Browns notebook: Browns show promise in red zone
By Steve Doerschuk
CantonRep.com staff writer
BEREA —
“Red zone!” a coach yelled.
A buzz rose in the big training-camp crowd as the Browns gathered on the southeast practice field.
Cornerback Joe Haden lined up over wideout Mohamed Massaquoi 20 feet from the gallery ropes. Massaquoi took off, straining to get open during a 20-yard run down the right sideline.
Haden wore Massaquoi like a diving suit. Suddenly, Massaquoi stopped. Haden lunged backward. Brandon Weeden fired a strike to the wide-open target.
“You can do that when you push somebody hard enough,” Haden groused.
No officials. No flag. No protest from coaches. Touchdown.
Red zone!
Last year, it was more like ... red zone? What’s the red zone.
Cleveland made fewer trips into the red zone — inside the 20-yard line — than any other AFC team in 2011.
The Browns set up shop there a miserable 31 times. Next worst was Kansas City at 36. New England led the league at 72.
The Browns were tied for the worst mark in the NFL, with the Rams.
Not only did the Browns fail to reach the red zone. They didn’t score once they got their. Only the Chiefs, Rams and 49ers scored a lower percentage of touchdowns once reaching the red zone.
These items are big reasons the Browns drafted the rocket-armed Weeden.
One of the biggest cheers in camp Wednesday came when Weeden set up at the 20 and made a play-action fake. Weeden pump faked then looked to the middle of the field, where he threw a bullet over the middle to tight end Benjamin Watson.
Touchdown.
Now ... can he do that in a game?
‘This year’s project’
Browns president Mike Holmgren says he has told rookie wide receiver Josh Gordon, “You are my special project.”
Alluding to marijuana use and issues that marred Gordon’s college career, Holmgren said, “He’s a good player who got gummed up a little bit. You talk to him, and he’s a really good kid.”
Holmgren says he has told Gordon he will not let him stray from a regimen that will keep him in good stead as his NFL career unfolds.
He admitted it is ultimately up to the player to take care of his own business.
D-line depleted
Three defensive line starters — tackles Phil Taylor and Ahtyba Rubin and end Frostee Rucker — all missed Wednesday practice.
Taylor will miss the first month or two of the season. Rubin is recovering from minor surgery. Rucker is new to the injury list.
He’ll be back soon,” head coach Pat Shurmur said, avoiding any details of Rucker’s problem.
Tickets going fast
Single-game seats went on sale Wednesday. Later in the day, the Browns announced that home games against the Eagles on Sept. 9, the Bills on Sept. 23 and the Steelers on Nov. 25 are sold out.
The team also announced that less than 1,000 seats remain for the Oct. 14 game against the Bengals.
To inquire about tickets, log on to
www.clevelandbrowns.com or call 800-745-3000 or 800-943-4327.
Extra points
• The Browns will conduct single practices today and Friday mornings. Both are scheduled to run from 8:45 to 11:15.
• Former Browns running back Greg Pruitt was escorted around practice by ex-Browns teammate Doug Dieken. At one point, Dieken introduced Pruitt to Holmgren.
• Bernie Kosar, who knows Holmgren well, also took in Wednesday’s practice. Kosar says the biggest thing for Weeden will be to prove an ability to read defenses.
• Colt McCoy says he knows the offense much better than he did last year. Several players have complimented him for his reading of defenses in camp so far.
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Cribbs ready to roll as full-time specialist again
BEREA —
For the first time in five years, there is no ambiguity with Joshua Cribbs’ role on the Cleveland Browns.
Nor is there any talk about him playing wildcat quarterback, running back, or full-time wide receiver, for that matter. Cribbs is returning to his former spot as Cleveland’s special teams specialist, playing on all of its return and coverage units.
And he needs to be good.
“I’m going to rededicate myself to scoring touchdowns on kickoffs and punt returns,” Cribbs said Wednesday, “because that’s what our coaches want me to do. My role is changing again. They want more production out of special teams, so I’ll give it to them the best I can.”
Cribbs, 29, already owns the NFL record with eight career kickoff return touchdowns — one more than Seattle’s Leon Washington — and averaged 25.0 yards per runback last season. The two-time Pro Bowl selection also ranks fifth in league history with 11 total return touchdowns, most recently taking back a punt 84 yards at Baltimore last Dec. 24.
