, and maybe another. But, of all the camps I witnessed, no one ran a better camp than Marty. Practices were intense, fast-paced, physical, competitive, and the attention to detail was superb.

j/c:

I was wondering if Rish was being too negative, but damn, this article is very depressing to anyone who loves the Browns and actually played football.

That week 2 Thursday nighter could be ugly. Short week and still acclimating to real football with the weird offseason. The Ravens likely being one of the more physical teams in the league definitely doesn't help us.

Hopefully Bosa gives Burrow and the Bengals' OTs a nice welcome to the NFL.

This camp has been a complete club med. Hope Stefanski knows what he's doing. A 42-10 drubbing on opening day will end the honeymoon pretty quick.

That article was depressing.

Stefsnski sounds clueless. His job is to win football games.

Not a fan of "soft" in the game of football. I get "feelings" and the like in everyday life, but the locker room and gridiron are different animals that no one who hasn't experienced them could even begin to understand.

Meanwhile the Ravens scrimmaged a couple of weeks ago. Sounded like they were full go. Lamar throwing bombs all over the field.

Mayfield just practiced against air.

You can't make this stuff up.

I don't think you can look at a "dress rehearsal" and really make too much of it. If there'd been preseason games, the starters probably wouldn't have stepped on the field for this one.

If the whole off-season had been like that, I'd be worried. Access was rather limited with all the COVID craziness, though, so it's pretty difficult to know how it all went together.

We'll be finding out if whatever they did/do works soon.

I watched every practice of training camp that was aired. Rishuz is right, it was camp cupcake.

[Though it may have felt like a game and looked like a game, on this night it was a practice — one of the quickest and most efficient of training camp. The Browns' first-team offense ran through a series without the defense on the field. A few more half-speed periods followed before Austin Seibert got a chance to kick field goals. A 2-minute drill ended things, as undrafted rookie Javonte Moffatt provided the biggest highlight of the evening with a drive-stopping interception./quote]

The quote above came from an article that Andrew Gribble wrote on the Browns official site. It’s the reason I don’t post articles from there.

Sometimes football teams take on the personality of the head coach.
I dont think the Browns can physically beat the Ravens.

We beat the Ravens last year with Freddie Kitchens as our head coach.

I think Freddie would kick Kev's ass in a fist fight. Just saying.

That has nothing to do with anything.

The that was aired part is what I think some people are missing. Teams are (allegedly, and it makes sense to me with NFL logic being what it is) trying to hide a lot since there isn't a ton of exposure with no preseason games and limited access.

If you're going live/hitting, you're probably doing the things other teams might actually want to see. Thus, they aren't making that available during this strange offseason.

They did show the live hitting. What they did was show only closeups so you couldn’t see formations, movement, etc. There were five practices that weren’t televised. The first was basically a walk through (day of all the false positives), 2nd was due to weather they moved inside, and the last three were this week. Two of which they didn’t even wear pads.

I don’t know if Stefanski is right or wrong in his approach. I also don’t know if the Browns hit less than other teams. I know with Covid they changed some rules.

So what if it's soft this year? Kitchens ran a mega-physical camp and it got us nothing, too.

There's more to getting ready that hitting just because the cameras are on.

Maybe we’ll have a huge leg up on other teams because we have a bunch of young people in charge running Zoom meetings. Imagine how long it took Mike Zimmer to get on a Zoom call.

Secret weapon!

His PowerPoints are on point.

Better than Kyle Shanahan's?

haha ... true (it woulda been *something* to see Freddie try to navigate through this too)

That’s a pretty big deal. If he didn’t practice he’d likely have been out for the first two games.

excellent news .. hope he is healthy-ish

Browns notebook: JC Tretter back at practice, Baker Mayfield better behind scenes and more

https://www.beaconjournal.com/sports/202...-more?nocache=1

The Browns might get their main man in the middle back just in time.

Center JC Tretter returned to practice Monday as the Browns prepared for their opener Sunday in Baltimore.

Coach Kevin Stefanski announced Tretter practiced for the first time since the starting offensive lineman and NFL Players Association president had knee surgery on Aug. 13. Tretter missed all of the team’s training camp practices.

“It was good to have JC back out there,” Stefanski said on Zoom. “I’m not going to get [into] the extent to which he was back out there. We’ll deal with that on Wednesday, [when the first injury report is released]. It was good to have him out there in his pads.”

Thunderstorms forced the Browns to hold Monday’s practice inside their field house, so the session was closed to media because of COVID-19 protocols.

If Tretter cannot face the Ravens in Week 1, rookie fifth-round draft pick Nick Harris would start in his place.

“JC is a veteran,” Stefanski said. “He’s seen a lot of football. I think there’s value in that. He’s a leader of the football team. So it was really good to have him out there today.”

Tretter has played through injuries, including a high ankle sprain, and started all 48 games since the Browns signed him as an unrestricted free agent in 2017.

A better Baker?

Wide receiver Rashard Higgins has become a good friend of Baker Mayfield since the Browns drafted the quarterback first overall in 2018. Higgins envisions Mayfield bouncing back from a 2019 season in which he regressed.

“He’s more focused,” Higgins said on Zoom. “I feel like he knows what he has to do. He has a goal in his mind. I really believe he’s set out to do it.

“I feel like there’s a way better version that he’s showing us that y’all haven’t seen yet. The time is Sunday. So y’all shall see it.”

Higgins buys this logic: Mayfield is motivated to prove last season won’t define him as a player.

“It’s a feeling like you know you can do more, to not be complacent, to know that I had eras where I wasn’t as good, but I know I can be better,” Higgins said. “That’s all we want to see. Moving forward, we’ve already seen the improvement. He’s already gotten better since last year. Even if the improvement is small, you’re going up. That’s all that matters.”

