CLEVELAND, Ohio (TheOBR.com) Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans! For several years, starting in 2001, this site had Bernie Kosar’s name on it. You know the story, most likely.
So I’m allowed to be a little sentimental this morning. City Councilman Brian Kazy introduced a resolution Monday night to make Oct. 13 Bernie Kosar Day in Cleveland. That’s 41 years to the day from his first regular-season start, a 21-6 win over the Houston Oilers. Council votes Monday, and Bernie, who had a liver transplant last November, should get to hear a room full of people clap for him on Tuesday. He’s earned it. He’s faithful to this town, which more than cancels out his loyalty to a college football team that is not the world-famous Ohio State Buckeyes. We’ll allow it.
Bernie is the kid from Boardman who graduated early from Miami and worked the 1985 supplemental draft so the only team that could take him was the one he grew up rooting for. He wanted Cleveland and made it happen. Don’t underestimate how important it was to the downtrodden City of Cleveland in the 1980s, emerging from some tough times. Forty-one years later, the Browns have four quarterbacks, and nobody’s quite sure where they all go. Which brings us to…
FOUR QUARTERBACKS, ONE BUS: The Browns opened Dillon Gabriel’s 21-day practice window Tuesday, and he starts practicing today. Gabriel spent the first four games on IR with a back injury, which Todd Monken says happened (somewhat conveniently) in the preseason finale, allowing the team to kick the “four quarterback question” down the road.
That clock has started running again. Deshaun Watson starts, Shedeur Sanders backs him up, and rookie Taylen Green has been the inactive No. 3 all season. When Gabriel’s ready, Andrew Berry either keeps all four or moves one, by trade or by trying to slide him through waivers to the practice squad.
Pro Football Rumors repeats that the Browns are not looking to trade Gabriel, Sanders, or Green, which is what most NFL clubs say right up until they trade somebody. Albert Breer, on a local yapcast, thinks Gabriel may be better equipped to be the QB2 than Sanders. I do not feel strongly that he’s wrong. I’ve been interested in seeing Gabriel again. He looked rushed into the role in 2025, and looked great in preseason. I’m still not sure that the experience in 2025 means that he’s not a capable backup.
My guess? Berry takes all 21 days. I have faith. NFL rosters have a way of answering these questions for you, usually by way of somebody’s hamstring, and it’s Week 5.
THE MIDDLE OF THE LINE: Daniel Oyefusi calls Mason Graham week-to-week and figures he’ll be missing about two games, not an IR stint. Lane Adkins has offered his update a few days ago. Two games translates the Jets (OK) and then the Ravens (not OK). Graham entered Week 4 tied for second in the league with 4.0 sacks after getting half a sack in 17 games as a rookie.
The cavalry is represented by Kalia Davis, who was designated to return off IR (quad) on Tuesday. The Browns gave him a one-year, $2 million deal in March, and he started all 17 games for the 49ers last season before missing most of camp here. They also brought defensive tackle Chris Williams back to the practice squad, signed James Proche to it (41 punt returns in his two years here, per the Watercooler thread), and released running back Eric Gray, tackle Xavier Truss and punter Wes Pahl. In our roster-moves thread, Steve Buffum called the Pahl release “the least surprising move since the cancellation of ‘Cop Rock.’”
Lane has more on the injury front in Rumor Central.
DENZEL, BAITING: My favorite quote of the week came from Denzel Ward, talking to Petrak about his interception of Aaron Rodgers: “I was trying to bait him into throwing to me and it was able to work out in my favor this time.” Rodgers went at him three straight times in the end zone back in December, too. Some quarterbacks never learn. Ward, meanwhile, has taken home the game ball three weeks running.
The bigger number is buried at the bottom of Petrak’s story. Mike Rutenberg opened the season playing more zone than Jim Schwartz used to, and Jacksonville hung 34 on us. Against Pittsburgh, according to NextGenStats, the Browns played man coverage on 73 percent of snaps, the highest rate in the league this season. “We see man is working, so they going to call that,” Ward said. A first-year coordinator who looked at the tape after Week 1 and changed his mind is part of the the reason we’re 3-1.
THE JETS, AS SEEN FROM NEW YORK: The Jets’ social media team celebrated Braelon Allen running for 26 yards on four straight plays in a 23-12 loss to Chicago, a game in which the Bears had the ball for nearly 43 minutes and outgained them 492 to 157. Mike Francesa was asked about it and did not hold back: “The Jets could screw up a one-car funeral. They are a mess. They are terribly run from the owner on down.” I swear I’ve heard similar sentiments expressed around these parts, but that doesn’t mean that the referenced team can’t surprise on Sunday.
16.59 MILLION, GIVE OR TAKE AN AUTOPLAY: Amazon says Browns-Steelers averaged 16.59 million viewers, the most-watched Week 4 Thursday game since Prime took over the package. Mike Florio, again, wonders how many of those were people who opened their Prime page for paper towels and had the game start playing on its own. As a guy who counts pageviews for a living, I can tell you there’s a big difference between a viewer and somebody who left a tab open. Advertisers can tell you too, eventually.
Have a good one! GO BROWNS!
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At 17, this student is helping children understand cancer through a Pokemon-inspired card game
Daniel Zhang was nine when his grandmother was diagnosed with stage 3 pancreatic cancer, and he couldn’t understand why the treatment that was supposed to help her seemed to be hurting her. Six years later his grandfather got sick, and Daniel watched his seven-year-old sister wrestle with the same questions. So he and his classmate Zachary Tou, both raised on Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh!, built Tumor Tactics, a card game where each player is a doctor treating three tumors.
The two are now 17, the game has been through nearly 20 versions, and they run free workshops in San Diego schools from kindergarten through eighth grade. Zhang says the best part has been the kids who stay after to talk about their own grandparents. Two teenagers turned the worst thing that happened to their families into something a second-grader can hold in their hands.
Every day, I have more and more faith that the planet will be in good hands. I know I’m supposed to rant about “youngsters these days”, but they keep proving the cliches wrong.
WRAPPING UP
When not getting wistful about whose name used to be on the masthead, 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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