The Cleveland Browns finalized their 53 man roster on Saturday, but the team opted to go with some interesting choices.
The Cleveland Browns have made some big moves on Saturday as they wrap up the final day to cut down to their final 53-man roster. Good news for Browns fans, most of the names on the list who were cut are probably going to be on the team’s practice squad. So that’s awesome.
The bad news, some of them should’ve been on the main squad.
Thankfully, the NFL has allowed an increase to 16 players to be on the practice squad. Why it isn’t 25 is a bit bemusing to me. You’d think they’d want full squads of 11 offensive players, 11 defensive players, a backup kicker, punter, and a backup long snapper. Why the NFL doesn’t allow that is just madness.
Yet, not every move makes sense. The team is carrying five tight ends, six wide receivers, and only two quarterbacks. Not exactly the soundest of strategies. After all, that’s essentially 11 players designed to catch passes. Seems a bit “overkilly” for a team that’s going to run the ball often and always.
If you’re going to run the ball so often, why only carry nine offensive linemen? Why only carry four backs? These are questions that don’t really have an answer and no one should go looking for. Because it’s whack-a-do to try.
Instead, we’re going to just go through five names who should be on the main roster to start the season and five names who shouldn’t be. In the case of one (pick No. 3), he could be cut or traded. Just as long as his roster spot is open to someone else.
With that, let’s look at five players the Browns should have kept on their roster for opening day and five they shouldn’t have.
Should have kept – QB Kevin Davidson
How often do you see a team run through the first and second-string quarterbacks in a game? Pretty often. Not like a crazy number of times but at least once a season it feels like. The Browns are rolling the dice on going into the season with just Baker Mayfield and Case Keenum to play under center. That seems like a fool’s errand.
Kevin Davidson isn’t a starter, not yet. He’s smart as heck, a Princeton man if there ever was one. So it stands to reason that he could, at the very least, not screw up a game that they had a chance at winning should he be called on to play. This isn’t a strange idea, either. Most teams carried three quarterbacks for decades. It’s only the last few years that trend has changed.
Like razor scooters, this is a bad trend that needs to end.
Should have cut – WR KhaDarel Hodge
No disrespect intended to Khadarel Hodge. He’s a solid special teams player (13 tackles last year) but he provides little else to the proceedings. There are other players on this list who can do that job and do it as well, if not better than Hodge.
Considering that the team is carrying 11 men who can catch passes as a WR or TE (10 not counting Pharoah Brown), Hodge doesn’t make much sense. Not even as a gunner on special teams.
Should have kept – FB Johnny Stanton
Now it’s unconventional to keep two fullbacks on the squad at the same time, but it’s also just dumb to carry five tight ends, so this pick feels justified in many ways. It’s not the position, however, that you’re carrying but the player. Ignore the “fullback” next to Johnny Stanton’s name, Stanton’s a football player. He’s a quarterback, running back, fullback, and could even play linebacker. He’s got a good but not great 40-time of just under 4.70 and his versatility could be useful.
If he’s a good enough blocker as a back, he could lineup like an H-back on the line of scrimmage with Andy Janovich in the game as well. If the Browns burn through their two starters under center, then Stanton could step in as emergency relief. On top of all that, he could be the perfect special teams’ compliment.
Should have cut- OL Chris Hubbard
Why was he ever brought back is a question that often haunts most Browns writers. Chris Hubbard seems like a great guy, there’s no attitude issues that anyone seems aware of. Yet he failed to do anything meaningful in his time with the Cleveland Browns and was so ineffective as a blocker, Mayfield got lit up from his side of the line.
Mayfield got lit up due to both tackles being awful, but The Browns let Greg Robinson go. Granted he’s facing felony charges for drug smuggling, but still, they brought back Hubbard? He didn’t work as a starter and now he’s a year older and a year more beat up.
This isn’t Madden, you don’t stack up guys with name-value that you think is good. In the real NFL, there is no proper way to measure a player besides the eye-test. Does that guy get it done? If you sign someone to be a backup, you better sign him believing he can start. Every NFL team should have nine to ten “starters” on the offensive line (or anywhere else on the team). If you have a guy you know can’t start for you, you have a guy who can’t be a backup either.
