Browns trade for Kenny Pickett, move DTR

       The Cleveland Browns didn't leap into action on the first day of free agency as it was more of a short jaunt with the surprising acquisition of quarterback Kenny Pickett from the Philadelphia Eagles.

Cleveland traded reserve quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson and a fifth-round draft pick which originally belonged to the Detroit Lions and was obtained for Za'Darius Smith at the trade deadline, for Pickett, who will turn twenty-seven in June.

Pickett was the first-round selection by the Steelers in the 2022 draft and started twelve games in each of his two seasons as a Steeler.

Pickett won fourteen of those starts but threw thirteen interceptions with thirteen touchdowns and was viewed as a disappointing selection with Pittsburgh trading Pickett to the Eagles before last season with a fourth-rounder in 2024 in return for a 2024 third-rounder and two 2025 seventh-round choices.

Pickett appeared in five games (two touchdowns, one interception, two hundred ninety-one yards) for the Eagles championship-winning squad, starting the season's final game against Dallas, winning a meaningless game to avoid injury to Jalen Hurts.

Dorian Thompson-Robinson was the Browns fifth-round selection in 2023 and started five games in two seasons as a Brown, throwing one touchdown and a jaw-dropping ten interceptions.

Thompson-Robinson completed only fifty-two percent of his pass attempts and showed an inability to get the football downfield, so with the Browns tossing in the towel on the DeShaun Watson regime, Thompson-Robinson's skills aren't in sync with whomever the Browns would decide to start at quarterback next season.

The Browns basically traded Dorian Thompson-Robinson and a few games of Za'Darius Smith for Kenny Pickett and while those few games weren't a loss, trading a fifth-rounder  (even if it is near the end of the round) seemed a bit much, especially when the Browns are expected to add a few compensation picks in the sixth round, which would have been a bit more palatable.

I'm assuming the Browns are bringing Kenny Pickett in as a backup and not as a challenger for the starting position, so the trade is nothing I'm going to scream about, especially since Cleveland found a taker for Dorian Thompson-Robinson.

Under these circumstances, I'm okay with the trade, although not in love with it because of the loss of the fifth-round draft pick.

I don't expect to see Kenny Pickett taking many snaps for the Cleveland Browns but if he is things are really problematic in Cleveland.

Browns fall in Philly 20-16

      The Cleveland Browns didn't produce an offensive touchdown and as a result, the Browns lost another winnable game. this one to the Philadelphia Eagles 20-16 in Philadelphia.

Myles Garrett blocked a Jake Elliott field goal late in the first half and Rodney McLeod ran fifty yards with the recovery for the Browns only touchdown. Dustin Hopkins kicked three field goals to complete the Cleveland scoring.

The Browns dropped to 1-5 and will return to Cleveland next week after losing all three games of their road swing to play the Bengals.

Brownie Bits

1) There will be more talk from the press and the fans about the future of DeShaun Watson as the starter but Kevin Stefanski immediately stated following the game that Watson would be starting against the Bengals next Sunday.

I wonder about the crowd reception after these miserable three losses.

2) Watson did have a few highlights as his final drive bullet to Amari Cooper was drilled where it needed to be and he completed eleven of twelve passes in the second half but once again, Watson finished with less than two hundred yards passing.

3) I'm tired of writing this every week (but not as tired as I am of watching it)  but I still don't have a grasp on what the major factor is in why the Browns just aren't able to generate chunks of yardage.

Watson's inaccuracy, Watson's arm strength, wide receivers' inability to separate and their speed, and the offensive line's problems in protecting him, all contribute to this problem- I'm just not sure what can be fixed first.

4) The offensive line took another hit when center Nick Harris broke his fibula on the third play of the game.

Harris was starting in place of the injured Ethan Pocic and his injury forced Michael Dunn, who was starting at right guard rather than backup Zac Zinter, who had been ineffective in place of injured Pro Bowler Wyatt Teller, to shift to center and Zinter returned to the field.

5) Cleveland did receive some long-awaited help on the offensive line with the return of Jack Conklin at right tackle.

Conklin tore his left knee in the 2023 opener and hadn't played since.

Assuming Conklin can stay on the field, the line will be helped.

6) Myles Garrett didn't have a sack but he did have two tackles for loss and his block of a Jake Elliott field goal attempt led to the only Browns touchdown.

