Orion

Wake me up when it's Friday night.

Another year that I don't mind that band rehearsal is Thursday night.   

1 hour ago, TexasAg1969 said:

He's better at guard IMO.

That's cool.  But he could swing over to RT if needed.  And he's wiley ol' vet who's seen it all before.  It'd be great if he turned out to be an upgrade to our depth.

Here's our 1st round pick 

1 hour ago, gumby73 said:

Player's chose to Retire as Cleveland Browns.

...can't fault them for that.  

3 hours ago, nickers said:

Now the Clowns honor half ass participation... Cute...

Kirksey was pretty good.  I remember before a Monday night game (perhaps it was Thursday night?), Chris Collinsworth described Higgins, "Well he's not fast.  And he doesn't run particularly good routes.  But he and Baker have a chemistry."  I kept hoping that the next year would be the year that he made the jump....but he was never much more than a cornerback's dream receiver to cover.  Kind of like DPJ.  A couple of receptions per game...on a good day.   Higgins had a pretty good schtick though...walking the red carpet.    

2 hours ago, Bob806 said:

but it certainly looks like he may not be ready at training camp.

Since he has some time, perhaps he should hit the books and draw up some more QB run plays for himself.  You know, one's where he takes on tacklers and stuff...to show his love for the game.

Higgins....wasn't he the one that almost scored a TD one time?    

Congrats and thanks to both!  

So when will he be ready to go? Well, that depends, as Watson explained (quotes via a team-provided transcript😞

“I mean, the plan is to come back whenever they feel like, and I feel like we’re on the same page, that we’re ready. So there’s not a timeline or a date that we have that this is when I’m going to be 100 percent. It’s just kind of how the process goes … It can be sooner than later, it can be later than sooner. I think it just really depends on how each landmark we hit and how fast we can get it and how my shoulder is reacting.”

For those keeping score at home, “they” is referring to the Browns training staff, Dr. Neal ElAttrache, the Los Angeles-based surgeon who operated on Watson, and Watson’s group, which includes his quarterback coach Quincy Avery.

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Clear as mud...

On the Draft Value Chart, our 7th round pick #127 is worth 1.4 points.  And pick 243 is worth 1 point.  The #1 overall is 3000 points.  In order to move to the top of the 6th round we'd have to trade about 20 seventh round picks.     I guess we could say that the math doesn't work at the quantum level. 

...truth be told, I view 7th rounders as glorified free agents.  But they're free agents that have to come to your team.  -  A week and a half 'til we're on the clock!

1 hour ago, Flugel said:

Led his team to 2 Ivy League Championships.

Wait.  The LT led the team to championships?  We gotta get this guy!    

2 hours ago, AP1 said:

I've always been a fan of being in the elements for football. It's just the way I was raised.

I was a fan back when there were no domes.  But this is a very different time.  There ARE teams with domes.  AND there's free agency which they didn't have in pre dome times.  -  I wonder how many Minnesota Vikings privately dreamed of taking Bud Grant behind the stadium and knocking some sense into him for not allowing them to use sideline heaters while the opponents, on the same sideline, could thaw themselves out while on the sidelines.  "Make them suffer!  It makes them tougher!"  

Some fans had to have amputations after the Chiefs playoff game this year.  The game was not invented / intended as a winter sport.  But games are being played practically into mid-winter.  

18 hours ago, tinythinker said:

Any other big upsides? Or medium to small upsides/opportunities?

It would be easier to attract players to the organization.  Believe it or not, there are players that don't like playing in the freezing wind, rain and/or snow.  Like Anthony Walker who just told his agent to find someplace warm and that he's sick of the cold.  Or Deshaun Watson who doesn't like the cold such that it took a quarter billion guaranteed to get him here.

8 hours ago, ballpeen said:

Also, the draft is only interesting when your team sucks........ When  you are picking in the 2nd round, it's futile to try to pinpoint guys we might draft.

Similar to what I said in February.  