Should have kept – G Michael Dunn
Michael Dunn played really well for the XFL’s Seattle Dragons before the league collapsed in on itself. Dunn isn’t the most flashy of prospects but one thing this team needs is versatility. That’s how you plug multiple holes on a depth chart without overloading one position entirely (*cough FIVE TIGHT ENDS cough*). Dunn is able to play guard and tackle on both sides of the line. He’s strong and nimble and had the technique to be drafted the year he came out but a shoulder injury limited what he was able to do in the combine and his stock fell.
Dunn’s NFL potential is largely unexplored, so it is impossible to know if he could start in a pinch or even take over for Wyatt Tellar should the obvious happen, or for Jedrick Wills if he’s slow to pick up the offense and new techniques.
Should have cut (traded) – TE David Njoku
Five tight ends. What are they thinking? Three tight ends, sure. Three tight ends and five wide receivers is standard fair for NFL teams. Six wide receivers for teams that is a pass-happy offense also make sense. Five tight ends, and six wide receivers for a run-first team? That’s like worrying about the special effects budget on a community theater production of Fiddler on the Roof. Who worries about the VFX budget for Fiddler?
David Njoku could probably try his hand at receiver, might as well considering the depth on the tight end side of things, but ultimately we’re into year number four of the Njoku era and Nero had a more glorious tenure as the top dog of his position in Rome. Njoku won’t be here for much longer, not unless something drastic happens. Makes little sense to keep him at all if you’re going to carry four other guys at his position. Three of which do things better than he does, and the fourth is on this list as well.
Should have kept – DT Daniel Ekuale
The Browns need help on the interior line. They got gutted last year. The team made some changes in the offseason so there’s really nothing to complain about for who the Browns kept, besides maybe Sheldon Richardson. Larry Ogunjobi, Jordan Elliott, and Eli Ankou all seem great. At least in theory. Elliot and Ankou are unproven commodities, however. So there’s no clear cut choice who’d step up if Richarson or Ogunjobi went down with injuries.
Or if one of them lets the linebackers get lit up like a Chrismukkah celebration. Daniel Ekuale would’ve at least given you some more depth at the position, though granted, five defensive tackles isn’t exactly standard. More standard than five tight ends, but what are you going to do?
Should have cut – TE Pharoah Brown
What. Why? Why is Pharoah Brown on this team? As far as tight ends go, he’s not one of the three best blockers (Austin Hooper, Harrison Bryant, Stephen Carlson), he’s not one of the three best receivers (Hooper, Bryant, David Njoku) and he’s not one of the three best overall tight ends (Hooper, Bryant, Carlson). In fact, Brown is more known for his pre-season brawls with teammates than anything he’s ever done on the field.
Talk about a guy who doesn’t make sense to make a team’s roster. Someone like Johnny Stanton, who’s only a couple inches shorter and does everything just as well as Brown, makes more sense for his versatility. Then again Brown is from Cleveland, so maybe that has something to do with? Who knows, anymore.
Should have kept – CB A.J. Green
It was hard not to like what A.J. Green brought to the table. Green was so impressive that the Browns gave him a record guaranteed contract for an undrafted rookie free agent. Green’s abilities were clear and he did play well enough in camp to warrant a second and third look. He’s clearly someone the team is high on and will more than likely be on the practice squad unless he’s been some sort of headache in the locker room.
Yet, not keeping Green after all the hype seems strange. Either he’s as good as GM Andrew Berry thought but head coach Kevin Stefanski believed others just outplayed him. That would be fair enough, but why not keep him anyway? The team needs help in the secondary. Though there’s a potentially worse theory that’s out there. It’s that Berry and company didn’t like him that much after all, in which case the Browns need to worry about Berry’s ability to eye talent. So this is going to be a curious situation to watch develop.
Should have cut – CB Tavierre Thomas
Unfortunately, for Tavierre Thomas, he’s the one-to-one for Green. If you keep Green, you’re going to have to cut someone, and Thomas is the other low-man on the list. He’d be brought onto the practice squad, but after all the hype that the Browns organization and the media put on Green, to not give him a shot but to do so with Thomas? That’s wild.
He’s also a John Dorsey guy and we all know that the Browns are moving on from the Dorsey regime pretty quickly. It kinda just makes sense that Thomas would be let go to make way for Green.