Garrett's athletic ability for a man of his size astounds me and it's always been reported how much Garrett loves basketball, which makes sense considering how he leaps!

7) Rodney McLeod's touchdown from the blocked field goal by Myles Garrett had to feel good for the former Eagle and it was his second touchdown of the season.

8) Rodney McLeod, a veteran defensive back, is tied for the team lead in touchdowns after six games.

That is how historically terrible the offense has been,

9) The Browns did use the running game a bit more than they previously had, finishing with one hundred yards as a team, forty-three of those for Pierre Strong.

10) The Browns lost Jerome Ford to injury after two carries but the Browns will return Nick Chubb to the field next Sunday, so the depth will not be affected. Ford is the most effective of the pass-catching backs though and would remove a target that DeShaun Watson looks for when he checks down.

11) I still can't believe the third quarter play call by Kevin Stefanski on a third and one.

After bringing Jameis Winston in for the QB sneak, which I have no problem with considering the size difference and the condition of Watson's shoulder, Stefanski called the number of wide receiver Cedric Tillman and on the replay, you hear a player screaming "It's coming to me".

That man was Brandon Graham, who was sitting in a spot where Tillman ran at him with Graham slamming Tillman to the ground for a five yard loss.

12) That play call resulted in a fifty-two-yard field goal try by Dustin Hopkins into a left-to-right wind that pushed the attempt wide of the goalposts.

13) If the draft was held today, Cleveland's first-round pick would be first overall as the Browns schedule is the third weakest in the league to date.

And they are 1-5.

Leroy Keyes and the Resource Center

     Recently former Philadelphia Eagle Leroy Keyes passed away at the age of 74 and while Keyes was notable enough for a cleaning out the inbox for his tremendous college career at Purdue, Keyes's disappointing pro career meant that I only saw him play on Purdue and Eagles highlight films.

Keyes was a dynamic two-way player for Purdue as a running back and cornerback, making the All-American team in both 1967 and 1968, finishing third in the 1967 Heisman voting (to Gary Beban and O.J. Simpson) and second in 1968 to O.J. Simpson.

Keyes (in the time of three varsity seasons) would finish his Purdue career with over 2,000 yards rushing and 1,200 receiving with twenty-nine touchdowns scored.

You could make a serious and logical case for Leroy Keyes as the best player in the history of Purdue football.

Leroy Keyes was the third overall draft pick by the Eagles in the 1969 draft and the Eagles chose Keyes over Joe Greene, so that's disappointing to Philadelphia fans.

Keyes was drafted as a running back but became a full-time defensive back after his rookie season.

Keyes rushed for less than 400 yards and scored only three touchdowns in his rookie year, but for some reason, the Eagles gave up on Keyes as a running back in 1970 with Keyes carrying the ball twice all year.

Desperate to get anything out of Keyes, Philadelphia moved him to safety for his third season and in 1971, Keyes finished with six interceptions and recovered three fumbles to earn his first Topps card in the 1972 set (pictured).

Keyes had maybe the weirdest collection of four mainstream collectibles- the 1972 Topps with his knit cap on, 1973 Topps where he looks 20 years older than he actually was, a Sunoco Gas Station stamp, and a 7-11 Slurpee cup from 1973 with the Eagles when he actually played for the Chiefs by the release date.

Keyes started all 14 games in 1972 for the Eagles with two interceptions but was traded to Kansas City for 1973, where he retired after the season at the young age of 25.

After football, Keyes worked in Philadelphia for their school district before returning to Purdue in 1995 in various positions which included running backs coach and administrative assistant along with fundraising.

So how does this relate to me?

Well, when you live in a rural area that the nearest library/bookstore was eight to ten miles away and you are a voracious reader, your options are limited.

This means that you are constantly checking books out of the school library or as the term used in the 1970s speak- The Resource Center.

The term moved out of vogue as quickly as it started as in middle school and high school, it was always called the library, and looking back the choices were limited as you'd expect from a rural elementary school, but what I loved about it was the strange selection of books that wound up there and the stories that they would tell in their travels there.

I remember constantly signing out and re-reading books over and over again such as my first exposure to Ball Four, Confessions of a Dirty Ballplayer by Johnny Sample and Foul by Connie Hawkins, all of which in hindsight were more adult reading than elementary school, but somehow flew under the radar to end up in the resource center.

However, there were also books that were a bit more to the childhood demographic with books watered down for the age group, yet really old for the time.