With that kind of ability on a team that annually needs a jolt offensively, Cribbs was installed into the offense by three Browns coaches: Romeo Crennel, Eric Mangini, and even Pat Shurmur last year. They gradually removed the 6-foot-1, 215-pounder from their coverage units, and gave him a chance with the offense.
The results? Not bad. Over the last four seasons, Cribbs logged 111 rushes for 639 yards, made 86 receptions, threw 11 passes, scored nine touchdowns, and started 26 games at wide receiver. The former Kent State quarterback’s production peaked in 2011, in fact, when he tied for the team lead with four receiving touchdowns and made a career-high 41 catches.
But it’s time go back to the future, perhaps. Less than two weeks into camp, Shurmur has already shot down any chance Cribbs will better those numbers this fall.
“Josh is a special teams player that plays receiver,” Shurmur said flatly. “He’s a special teams player.”
Cribbs has long expressed a desire to be an every-down player, but he read the handwriting on the wall during the offseason. Browns general manager Tom Heckert and Shurmur repeatedly spoke of Greg Little as a potential No. 1 receiver, then drafted Baylor’s Josh Gordon in the second round of the supplemental draft.
Also, veteran Mohamed Massaquoi and rookie Travis Benjamin have received significantly more snaps in camp, leaving Cribbs to take leftover reps while practicing in the return game.
“I’ll have less of a role on offense maybe,” Cribbs said. “But I’ve just got to do my part on special teams and nobody will know the difference.”
It’s not a bad school of thought. Cribbs, keep in mind, has 12,343 all-purpose yards in seven years with Cleveland.
“I came into this league scoring on returns and getting yards for the offense,” he said. “If that’s how I have to do it again, then so be it.”
Making his reduced role more interesting is Cribbs’ contract, which expires at the end of the season and pays him a base salary of just $1.4 million. Shurmur referred to him as “a player on the back nine of (his) career” earlier in the week, further driving home just how tenuous life in the NFL is for a veteran.
The paycheck is a surprise in some circles. Especially when you consider that Cribbs is one of the most popular athletes in Cleveland. But that status doesn’t hold much currency at the negotiating table.
“It does put more pressure on me this year, but I love it,” said Cribbs, who lives in Northeast Ohio year-round and is a courtside fixture at Cleveland Cavaliers games. “This is my destiny, just like the last time I had to play for a contract and when I had to make the team as (an undrafted) rookie.
“Last year, I showed everyone what I could do at wide receiver. Before that, I did what I could to establish myself as a premier return man. I’ll do it again this time.
“Get ready for Act 3.”
NOTES: QB Colt McCoy made his first public comments since camp opened, saying no reporters had asked to interview him until Wednesday. First-round draft choice Brandon Weeden has worked with the Browns’ top offense during camp and is expected to be named the starter soon. “I’ve taken all snaps with the second group and I’m still competing,” said McCoy, who went 4-9 in 13 starts last season. “That’s what I’m supposed to do. (This situation) doesn’t mean you don’t come out and compete and make yourself better.” ... DE Frostee Rucker sat out practice with an undisclosed injury, but Shurmur said he would be back soon, along with TE Evan Moore (undisclosed) and DT Ahytba Rubin (pelvic muscle surgery). The coach added that FB Eddie Williams (undisclosed) will be out “a while.” ... Second-year TE Jordan Cameron caught touchdown passes from Weeden, McCoy and third-stringer Seneca Wallace during a red-zone drill. . Scouts from the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts and Saskatchewan Roughriders were on hand. . Attendance at practice was 2,774, giving the Browns a four-day total of 12,254.
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Holmgren, McCoy on Browns' training camp hot seat
By Steve Doerschuk
CantonRep.com staff writer
BEREA —
“It’s a crazy business sometimes,” Mike Holmgren said.
The heat was on in Berea.
The most sultry practice of training camp had just ended when two Browns on very different hot seats shared their points of view.
In the shade of a tent along the tall fence on the west end of the team compound, Holmgren passed another afternoon of not knowing how his presidency might play out under a new owner.
He is asked nonstop how things are going with the impending sale of the team.
“We’re trying,” he said, “to make it business as usual.”
