DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Browns News Continued...

Or it could just be he has a kid to provide for and wanted to get the clock ticking for that 2nd contract and potential generational wealth.

College coursework isn't for everybody. Football and parenting are plenty to fill ones days without adding attending classes, paper writing, and trying to study for exams while changing diapers to the mix. Can go back to get the degree after the playing days are over. 2 "Full-time jobs" is tough. 3 is just not really feasible, they all would suffer.

All I'd heard from his Browns teammates were good things.

It's been a minute since I checked in here. Obviously a lot has probably been said about Watson. I will say this: If the 2 time defending Super Bowl champion QB is playing in preseason, then a guy who has played TWELVE games in THREE years, has a new WR and a new offensive system NEEDS to be on the field. I don't want to hear any more excuses, the word rust or any other nonsense. This guy NEEDS to be out there. It's really starting to look like karma has bitten Haslam in the backside for all the nonsense that went on at Pilot Flying J. Once again, ONLY IN CLEVELAND. What is it with this city and this team? SMH

Well the same excuse used the last two seasons, rust, has been set up perfectly as the excuse again this year for at least the first few weeks of the season if need be. It actually couldn't have been set up any better. And if he struggles early you'll certainly be hearing it again.

Agreed 100%

Re-injury is the concern. Him getting a series of play in a meaningless preseason game is not the end of the world.

j/c...

whos going to catch passes now

Apparently the offense will look like we're in the Navy now.

I wish York the best - amazed we could even trade him

j/c...

I hope Ika doesn't make the roster instead

He will. He's terrible, but he will make the roster. He was a third round pick and Berry will give him one more season before cutting bait.

Hopefully just the practice squad for Ika. Actually, hopefully Ika was more of a Schwartz pick, so Berry isn't as personally invested and can just hand him a pink slip and wish him luck.

I think Kamara's ahead of Ika now and I'm not sure he'll make the roster. DT's pretty deep. Tomlinson, Hurst, Jefferson, Harris, Hall. How many can you keep?

Mmmm.....I liked what I saw from Williams.

We'll see how he does in Chicago.

yeah I bet he makes the team too

Doesn't hurt for week one.

...one fewer player for the potential first drive pick-6....

Vegas has the line set at 8.5. That feels right to me. Anywhere from 7-11 to 9-8 is probably what we are looking at. I don’t see any playoffs this year.

I don’t think the Browns are some big mystery.

1. You’re likely to get average QB play from your starter. There are no indications that anything will change from the last two years.
2. Watson will likely get hurt either physically or mentally and we will get a heavy dose of Winston, who is Flacco without all the TD passes, just the picks.
3. Callahan is a huge loss.
4. The defense hasn’t practiced together much.
5. Every team starting week 1 will use the Houston game as a blueprint against the defense. Have they improved from last year?
6. There will likely be little to no running game.
7. Myles will fade down the stretch.
8. Stefanski teams have not delivered in odd years or in years with expectations.

Who else is excited!?

I think he's referring to the Houston playoff game where our defense was dismantled and embarrassed. Our secondary has communication lapses and teams take advantage of Newsome/LBs in coverage

yeah he was awful too ... and our defense was torched. Both were true

It means nothing as long as we learned how to adjust to how they were attacking us IMO

I think you might agree that this is pretty close to worst case scenario territory. Not that that wcs doesn’t happen for the browns in many years but if we somehow manage to avoid the injury bug, a lot of good things could happen for this team. Slightly above avg QB play plus injury bug avoidance and we could very well string a good number of wins together. I admit there’s some weird vibes this year. Not abjectly bad vibes but just mysterious and a bit odd.

I will say I won’t be very surprised if the Dallas game is a clunker considering our very limited starter reps in preseason. Might look like our 4th preseason game. So, it might not be the season tell that we’re expecting.

expecting us to play well against Dallas is pretty idealistic IMO - now, the hope is that THEY play poorly too. Gotta hope for an ugly game

Honestly, I don't know what to expect this year. When friends ask me how the Browns are going to do, I say that they have a lot of talent, a tough schedule and could win 10-12 games or lose 10-12 games. I tell them much depends on how DW plays and injuries. That's the best assessment I can give. I hope we don't embarrass ourselves on national TV. The whole country will be watching the game being it Dallas and Tom Brady's first game as an analyst. I enjoyed last season up until the playoff game. It was nice having a well-coached competitive team through the whole season. I don't want to see us go back to the losing year after year and out of the playoff picture by Halloween.