An example was the "Richie Ashburn Story", which I would later purchase at a book sale, recently found in my dad's attic, and now resides in the Ryan Heimberger Library ( Trademark Pending).

Richie Ashburn retired after the 1962 season, was traded from the Philadelphia Phillies before the 1960 season, and if I remember correctly the book was printed well before then.

I might have been the only kid that read books about players that no one my age had heard about, but that added to (or even started) my love of sports history.

Here is where Leroy Keyes comes in.

Other than the unusual football card shown above, I didn't know about Keyes, but I did know O.J. Simpson.

The 1973 football season was Keyes's last season, but also my first year in school, and the 2,003-yard season (in 14 games) for Simpson, so O.J. Simpson was very well known at that time.

Deep in the section of the library for books that no one else cared about was a book that never had a dust jacket (Google doesn't have an image, but this article says the Juice was on the cover) with the title "Black Champions of the Gridiron- O.J. Simpson and Leroy Keyes).

The book is written for children, and the main focus is the college careers and the Heisman races of 1967-68 where Simpson and Keyes finished 2-3 (to winner Gary Beban) and 1-2.

That book and the missing dust jacket always reminded me of childhood and why Leroy Keyes, always stayed in my memory.

My memories for some things amaze me, and for others fail me consistently, but it always is a nice memory when I relate a great player of the past to something personal- even if it is a book that I haven't seen for over forty years...

Cleaning out the Inbox

 Time to clean out the inbox with a few stories from around the world that I've found interesting.

Mental Floss looks at what they call the "tragic" story of RC Cola and while the story of a cola company that still churns out product to this day isn't exactly a story that I would describe as tragic, it's still an interesting story of a cola that has been a bigger deal here locally than it has been nationwide.

RC or Royal Crown Cola isn't one that I would say that I favor or that I have even had one in many years, but it is an interesting story of how RC wound up where they are and how they could have been a larger player with a few breaks.

Mental Floss also tackles a not-so-important question that I have always wondered about- What is the difference between Brown Eggs and White Eggs and is it worth the difference in price that one pays for the former?

There is an answer and it's given in the article, but I still wonder if the price difference is worth it.

ESPN's article on John Madden, as the former coach and commentator recently celebrated his 85th birthday, is quite long but it's well worth the read.

While Madden's career in coaching and broadcasting along with his participation in the biggest video game line in history is well-known, many of the items in this article show just how much influence John Madden has had in several innovations that football viewers and fans now take for granted.

The first down line, the start of the Madden video game, and other Madden stories are all there as part of a very interesting article.

We wrap with the Athletic and their look at the chaotic status of the Philadelphia Eagles front office, where only three seasons after winning the franchise's first Super Bowl, things appear to be spinning out of control with owner Jeffrey Lurie and general manager Howie Roseman at the center of the storm.

Lurie has been criticized since buying the team in 1994 for his constant involvement in personnel issues and particularly with the NFL draft.

I won't hammer Lurie for that, hell if I owned an NFL team I would want to be involved as well- It's why I'd want to own a franchise, but you can wonder about his overall involvement as well as the antics of Howie Roseman and think how did it get this bad in only three years?
The article covers the 2020 draft and how Jalen Hurts moved from a late-round consideration as a developmental quarterback to their second-round pick and then as their starter in one season, along with the Carson Wentz saga, dealings with former coach Doug Pederson, and how paranoia grips the organization.

It covers everything important that you can think of except for the eternal question- How did a team
with such great helmets and uniforms (the kelly green from 1986-94) change to their ugly ones, they use currently and why haven't they gone back to the kelly green? 

Browns Clip Eagles 22-17

    For the third time in a three-game homestand for the Cleveland Browns, the weather was terrible- this time it was the always grungy "wintry mux" by Lake Erie with the ever-present wind along yet again for the Browns.

The wind wasn't as bad as the previous two home games, but the game was yet another less than exciting tilt that didn't pick up until late in the game and wasn't safely in the bag until the recovery of an onside kick with seconds remaining in a 22-17 Cleveland win.

Nick Chubb rushed for 114 yards to lead the Browns and despite only gaining eleven yards on thirteen carries, it was Kareem Hunt that scored the only offensive touchdown of the game by the Browns with a extra effort hurdle over Philadelphia defenders in the fourth quarter.

