The Cleveland Browns have many questions to answer during training camp.
The Cleveland Browns have a lot of questions still lingering about who’s going to start where and how will it all look after training camp is over.. There are a few givens. We know that Baker Mayfield will start and Case Keenum will back him up. We know that Jack Conklin and Austin Hooper, two new free agents, will start at a tackle position and tight end respectively. We also know that Kareem Hunt will not push Nick Chubb for the No. 1 running back spot.
These are just givens. What aren’t givens is everything else on this list.
Despite being a team expected to compete for the playoffs, the team still has to figure out what it wants to do at a few key spots. Especially on defense. A bulk of the team’s starters got turned over from the 2019 season and need to be replaced. Because most of these changes are happening on defense, the team isn’t looked at as a rebuilding club, even though it really is in a lot of ways.
The offense is returning seven starters, while the defense are returning seven as well. Yet, the offensive starters being replaced were let go or benched because there were better options coming into the team. Conklin and Hooper are better options than Greg Robinson and David Njoku. The same thing can’t be said about Sione TakiTaki and B.J. Goodson being better players than Joe Schobert and Christian Kirksey, nor can the same be said about Karl Joseph being a better option at safety than Damarious Randall.
To be clear, the new additions might be. There is no proof however that they already are, however.
The players acquired were in later rounds, or on cheap deals. They’re not seen as impact players. They’re not seen as guys who could take the league by storm. They’re seen as inexpensive alternatives. That doesn’t mean they won’t be good, can’t be good, or shouldn’t be given a shot. It merely means the Browns wanted Schobert back for a reason, just not at $10 million a year.
So now we have to find out what the Browns have. Can the rookies translate to the pros? Can the discounted veterans prove they’re not washed up? Can the young players on cheap deals prove they got overlooked or were given up on too soon? These are the questions that linger over the heads of the team.
These are the questions the team needs to figure out
Who’s your third wide receiver?
Right now the Cleveland Browns really only have two proven wide-receivers. It’s actually one of the weakest positions on the team with regard to depth. Sure, you have two top-15 wideouts, but who’s your third option? What does your backup situation look like should you have to play a game or two or three without Jarvis Landry and/or Odell Beckham Jr.?
The three leading candidates to fill out the rest of the receiving corp are Rashard Higgins, Damion Ratley, and Donovan Peoples-Jones. Higgins is the choice of many for the spot because he had that one good year in 2018 but honestly, none of these options really seem like home runs. They all feel like they lack something.
For Higgins it’s consistency. He’s been in the league a total of four seasons and still can’t find consistent time on the field. Not too mention his attitude issues and you’re looking at a player that has one redeeming quality for him; he’s got good chemistry with Baker Mayfield. Allegedly.
Ratley has been a viable fourth-string kinda guy since he got drafted in 2018 but he’s yet to show coaches that he deserves more time. He only had 12 receptions last year but did have over 200 yards receiving. Not just that but only one of his receptions wasn’t for a first down. So he can clearly stretch the field in bursts but can he do it across a whole season?
Then there’s Peoples-Jones, who’s going to be a rookie with a focus on playing special teams more than anything. It seems unlikely that he’ll be the third-receiver.
The team might not be done improving, obviously. They could still go get another receiver.
What will the offensive line look like?
There’s a belief that Jedrick Wills is going to come right in and start at left tackle. While many hope that’s the case, all you need to do is look at the busts that have come out of the draft over the last forever, and you’ll see there is no such thing as a “can’t miss prospect”. Robert Gallery, Tony Mandarich, Levi Brown, Jason Smith, Andre Smith, Luke Joeckel, and Greg Robinson are just some of the Top-10 talent taken in the NFL Draft over the years who were deemed to be the best offensive tackle prospect (or one of ) in the NFL Draft. They all flamed out.
There is no guarantee that Wills can in fact be the next Joe Thomas. There is an assumption he will, but that’s the problem. People are just assuming he’ll be good. He hasn’t even earned a starting position yet, pump the breaks on the kid. Let him develop, it may take him more than a year to actually earn that position with all that’s gone on this year.
Then you have to figure out the right guard position. Wyatt Teller is the favorite, but it’s pretty obvious the team should try and obtain someone else who can compete for the job. Larry Warford is still available and at this point might be had for a discounted rate.
The Browns restructured Chris Hubbard’s deal to keep him around as insurance if Wills or Teller can’t go, but he himself proved he’s not a starting-caliber lineman in the NFL. So what exactly will the line look like in 2020, especially if there’s an injury somewhere? This isn’t a deep position either. One failed addition or one three-week bend with a backup could wreck this team.
Who’s going to settle in as starters on the defense?
We know that Myles Garrett, Denzel Ward, Greedy Williams, Sheldon Richardson, and Larry Ogunjobi are your starters. That’s it. We know Olivier Vernon will lineup somewhere, but we don’t know where. We know that Andrew Billings will get a lot of reps, as will Mack Wilson, but neither are promised anything despite the expectations around them.
The team intends on running three-safety sets at times, yet no one’s really sure which one of the discount safeties the team got will in fact see playing time. Andrew Sendejo and Karl Joseph have injuries and some declining seasons of play to worry about. Grant Delpit is a rookie and may not even be a good pro, no one knows the answer to that question.
Then the linebacking corp, including Wilson’s spot, will be up for grabs with Sione Takitaki, B.J. Goodson, and rookie Jacob Phillips competing for the three slots. Someone’s going to miss out on a spot. This doesn’t even take into consideration what the team may still be doing with free agency. There’s no real word that the team isn’t still pursuing Jadeveon Clowney or still isn’t interested in Everson Griffen. There’s speculation that with the Vernon contract re-working that they are done looking at defensive ends, but GM Andrew Berry himself said they’re going to be looking to improve the roster year-round.
If they sign another defensive end, that could mean Vernon moves back to outside linebacker, which means that two of those linebackers previously mentioned don’t start.
Positions like the offensive have depth issues. The defense, on the other hand, has starter issues. They let some proven veterans go over the last two offseasons and this is what they find themselves having to navigate now.
It’s entirely possible this defense becomes a top-of-the-league unit with these new pieces. That doesn’t take away the fact it’s got the most questions to answer in training camp.