Holmgren, his head coach, his business chiefs, his general manager, and bunches of others are here because he is — and he is here, as he often says, because of Randy Lerner.
It’s a training camp full of Holmgren guys. At some point, Holmgren indicated, he will talk to Jimmy Haslam and Haslam’s people if Lerner sells.
Holmgren will go to bat for his men when sits down in the Haslam camp. He will do it from the perspective of a man who has seen a million people hired and fired in the NFL. He knew the drill long before he re-hired Eric Mangini one year and canned him the next. He knows nothing is guaranteed for his biggest hires, Tom Heckert and Eric Mangini.
“Ultimately, with all of the football people, they’re judged on the record,” Holmgren said. “It’s always been that way.”
Browns fans — legions of them are showing up for training camp, emanating noise and hunger — care mostly about how the team looks, not who signs the checks.
They want answers to football questions, not terms of sale.
Fifty yards from the shade where Holmgren spoke, one of the key football players linked to Holmgren talked to writers in broad daylight.
It was Colt McCoy, who is on the verge of losing his job to a new player also linked to Holmgren, Brandon Weeden.
Holmgren’s hot seat involves not knowing how he might fit with Jimmy Haslam. He is not squirming in the chair. He has had made millions in a long career that might land him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
A glorious exit would be nice but is not essential to his legacy.
McCoy’s hot seat is much less comfortable. He has not enjoyed NFL success. What happens this year will set a tone for his chance to break through.
McCoy looked good in Wednesday’s practice. He threw a pick to safety Usama Young in a 7-on-7 drill. In 11-on-11 work, though, he seemed sharper than Weeden — albeit running the second-string offense while the rookie directed the “ones.”
There was McCoy hitting Jordan Norwood right on the hands, in stride, on a beautifully timed spiral. There was McCoy leading rookie Travis Benjamin perfectly on a slant. There he was sailing a strike to Josh Cooper on a fade in the end zone.
Notice that none of the receivers is a first-stringer. Weeden has been getting almost all of the action with those “ones.” McCoy doesn’t like it, but he is keeping any criticism to himself.
How can this be a competition if McCoy isn’t getting to compete with the first string?
“Those would be better questions for Pat and Brad (Childress),” McCoy said, glancing upstairs where the head coach and offensive coordinator share secrets.
Back in the shade, Holmgren addressed the issue. One can only wonder if his analysis would cause McCoy to roll his eyes.
“Right now,” Holmgren said, “I think it’s a healthy competition at quarterback. Colt is having a good camp. Seneca (Wallace) is completing balls.”
Holmgren had talked about Weeden before his nods to McCoy and Wallace.
“It’s clear to anyone who watches practice,” Holmgren said, “that he can really throw the ball.”
The words “maturity” and “bright future” rolled off the president’s tongue. At times in the past, Holmgren says, he has seen quarterbacks arrive in camp and quickly expose themselves as overmatched.
“That’s not the case with Brandon,” Holmgren said.
Training camp is a week old. McCoy is saying he will keep plugging away, control what he can control. Weeden is warming up for his first NFL start, on Aug. 10 at Detroit.
The ownership whirl raises a question few would have asked a few months ago. Who will be with the Browns longer? Holmgren? Or McCoy?
“I want to make this about the team,” McCoy said, “not me.”
It’s hard to believe Holmgren is staying out of this, although he has said a thousand times something he repeated Wednesday: “I’m not coaching any more.”
One can’t say there are no Browns fans any more, despite the four-year record of 18-46, despite the tidal wave boat-rocking of an ownership change. At least, the team announced Wednesday that three of the eight regular-season home games (Eagles, Bills, Steelers) sold out the first day tickets went on sale.
“The fans are tremendous,” Holmgren said. “Let’s give ‘em some hope.”
If hope blooms into wins, the president said, finding tickets, not selling tickets, will be “the problem.”
Meanwhile, the process of trying to sift through reality in the summer heat of Berea marches on.
The 2011 Browns lost nine of their last 10 games. McCoy more than likely lost his job to a draft pick.
Midway through practice, McCoy was rushed hard. He had to roll right. He couldn’t find a receiver. He had to throw the ball away. It sailed out of the end zone.
“C’mon, Colt!” he muttered to himself as he came to a stop.
C’mon? And do ... what?
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Same Old QB ... new WR 