Olivier Vernon sacked Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz three times and Sione Takitaki grabbed a wobbly Carson Wentz heave and ran fifty yards for the only touchdown in the first half from either team to lead the Browns defense.

The now 7-3 Browns will go on the road for the first time in a month with a visit to Jacksonville against the one win Jaguars next Sunday.

Brownie Bits

1) Third game of a three game homestand with all three having various types and degrees of foul weather. 

Rain, Wind, and Wintry Mix involved in all three games and I wonder just how much effect on the outcome that the weather had.

2) That's because a defense that looked like they would struggle stopping teams in the Sun Belt conference earlier in the season has suddenly looked like a quality unit.

The Browns allowed 48 points in the three home games, which is certainly solid enough, but I wonder how much was the conditions slowing down the visitors and how much was an improved defense?

3) The Eagles offensive line is terrible.

How else can you explain Carson Wentz being sacked five times against a Browns pass rush that was without Myles Garrett?

With a few breaks, the Browns could have perhaps doubled the amount of sacks on the constantly harassed Wentz.

4) Olivier Vernon has been a player that has heard his share of criticism since coming to Cleveland, but his three sacks with one of those sacks giving the Browns two points for a safety dampened that fire for a while.

Vernon has disappointed in his two seasons as a Brown, but while you cannot deny the lack of production by Vernon, I've thought that he could be one of those players that doesn't play well through pain.

Some players are able to play through pain and others aren't able to produce at their usual level when dealing with injuries, Olivier Vernon might be one of those players that struggle.

5) Baker Mayfield didn't throw an interception, but that didn't mean he played well.

Mayfield's fumble to led to the only Philadelphia touchdown other than in garbage time and his continued struggles with accuracy cost the Browns early when wide open tight ends Harrison Bryan and Austin Hooper were underthrown and overthrown on back to back plays that could have produced touchdowns.

6) Mayfield's misfires cost the Browns a touchdown as when Kevin Stefanski decided to go for iton fourth and goal with Kareem Hunt being stopped inches from the line.

Hunt was so close that he was initially declared as having scored before an Eagles challenge allowed a replay to overrule the officials original call.

That play doesn't happen with Mayfield hitting either of two open recievers.

7) Kareem Hunt struggled in averaging less than a yard a carry, but the sheer desire shown by Hunt in scoring a touchdown is one of the more encouraging pieces of the Browns season.

Coaching changes always brings rumblings of "culture changes" and this team is showing signs of doing just that.

Hunt broke a tackle, leaped over another Eagles and tumbled into the end zone for the score when he could have easily been taken to the ground.

Small things that you see are the building blocks of future success.

8) Nick Chubb was bottled up for much of the day, but once again in the fourth quarter it was Chubb breaking a big run against a worndown defense complete with the "Heisman" stiff-arm on Philadelphia's Joe Ostman.

The drumbeat has begun on talk of a Nick Chubb extension and with it the discussion of giving long-term contracts to running backs.

Between a Chubb extension and picking up the option on Baker Mayfield, Andrew Berry has difficult decisions to make.

9) Sione Takitaki hasn't been great as a starting linebacker or even good this season, but you had to feel good for him when he scored a touchdown after intercepting Carson Wentz.

I wouldn't be even mildly surprised to see Takitaki gone from the team next season or at minimum moved to special teams where he is best suited, but he did have one day in the sun.

Hope he kept the football.

10) Give Cody Parkey credit as well for his third quarter 46 yard field goal into the Dawg Pound end of the field, which has proven through the years to be the more difficult end of the stadium to kick toward.

Parkey's previous Browns experience has proven to be handy in a difficult stadium to kick in.

Stadiums in cold weather cities are always a bit tricky and teams that use rookie/young kickers do so at their peril.

11) Much of the chatter before the game was focused on Philadelphia quarterback Carson Wentz, who could have been a Brown but was passed over when the Browns traded the second overall pick to the Eagles in a 2016 trade that netted the Browns lots of draft picks that they naturally botched with busts and failures with the exception of the now-departed Joe Schobert.

Wentz holds onto the ball way too long and takes too many hits, but he's not protected well at all by an offensive line that is bad to be generous.

While Wentz doesn't appear to be anything near a franchise quarterback and the Eagles paid way too much for him, the Browns look arguably (past front offices anyway) worse for blowing the picks.