Once we got through the bulk of free agency our more crucial needs became more in focus.  Now one can take a look at a few Big Boards and see what players are ranked in the area of pick 54...or 85.  Then one can take a cursory look at players at positions that you think are in need of help.  

(  the Browns home page did a segment on Ricky Pearson.  I've not read it...but I'll probably get around to it  )

6 minutes ago, ballpeen said:

Kind of reminds me of some football video game my kid had when he was young.   You could make the player have this huge head...lol....some of you probably remember...I don't remember the name of the game anymore.

  My son had one of those games.  It was 2 on 2 basketball.  Big heads.  I laughed so hard playing that game with him.    

Cleveland pockets a seventh-round selection in 2024 from the Tennessee Titans in exchange for OT Leroy Watson IV.

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7th pick in the 7th round (227).

So, with less than two weeks until the draft we now have:  

Round 2 (No. 54 overall)
Round 3 (No. 85 overall)
Round 5 (No. 156 overall)
Round 6 (No. 206 overall)
Round 7 (No. 227 overall)
Round 7 (No. 243 overall)

Ya know those padded bonnets for the helmets that some of the players use in practice and/or scrimmages.  Some day those will be mandatory.  

2 hours ago, Flugel said:

does this type of talent heading into the prime of his career just wake up 1 day with a Charlie Frye skill-set

That's more or less the 64k question.  (the 'less' being that we don't think he'd be Charlie Frye bad)  But there does exist the possibility that all of the missed time and all of the pressure to perform up to the standard of a 3 first round pick traded player...negativity towards him from part of the Browns fan base...lingering legal issues, etc. might weigh on him to the extant that he never returns to his previous level of play.   I wouldn't bet $ either way.  

9 hours ago, Flugel said:

When Watson plays like the National Champion QB

Yeah, but it's been so long that I think that the When has become If.

On 4/10/2024 at 5:15 PM, Dutch Oven said:

(The absolute best part of that incident is a guy drafted #1 in the NFL could not outrun a cop. Comedy gold, right there.) 

And yet he made the decision to try and run for the 1st down instead of simply tossing it to a wide open Demetric Felton standing just beyond the sticks at the sideline...while trailing in the 4th qtr of a late season game.  We had to punt.  We lost the game and wound up missing the playoffs.  He looked right at wide open Felton...and decided to outrun guys that are much faster than cops.   That pissed me off.  From that point on I no longer felt that he was the QB that we needed....but that we'd be stuck with him.  And this is why I've never been able to bash Haslem, Berry, DePo and/or Stef for the trade for Watson because some, or all of them, must have felt the same way that I did.  I'll sometimes bash the fact that we spent all of the draft picks and $$ for something that we've really got virtually nothing out of so far...but I can't bash them for doing what they did.

Medical science is making life difficult for the league.  You can't ignore a concussion anymore and just give the player a whiff of smelling salts because of those damned brain imaging machines!  

I remember way back in high school...some of us thought that it was kinda' barbaric of our coaches teaching how to crack back and block a defense end at the knees from the blind side.  They were teaching HS kids how to injure other HS kids.   KIDS!!

The league is going to have to continue to make rule changes to make the game safer.  Not because 'the league' really gives a rats ass about the well being of the player...but because they need 'players' in the pipeline.  

17 minutes ago, Flugel said:

How about this guy as one of our last 2 picks?  WR Luke McCaffrey, Rice 6-2 195 lbs.

Good genes.  

1 hour ago, Dutch Oven said:

Good, let someone else take the 360lb guy. 

It's an interesting measurement number.  It's also the number degrees in a circle.  He's a big round guy.  

He won't fall far.  Somebody will see him as BPA and take him.

On 4/9/2024 at 1:10 PM, tiamat63 said:

Cross off Sweat entirely, or at best drop him a couple rounds to high day 3. 

I think he's gone before we pick at 54.

3 hours ago, Flugel said:

We lost Harrison Bryant so this would be a nice upgrade. 

Sanders would be a liability in run blocking...but I didn't think that Harrison was great at run blocking...nor was he much of a receiving target.  I expected more out of a Mackie winner.