View from Baltimore

Ravens coach John Harbaugh knows a couple of things about the Browns’ rushing attack.

One, his run defense had better be ready for a heavy workload.

Two, the Browns aren’t shy about how good they think running backs Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt can be as a tandem.

“They, by their own account, [have] the two best backs in football and not just this year, but going back historically,” Harbaugh said Monday during his media availability. “That’s been said in their camp. I can see why.

“They’ve got two great running backs. The run game’s going to be important to them. That’s Coach Stefanski’s bread and butter going all the way back in that system that he’s been a part of.”

Stefanski has yet to announce whether he or offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt will call the Browns’ plays on offense, but Harbaugh said the decision won’t make a big difference to the Ravens.

“No, not that I know,” Harbaugh said. “We don’t know those two guys, per se, as play callers too much. They both have experience, but it’s not a vast amount of play-calling experience. So we’re going to play against the system and the players, and whatever plays are called, hopefully we can defend them.”

Still sidelined

Stefanski said no Browns players other than Tretter returned to practice Monday, meaning linebacker B.J. Goodson (personal reason), cornerbacks Greedy Williams (shoulder), M.J. Stewart (hamstring) and Kevin Johnson (liver), linebacker Mack Wilson (knee) and offensive tackle Chris Hubbard (ankle) remained out.

Stefanski said he expects Goodson to be back with the team soon. He secured a role in camp as the starting middle linebacker.

“B.J. has been great for us in the meeting room and on the grass,” Stefanski said. “He’s just a very high-energy player. You hear him before you see him. I’m really excited about what B.J. brings to our defense.”

The replacements

Rookie third-round draft pick Jacob Phillips and third-year Browns player Tavierre Thomas are positioned to play significant roles when the season begins.

With Wilson recovering from a hyperextended knee, Phillips will likely start along with Goodson and Sione Takitaki in the linebacking corps.

“Jacob has done a nice job,” Stefanski said. “All of our rookies, we’re counting on them. He’s working very hard. ... He’s a smart, tough football player, and I think he has grown over the course of this last month.”

Thomas could serve as the team’s primary nickelback, as long as Stewart and Johnson are idle. Thomas has been a special teams standout the past two seasons, but he has played just 20 defensive snaps in his NFL career.

“Tavierre comes to practice and just works,” Stefanski said. “Love watching that guy out at practice, whether it’s a defensive drill or a special teams drill. He’s all about ball. His teammates love him, and I think it just is from how he attacks every single day.”

Good cause

Defensive end Myles Garrett launched a campaign to raise money for the NFL Waterboys program with which he’s involved.

Garrett pledged to donate $5,000 for every sack he has in 2020. He’s also inviting Browns fans and local businesses make a financial pledge per sack, with the goal of raising $95,000 and bringing clean water to 9,500 individuals in need by the end of the season. Garrett wears No. 95 on his jersey.

Sounds like Harbaugh took note of us anointing Chubb/Hunt as the best tandem ... they’ll be fired up to shut us up

I thought the same thing. He made it a point to say "by their account". Actually I don't think the Browns have said anything about it. That's been all media.

Harbaugh is a bit too big headed to me. He's a victim of his own success. They were hooting and hollering and laughing it up on the sidelines last year as they ran the score up on people. Earl Thomas basically said it's a foregone conclusion they were going to the Super Bowl. Those things sometimes come back on you. Be somewhat respectful along the way to your opponents.

I mean if Harbaugh wanted to come to Cleveland, I'd pick him up in Baltimore and drive him to Cleveland, but I thought them getting bounced in the first round last year after their sideline antics all year was poetic justice.

Man, I hope we win week 1.

I get it, execute; but last year it was a factor.

The Ravens, are an Offense centered team, from the start of the year, two full seasons ago. In 32 games they have redesigned the running game, involving innovative double teaming with their O-line and other blockers,
and also involving designed runs from their quarterback, quarterback carries as a rule, more often than most offenses show.

The entire league, for two full years has watched and been forced to adapt. One notable effective game that a defense was able to combat this, was a playoff game where San Diego used a high number of Db's on the field to provide speed to stop the various runs.

The article above says Taviere Thomas is set to be the Browns' starting "nickel" db on Sunday, which shows me the Browns are going to be lightly staffed if they plan to use extra dbs.

Unless the Browns front 5 can stop the Ravens Running attack, I'll expect the Ravens to put up 35-38 points,
Which means the Browns will have to score 39, to win.

Looking back at the 2019 opener, vs. Tennessee, it was a tough game at halftime,
so once again;

Somebody Think of Something!

I think Baltimore started a new trend honestly, at least for those teams who can do it w/the QB. I think when New England lost to them, Bill B saw the effectiveness and flexibility of that type of offense ... and he put it in the back of his mind to acquire Cam Newton honestly.

Yesterday, I relaxed on my couch and watched the first Ravens game from last year. It felt like a good lead-in to this week.

Also, things of note from that game:

Landry had a career game,
OBJ was taken away by one guy almost all game.
Whitehead made some seriously big plays that led directly to that win.
Chubb was a machine.
Our OLine was deemed as "playing really good"... we need that again.
They turned it over three times - and we made them pay at least a little each time.
For one of the few times last year, we did NOT struggle in the red zone.


I don't have much expectation of it, but we need to play like that, and better, to win this week.

Nice reminders thanks. That was our best game of the year. It was about the only time things felt “right” with our offense.

Getting a lead against Baltimore seems important given their style. Running the ball effectively would also help.