12) Carson Wentz does remind me of one of the more important things to remember when you are rebuilding a franchise.

If you cannot protect a young quarterback, he better be a special talent as even top of the draft passers can beaten into submission as the Browns failed to do for Tim Couch and the Texans were unable to protect David Carr.

Both of those players had disappointing careers filled with beatings, lost confidence, and ruined mechanics and from what I saw yesterday Carson Wentz may be the next quarterback to join that club.

13) Finally, I may be open to a domed stadium in Cleveland.

I may write about this in the off-season, but I'm suddenly Ok with this after never supporting it before.

14) 7-3.

I'm still not completely convinced this is a good team and they still have only one good win.

However, you play the teams they tell you to and you cannot blame the Browns for that.

Cleveland should be favored in all three of their four road games (Jacksonville, NY Giants and Jets) and underdogs in their visit to Tennessee and home games against Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

Three wins and 10-6 puts them in the playoff hunt, but tiebreakers could come into play.

Four wins should do the trick, let's see if they can get them. 

Browns trade Genard Avery to Eagles

Early in yesterday's loss to the Patriots, Cleveland Browns play by play voice Jim Donovan was very excited to speak the name Genard Avery as he pressured Tom Brady  as Brady dropped back to throw (Avery's name does not appear in the box score for defensive statistics) and referred to the Memphis pass rusher as the "forgotten man".

Avery may have been the forgotten man after being mentioned prominently as either an outside linebacker or part of the team's pass-rushing package at defensive end and yesterday was the first game since their loss to the Rams (the only other game) that Avery had been active.

Apparently, the Browns were willing to forget about Avery for good as they sent him to Philadelphia in return for a 2021 fourth-round draft pick.
Genard Avery wasn't forgotten as a rookie in 2018 when he was selected in the fifth round from Memphis, finished with 30 solo tackles and four and a half sacks and looked to be part of the Browns future.
However, that was under then-defensive coordinator Gregg Williams' system and when Williams didn't receive the head coaching job that wound up going to Freddie Kitchens and moved to the same job with the New York Jets with former Arizona Cardinals head coach Steve Wilks hired as the new defensive coordinator, Avery apparently wasn't a good fit for Wilks' defense and as noted, Avery was seldom active.

Suddenly, the kudos that so many (including me) were tossing John Dorsey's way for his 2018 draft have been silenced as it doesn't look nearly as strong now as it did just twelve months ago.
The second of their two second-rounders has become a star in Nick Chubb, but Austin Corbett is already gone and now Genard Avery in the fifth has been traded as well.
Baker Mayfield doesn't look like a bust, but he clearly is behind one quarterback (Baltimore's Lamar Jackson) right now in his draft class and he's still in the plenty to prove class with New York's Sam Darnold and Buffalo's Josh Allen.
The Browns other first-rounder in Denzel Ward has proven to have all the skills needed to be a top corner except being able to stay on the field and third-rounder Chad Thomas is at least playing this season but hasn't been more than a rotational player, while their two receivers Antonio Callaway (4th) and Damion Ratley (6th) have been best remembered for dropping passes rather than catching them.
What looked to be a draft to remember is showing the beginnings of being a draft from the Farmer, Banner, Mangini, Brown, Holm... Oh never mind you get it.
We aren't there yet, but you are seeing a few signs.

Genard Avery could have success with the Eagles and he wasn't noted as a problem with the Browns in the locker room, so looking at the trade by the merits, John Dorsey traded a player that he invested a fifth-round pick and added a fourth after getting a good year from the player.
Even if you have to wait two years for the return, that's not bad value, but what I'm thinking is this- the trade deadline is tomorrow at 4;00 PM and suddenly the Washington Redskins have let it be known that their Pro Bowl left tackle holdup Trent Williams is suddenly available after weeks of saying that he was not on the block.
Could it be that John Dorsey is leery of trading a first-round pick for the second round in a row after trading the 2019 top pick to the Giants for Odell Beckham and is accumulating lower picks to add to perhaps a second-rounder to make it worth the Redskins while?
It's an interesting thought and perhaps the Redskins are motivated to make a move to accommodate Williams before he sits out an entire season and loses value from sitting out an entire season, but considering Williams age (31), timing after sitting out all season and needing to sign him to a new contract, I'm afraid trading a first-rounder in an attempt to save a possible lost season would be a desperate overpay.
It will be very interesting to see if the Browns make any moves tomorrow and if so, what type?
Will they go after a Trent Williams to salvage this season and continue to bulk up on veterans?
Or could they go in the opposite direction, a direction that few have given thought to- Could they trade someone that you wouldn't think and add draft picks to continue to a rebuild that they may have attempted too much too soon and now realize that more is needed to have a firm foundation?
We will see soon.

