CLEVELAND, OHIO (TheOBR.com) - Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans!
THE DAILY BLOVIATION
A long time ago, I spent some Summers on the sidelines of Browns training camp. The experience confirmed a few things. First, it confirmed that I was pretty bad at being a beat writer. I don't have the patience for it, and my brain doesn't come up with good questions for athletes, never having been one myself. Plus, I'm too deferential to others to shout my question over the top of other reporters. We've got Fred and Pete out there now, and they do a great job, so I can focus on other tasks, like throwing together videos and napping.
We did some innovative stuff back then, when I still had some control over the technology stack. Before Twitter, we developed a system that let us provide instant updates from the sidelines for our visitors. Nowadays, that technology is accessible to anyone with a smartphone, but it was novel back in 2007. Still, other than giving away dozens of camp updates for free on Twitter and then wondering why you don't make the money you used to, beat writing is much the same now as it was then.
For instance, these teams are simply practicing, but the demand for a narrative creates a desire to turn everything into a competition. The Browns have a central competition this year at quarterback, where two (mediocre, at best, to my eyes) quarterbacks are fighting for the starting job. What's good for one is inferred to be bad for the other, and so forth. The players don't seem to look at it that way, focused as they are on their own performances rather than anything else.
Years of upstart camp heroes (especially at wide receiver) have taught us that there's a gigantic difference between a player excelling in camp and in a game on the playing field when it matters. Still, there are some things you can read from the results of these practices.
A crucial statistic to understand right now is that the Browns have a tremendous number of interceptions through eight practices. I've seen numbers anywhere from 14 to 17. That'a bunch.
And I keep coming back to the same uncomfortable question, which I would like to ask out loud rather than pretend I have the answer.
Are we watching a great secondary, or a bad passing offense?
Because the Browns finished 31st in the NFL throwing the ball last year. That is not a slump; that is a floor. The baseline that the vast majority of the league easily exceeds. They were also unimpressive in interception stats.
The quarterback competition is currently between a man whose contract Jimmy Haslam himself called a swing and a miss and a second-year player that league executives ranked dead last in Mike Sando's quarterback tiers last week. Deshaun Watson has thrown eight interceptions in nine practices. Denzel Ward's pick on Friday came on what Scott Petrak generously described as an egregious overthrow. Shedeur Sanders got picked by an undrafted rookie safety on, and I quote, an overthrow.
An overthrow is not a disguised coverage beating a quarterback. An overthrow is a quarterback beating himself, and a defensive back happening to stand where the football eventually arrived.
So no, I'm not convinced that the Browns secondary is suddenly about to break interception records. I think six or seven of those are real and the rest are gravy that the defense correctly refuses to give back.
Tyson Campbell
Tyson Campbell (Photo: USA TODAY Sports)
EXOTIC, HE SAID: Grant Delpit's actual word for what Mike Rutenberg is installing was "exotic," which is a fun thing to hear from a safety in August and a terrifying thing to hear from one in November. Rutenberg inherited Jim Schwartz's attacking four-man front and is smart enough to leave it alone. His fingerprints are all on the back end, per Scott Petrak's very good breakdown. A lot of new calls, a lot of new terms, a lot more communication. First-year coordinator, first time calling plays. Buckle up.
THE CORNERS MAKE IT LEGAL: Monken initially waved off the disguise talk, then got asked again and admitted the real reason any of this works. "Us having the corners that we have, it does allow you to be able to mix coverages and to be able to play a ton of man." Denzel Ward and Tyson Campbell are the entire permission slip for this scheme. Everything exotic Rutenberg wants to do downstream depends on those two erasing people without help.
MOST UNDERRATED, AND HE KNOWS IT: Andrew Berry called Tyson Campbell the most underrated player on the roster. Campbell's response, via Petrak, was "I always consider myself the best," which is the only acceptable answer. He also thinks he and Ward can be the league's top tandem. He was the 33rd pick in 2021, he started 59 games for the Jaguars, he came over in that strange same-position swap for Greg Newsome, and he opens the season in Jacksonville on September 13.
MEANWHILE, AT DEFENSIVE TACKLE, A CRISIS: Mason Graham is back, and that's about where the good news stops. Mike Hall Jr., Kalia Davis, Sam Kamara and Elijah Chatman were all out Friday, Maliek Collins is on PUP, and Monken had to cut Thursday's practice short of the full padded window because, in his words, they didn't have enough bodies. So the Browns claimed Patrick Jenkins off waivers from the Jets, an undrafted Tulane kid who put up six tackles for loss for Columbus in the UFL this spring.
PRACTICE TODAY: 1:30 p.m., open to fans, weather permitting. Go watch a defensive back point at the sky in person.
Have a good one! GO BROWNS!
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Positive news from the world of sports and beyond...
Cosmic treasure chest explodes with baby stars - The James Webb telescope went back to the Carina Nebula, 7,500 light-years out, and found a pocket of about 70 young stars that astronomers are calling the Treasure Chest. The best part is that they had the cluster's age pegged at 100,000 years and the new look says it's more like 1.3 million. A thirteen-fold miss, cheerfully corrected in public. Somewhere a scientist rewrote his own conclusion without issuing a statement about how he had actually been right all along. Imagine.
WRAPPING UP
When not yawning at the year's hottest Browns story, Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.
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