I can't fathom why MKC thinks that if Corey Coleman is limited going into training camp, the Browns would have to sign a veteran wide receiver.
In the first place, the 2017 Cleveland Browns are not on the verge of a Superbowl run. They are trying to develop young players. Young players develop through experience. They don't get experience if they are not allowed to play.
In the second place, the wide receivers drafted and signed last season were talented. Their lack of production as rookies was utterly predictable, and their leap forward in 2017 is just as predictable. So why does she think it is mandatory to keep them on the bench?
In the third place (redundancy alert): Njoku, DeValve, Johnson, Crowell.
Mary thinks Kizer is ahead of schedule, but I've read conflicting reports. I can't be definitive, but think it's possible that she has done her Nosterdamus thing and is seeing what she expected to see.
To be sure, he's a smart kid, and has Hue Jackson all over him. I already said I thought he might start after the bye week, and get inserted opportunisticly before that. But he has a LOT of work to do. A LOT.
Thanks to MKC, I now know that Shon Coleman has been taking reps at left tackle, and that Garrett and Peppers have been working with the third team defense.
None of the other reporters have bothered to mention these details, so thank you Mary Kay.
Andy Behrens (Roto Report) shocked me with a really sharp, in-depth, objective article on the prospective fantasy values of assorted Browns players.
I'm so used to hearing permabashing from Buzz Kill Bill and stunning anti-Browns ignorance from guys like Cowherd that I cherish the occasions when I dig up somebody who thinks with his brain.
Andy is talking about 2018 and beyond more than about 2017, mostly, due to the quarterback situation and general inexperience.
He makes an exception for Isaiah Crowell and several defenders, including Collins, Garrett, Pryor (yeah he names the former Jets safety!) And Kirksey.
Andy has a lot of long-term confidence in DeShone Kizer under Hue Jackson, but here he's really talking about 2019.
Andy agrees that Rodney Kesslerfield probably starts game one (he gives Kizer a shot at it), but describes Kessler as perhaps a "luxury backup".
He also really likes Njoku a ton, but warns that tight ends rarely accomplish too much as rookies.
Fair enough, but he overlooks Seth DeValve here, and, I feel, hasn't fully considered the personnel situation:
It's true that Kenny Britt is the only seasoned wide receiver, Coleman's hamstring issues are truly alarming, and the rest are second year players. Hue Jackson will run 12 and 22 offenses, with two tight ends, and sometimes two running backs as well, to minimize the depth required at wide receiver.
Nor is Njoku a typical tight end. He's been called by some the best athlete not named Garrett in this draft (including by Andy himself).
Opposing defenses, at least initially, will be trying to stack the box and send five-man pressures, with extra heat coming inside. This is their best shot at neutralizing the run, and forcing the Browns to throw the ball instead.
In defense of Hue Jackson against Hue Jackson, they did this a lot last season as well. Now, give Crow and Duke their props (dammit); they sometimes overcame this, and gashed these defenses painfully when they did stumble out of the flak-zone into the open field.
Well, (redundancy alert), 21 and 22 personnel mandate base defenses for defenses without Pryors and Peppers', if you really want to stop the run.
That's because two real tight ends could do wierd stuff, like line up at tight end, presenting a seven-man, extra-wide, offensive line, with both tight ends outside conventional defensive ends, threatening to seal off both edges.
Or, one or both (of these guys) could set up in the slot or even wide. Pass aside, they pull bigger potential run defenders outside with them.
This, along with the pass-catching threat both Browns running backs represent (from the backfield or the slot), forces a lot of zone coverage. (Not to mention zone works better vs the run).
In a base defense, you have two safeties and two cornerbacks, and if you have seven guys in the box, that's that. If you run a big nickel with an extra safety instead, you're still trading power for speed--but I left my hip waders in the truck:
It's just going to be impossible for defenses to "stop the run first" vs this offense. Coleman and both tight ends will threaten the intermediate middle on every single down, even if it's second or third and two.