John Reaves

John Reaves passed away Tuesday at the age of 67.
Reaves, a former first-round pick of the Philadelphia Eagles and star of the USFL's Tampa Bay Bandits was well known for that and his record-setting career at Florida, where at one time, Reaves held the NCAA's record for passing yards, but in recent years might have been almost just as well known to college football fans as the father of Layla Kiffin, the beautiful ex-wife of controversial football coach-Lane Kiffin.

Reaves might have been an NFL failure as a starter, although he was shoved into a starting role as a rookie on a bad team in Philadelphia in a time that rookie quarterbacks rarely found success, but he was a star in the USFL as he was the triggerman for Steve Spurrier's Tampa Bay Bandits for "Bandit Ball", which was a wide-open and fun offense even for a league noted for such offense.

Reaves was not very mobile, so he was pretty easy to sack even behind the Bandits offensive line, which was one of the better lines in the league, so I can imagine how he was a sitting duck behind the line of the 2-11-1 1972 Eagles, which was his main starting stint in the NFL.
However, in the USFL, he was able to get the ball out quickly and avoid rushes far better than his mobility would suggest. which allowed him to throw for over 4,000 yards twice with the Bandits.
Reaves also was one of the replacement players during the three-game 1987 lockout as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers used the popularity of the Bandits (the lockout was barely two years after the final game of the USFL) to gain a little bit of familiarity with the non-union players for the fans.
Reaves went 1-1 for the replacement men in Tangerine and never played afterward.

Reaves spent some time coaching high school and on the Steve Spurrier staff at Florida along with a non-Spurrier stint at South Carolina, but battled drug addiction in the 1980s before getting clean for decades before a 2008 arrest for drugs and gun possession that sent Reaves back to drug counseling.
Reaves is currently part of the lawsuit of former players against the NFL for symptoms of CTE and the surviving family plans on offering Reaves' brain for examination for the suit.

I've written a lot about the USFL and I'm still planning forgotten superstars on the 1983 Chicago Blitz after the earlier post on the 1984 Arizona Wranglers. but the story that so many of you might want to hear (from conversations anyway) is the connection with Donald Trump and why I dislike him so-someday soon perhaps...

The pain begins-Eagles clip Browns 29-10

The long dreaded season is among us as one of the weaker teams on the Cleveland schedule pulled away in the second half as the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Cleveland Browns in Philadelphia 29-10.
Isaiah Crowell rushed for 62 yards (Much of it in garbage time) and the Browns only touchdown in the defeat.
The Browns (0-1) return to Cleveland for the home opener next week against Baltimore,who won their opener at home over Buffalo.

This will be a longer Brownie Bits than usual because I have so much material.

Brownie Bits

1) The elephant in the room-Carson Wentz and his debut stands as what most want to discuss.
As most of you know,the Browns had the chance to select Wentz and instead traded the pick for a package that included the Eagles first rounders in 2016 and 17 along with a second rounder in 2018.
Wentz threw for two touchdowns and 278 yards and generally looked poised in the pocket with a big and accurate arm.
I came away liking him..

2) But,here is the caveat-he did it at home against perhaps the least talented team in football.
Keep in mind the defense that he did against and with very little adversity.
I liked what I saw,but let's not anoint him as the next great passer quite yet..

3) I didn't like much from Robert Griffin's game.
I thought he was inaccurate on short and medium throws and even on one of the two big plays that he made in the long passing game (the one to Corey Coleman) was more of a lob/punt that Coleman made a play on more than Griffin made a good throw.
I'm not ready to quit on Griffin yet,but I would not grade him highly off his first start..

4) There were some drops that didn't help.
Gary Barnidge dropped both passes to him.Corey Coleman dropped one and Terrelle Pryor dropped one as well.
Cannot blame Griffin for those.

5) I wasn't even excited about Isaiah Crowell's 62 yards because I saw how he gained the majority of them-garbage time..
I did like Crowell's hustle covering punts,so he is buying in...