1. There are no indications that things won't change. Change/Entropy is the natural state of most "living" things. It's staying the same that would be unnatural.
2. Future injuries aren't determined by previous unrelated injuries. Injury "luck" can change.
3. That remains to be seen. The guys that he coached here don't just magically forget everything they learned from him, and we haven't seen those guys play together.
4. The defense probably hasn't changed much. The secondary has been together for awhile now (multiple seasons.) The whole D has outside of LB, and I don't think we want the new LBs in a ton on passing downs anyway. Hicks has been around the block. Diabate probably benefitted from all the reps.
5. What Houston did won't work nearly so well if Myles is his usual havoc wreaking self, and our QB doesn't keep the defense returning to the field or directly gives up points himself.
6. Based upon what? We didn't want to get our healthy RB dinged up in meaningless games and the starting OL never played together.
7. We'll see. See #2.
8. We have a rather small sample size still. Trying to draw out patterns would appear to be premature. Each season is its own entity.

I'm cautiously optimistic. Lack of clarity on some players' health being the biggest concern.

I've never been sure of how this team would perform this season from the beginning. As you pointed out there are too many variables involved to know for sure. There are things that give me cause for concern but even with that said I have no way of knowing how those things will play out. So all along I have been cautiously optimistic.

I wonder how well and/or how quickly it will take a new O scheme to gel and become fluid. I worry about how the loss of Callahan will impact the play of the OL. Sometimes with a really good coach they can make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. I think that's a rare quality Callahan brought to the table. How that will play out moving forward is anyone's guess. Watson hasn't strung together a complete, high production, entire season since 2020. So naturally I'm concerned if he can repeat that four seasons later.

Now having said that, it doesn't mean any of those concerns will come to fruition. I don't claim they will be issues. As you stated, I like most all others have no idea what all is going on behind the scenes. So things could always go either way. But I do understand others have concerns. But then I had all of those concerns before training camp started. Before there was any preseason games were played. I simply didn't allow things like that to play into it. As 2017 should have shown people, the Browns went 4-0 in the preseason. They went on to lose every singe season game and went winless in 2017. Preseason results and "feelings" don't amount to anything. "Camp cupcake" as people call it doesn't mean anything.

What surprises me more than anything is just how positive the fan base that posts here were at the end of last season. How this FO, who were forced to pull Flacco off the couch still managed to make the playoffs. That the future looked bright. Now, without another single regular season game having been played, this same group overall has a different feeling about things. There is a lot more doom and gloom being bantered about. A lot more negativity surrounding the general comments. I'm not quite sure what has caused all of that.

The one thing this team had last season was a lot of heart. That was a big reason we won like we did facing all that adversity. We have most of the same players back this year. That's something that should carry over to this year. JMO

One thing to add:

5. I would expect the Browns reviewed that game a few times. The Browns had a whole offseason to make adjustments (either through personnel, scheme or positioning). They just don't just trot out the same thing year after year and hope it works.

Just a couple other small adds:

On the flip side, Dallas hasn't trotted its first team offense (I don't know about their defense) out there in the pre-season either. Neither, Either, or both teams could have a clunker of a game.

While only in a consultant role, Vrabel has been in these meetings. I am sure he has given his input regarding the offense, pre-season philosophy, etc. I get Stef has final say, however I haven't seen any indication where Step (or Berry) only go by their ideas. It has always seemed like a team effort.

We all want to see DW play. We all want to see him perform at a high level too. Keep in mind, he is still coming back from a major injury/surgery. I just want him to be at his healthiest when Week 1 starts. I don't feel like looking it up but there were only 6-8 QB starters that played the whole year last year. While reps are definitely important, so is having your QB available on game days.

Kyle Yates
@KyleYNFL
🚨BREAKING🚨: Per
@AdamSchefter
, Nick Chubb is expected to be left on the PUP list to begin the season by the Cleveland Browns, which would mean he would miss - at a minimum - the first four games.

Jerome Ford continues to be a solid target for fantasy football in his absence.

Chubb will be out against Dallas, Jacksonville, NY Giants, and Las Vegas ... at least

Yeah, I figured this was going to be the case.