1: DT Jeffery Simmons is not a "space-eater". He's a one-gap penetrator. He has the frame to get bigger than his current 301-305 lbs., but also needs to work on his two-gap leverage and "anchor".
He is the early consensus-best defensive tackle, and had it not been for his disgusting assault on a woman a few years ago, he would probably be expected to go in the top ten.
His first step is awesome, and he's fairly advanced with his hands and counters; while he does need some work, he's far from a "project" and should play on most passing downs as of game one.
If John Dorsey again exploits this player's slide due to bad behavior as he has in the past, Larry Ogunjobi would probably remain at the zero shade or one technique, with Simmons at three.
Simmons freakish first step, in the guard/tackle gap between Garrett and Ogunjobe could make a HUGE impact vs both the pass and the run, but there's an asterisk:
Simmons will sometimes "overshoot" and open up cutback lanes, and quicker backs can "freeze" and evade him with jukes. Jeffery got lots of tackles-for-losses, but also got "beat" by shifty running backs.
2: Jamie Collins is gone. It doesn't matter that he led the Browns in tackles last season. John Dorsey isn't going to pay him 10.5 mil. He might pay him 7 mil, but not that much.
Rodney Averyfield is one reason for this, as he makes a fraction of that salary, but the main reason is that 3-4 outside linebackers are "cheap" these days.
There are a bunch of them ready to shake loose from the veteran free agent tree, and every year studs emerge out of the third, fourth, and even fifth rounds.
Sorry for going all DePodestian on you there.
Jim Ingraham wrote a pretty good article on how he thinks the Browns will approach the draft and free agency this offseason.
I had to correct him on the Jamie Collins issue, as Jim wasn't sure Dorsey would kick him to the curb, but the rest of his article was pretty good.
...but not perfect.
Jim named a bunch of free agents that he feels Dorsey will go after, and most of them make sense.
But the highest-profile guys are franchise-tag, if not first or second-round tenders, if not priority extensions for their current teams.
John Dorsey can probably "bring down" one of the top-flight guys, maybe a couple older guys on one-year deals, and two to four "second-tier" younger guys (two of which will actually be elite players).
3: The fact that Austin Corbett hardly played as a rookie is utterly meaningless. The Browns might well have had the best interior offensive line trio in the NFL in 2018.
Corbett had no work at right tackle, and Hubbard was already there. The pundits who think offensive line depth may be a priority because Corbett didn't start on this offensive line as a rookie need brain transplants.
Dorsey said "maybe that means we've got good depth" (etc)...nobody listened. As usual.
Baker Mayfield did get screwed out of Rookie of the Year by the writers.
Saquon Barkley truly was "all that", and I'm not knocking him, but:
Saquon is a running back, while Baker is a quarterback. For anybody who reads this Blog, I don't need to elaborate:
Quarterback is the most difficult position for a rookie to master. Running back is the easiest.
This was a joke, but one pundit was right: Baker Mayfield will use this insult for motivation, so I guess thanks are in order for the Football Pinheads of America for bending over backwards to pick a big market running back over a small market quarterback.
How objective of them!
Dan Graziano expects the Browns to take over the AFC North in 2019, and lists some good (and obvious) reasons why.
Say...where are the eyerolls? No derisive snorts? Wow!
UPDATE: I read the comments after a great column by Doug Lesmerisis.
Loads of snorts an eyerolls. Simply amazing. I'm confiscating the word "delusional".
Rosen fan, your use of this word is called "narcissistic projection". YOU are delusional, and obviously need to look the word up.
Rosentrain has dug his
Wow.
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