6) The Browns did have things going their way once in the second quarter as they drove into Eagle territory,when a Griffin pass was re-directed at the line of scrimmage and picked off by Rodney McLeod.
The score was 10-7 Eagles,but a touchdown would have given Cleveland the lead and maybe swung momentum.
Tough to blame Griffin too much for that interception as those things do happen,but they seem to happen so much to the Browns..

7)  Another play that seemed to take the air out of Cleveland came after a stop in third quarter action and the Browns trailing just 13-10.
Cameron Erving snapped the ball over Robert Griffin's head and the Browns had to get the ball out of the end zone to avoid a touchdown.
Philadelphia settled for a safety,but the Eagles controlled the game thereafter..

8) Cameron Erving is a major problem and not just because of the snap over Griffin's head.
Fletcher Cox bullied Erving around the field and even though Cox is among the best in the game,Erving appears to just not be strong enough for the NFL game.
Yet another indictment of the Ray Farmer era (error?)

9) I suspected Hue Jackson was going to be a coach that throws everything at the wall in order to give an undermanned team their best shot to win,but his first half fake punt that saw the ball in the hands of Duke Johnson for a six yard loss was ill-timed.
It reminded me of the shotgun draw play in Tecmo Bowl when the defense calls it correctly and swamps the ball carrier.

10) The defense wasn't great,but not terrible.
Not that I'd say I'm not concerned,especially with Joe Haden getting beaten again deep and looking more like 2015 Haden than Pro Bowl Haden,but it could have been worse.
It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the effort to fade..

11) The player that I really like is defensive end Carl Nassib,the third rounder from Penn State.
Nassib is a high motor player that makes tackles at defensive end (doesn't always happen),knocks down passes (one in this one) and rushes the passer (one sack).
I grabbed Nassib for my fantasy team and he reminds me a little of J.J. Watt physically and never quit attitude.
Nassib isn't the athlete that Watt is,but that is the player that he reminds me of..

12) The defense will need to make more things happen because other than Nassib and Christian Kirksey,it looked a lot like same old Browns-making tackles downfield instead of forcing long distance third downs.
Kirksey might be the Browns next D'Qwell Jackson-rolling up big tackle numbers with few of them being of impact.

13) Robert Griffin injured his left shoulder late in the game,but I'm already thinking forward-is it possible (possible,not campaigning for change already) that Josh McCown might be a better fit for the offense?
Hear me out-McCown has the bigger arm,the strength of this offense might be the speed downfield of Terrelle Pryor and Corey Coleman,perhaps McCown might be able to get the ball in their hands more?
Just a theory,but one that might be tested if McCown starts against Baltimore next week.

14) Finally,it's tough to feel good off this loss.
Not that it was unexpected,but that this was one of the weaker teams on the schedule.
I still think the Browns will get 1 or 2 wins,but this is going to get darker before it gets lighter.....

Browns trade for Broderick Bunkley

The Cleveland Browns traded their fifth-round pick in the 2012 draft to the Philadelphia Eagles in exchange for defensive tackle Brodrick Bunkley.
Bunkley was the Eagles first-round selection in 2006 and despite missing some time with an arm injury last season is a solid and durable run-stopper.
The former Florida State Seminole is added to the defensive tackle rotation with Ahytba Rubin and first-round pick Phil Taylor in a rotation that looks to me to be a very solid group against the run.
Bunkley is not known as a pass rusher with just six sacks over his career but should prove to be an excellent addition.

I generally am not a huge proponent of moving draft picks, but since the Browns have two fourth-rounders in the 2012 draft, adding a physical run stuffer like Bunkley to the rotation not only gives the team depth at defensive tackle but keeps two quality players in the lineup at the same time at all times.
It is refreshing to see that someone with the Browns has finally realized that after years of ignoring the fact that you play in a northern and run-oriented division, you need to have a physical defense that stops the run-like say the successful teams in the division in Baltimore and Pittsburgh!?
This is the type of deal that does not improve you overnight but helps to change the culture by saying to other teams-you are not going to run over us anymore.

Good move by the Browns in addressing a need, the next stop has to be a corner.
I would love Nate Clements, but someone has to be brought in to be the third corner at worst and preferably the second, and move Sheldon Brown to the third spot.
The Eagles had to move someone after their free agent moves of yesterday and kudos to the Browns for taking advantage of the Eagles issues to add a nice player at a more than reasonable price.