This threat is the perfect answer to inside pressures. The tight ends are big, physical targets who don't even have to be "open" to catch passes. Four receivers vs four defensive backs---so, what's the free safety doing (that goes back to the zone concept. A Tampa 2 might be the best bet oknevermind).
Long story short, the two tight ends loosen things up verticly, in the tackle box. If a defense overcommits to stopping the run, passes will get lobbed over their heads (in a heartbeat), and the guys catching them are seam breakers and road-pie makers.
It loosens things up, see?
Now, in-the-box pundits and coaches think the only way to "loosen up" a defense is with a Braylon Edwards and a Kellen Winslow III, but here we're talking about using a middle and deep inside pass threat to set up the run.
Not that two extra blockers don't help anyway.
Anyway, expect Njoku and DeValve to be pretty productive in 2017.
Now, Nate Ulrich wrote a good article overall, but not in the same class as Andy's.
I'll knock this out quick:
1: Seth DeValve is not injury-prone. In college, he had surgeries on both feet to close growth-plates which failed to close themselves due to a congenital condition. A similar malady ended Jim Miller's career. It wasn't an injury. Seth DeValve has been fairly durable. Stop the ignorance.
2: Nate first joins Mary Kay in declaring the need for a vedderrunn wide receiver if Coleman's hammies keep troubling him, then writes about how good DeValve and Njoku look, and even states that the two tight end offense is here to stay.
Cognitive disonance. I can't recall an acid trip where I could think like this.
Terry Pluto, Nate Ulrich, and Mary Kay Cabbott are all wrong, and I am right. I'll bet on myself, but I want 3:1, see?
Ricardo Louis has continued not to drop passes, and I'm excited about his prospects. He's much quicker and faster than Higgins and Payton. Indeed, Ricardo Louis is a borderline freak, with astronomical potential as he continues to D E V E L O P, L E A R N, AND G. R. O. W DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?!
And he's breathing down Corey Coleman's neck right now. Corey, you need to soak it, stay hydrated, take hyulorinic acid, stretch, stretch, stretch etc because if your hammies keep this up, Ricardo will eat your lunch.
Again, as I read it so far, Gregg Williams has a clear edge in the Hue vs Gregg rivalry. I'm hearing about deflections, interceptions, forced fumbles, etc.
Except for DeValve and Njoku. Gregg will never have an answer for those guys. Nor will anybody else. Ever.
But it's encouraging that he has pretty much shut down Hue's outside passing game...mostly. While Gregg is making all the wide receivers look bad (*I don't know if it's on them or the quarterbacks), the one who looks the least bad is Ricardo Lewis.
Reading between the (extremely sparse) lines, I'm guessing that he is catching 40 to 50% of his targets...or something nevermind just a shallow consensus of reporters think he's looked the best ok?
Lewis tested through the roof at his combine, but scouts picked him apart for a whole bunch of mechanical flaws (and, of course, his drops, of which there were many).
A couple of these flaws were almost funny. Louis's strides were different on deep vs short routes (ie he "signalled his punch"; tipped off the DB's to his intentions). He took "baby steps" into his routes (ie he shortened his strides as he prepared to make his cut; once again tipping his hand to the cornerback).
But Louis is 6'2", and ran a good three-cone, so all of this was correctable for him. He's physically capable of cleaning all this stuff up.
If you read this scouting report, as I'm sure Mary Kay, Nate, and Terry did, you think Ricardo Lewis is just a guy. But I've read other reports that give him a ton more upside, and have to agree with those.
So does Terrelle Pryor, who said "watch out for this guy!" even as he left the Browns.
But even Ricardo Lewis aside, give these second year players a chance to prove themselves before you discard them--based on OTA's no less?
Hell, Alford or Hall haven't many chances yet, and I wouldn't write them off just yet, either.
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