Let's kick this off with after all the good fortune and optimism that came with Jimmy Haslam taking over as the new owner things went directly into the shitpile with major injuries, suspensions and possible suspensions for four starters on the defense (Joe Haden, Scott Fujita, Chris Gocong, Phil Taylor) so once again it's
"fun times in Cleveland again!"
But with all that said there is room for some optimism. This team isn't going to be competing for the AFC North crown nor should they but with a potentially improved offense and a defense that was the definition of bend don't break they may be able to pull of a few upsets and possibly get to around 6-7 wins this year.
Offense
QB - Out with the old and in with the...old?!?! As we all know the Browns used their 22nd pick this year to select the 29 year old
Brandon Weeden. Old man Weeden will be taking over an offense that if you were to call it terrible would actually be way to polite. Having watched all of the Browns games last year the offense was vomit worthy. The hope is with bringing in Weeden the Browns may have finally found a QB who will finally be able to run the west coast offense and be able to throw the ball down the field when needed but to do this he'll need some targets. what to keep an eye out for is to see how he handles the pass rush as he mostly threw from the shotgun all through college.
As of now
Colt McCoy will be the backup if possible the Browns will trade him and won't be asking for much. They do understand the situation he's in and want to give him a fair shake somewhere else. I still think he can be a servicable backup somewhere in the league but it won't be in Cleveland.
Seneca Wallace comes in after McCoy, his days could be numbered here as well with the rumours of Holmgren stepping down.
WR -
Greg Little is our #1 he came off a pretty up and down rookie season. He put up pretty decent stats (61 recs, 709yds, 2TDs) All in all not bad for a guy who had to take a full year off from football due to being suspended in college. He came to training camp this year having slimmed down about 15 pounds. It's showing, he's been a lot more fluid and is making a lot more plays in training camp. Despite all that though he has got to hang onto the football. He led all rookies with 14 drops last year. If he's able to improve upon that with Weeden as his QB he may be able to come close to hitting 1000 yards.
Mohammed Massaquoi was just awful last season, he had two concussions last year and just couldn't get anything going. The front office is expecting big things from him this year and at least from training camp he seems to have gotten over his previous injuries. This is a big year for him, if he falters he will easily drop down the depth chart with the potential for a few rookies to overtake him. He will need to improve on his totals in his 3 seasons in the league he's only averaged about 33-34 recs a year.
Josh Gordon is one of those rookies. Taken with a 2nd rounder in the supplemental draft the front office believes he has the talent to be the #1 on this team. The thought going into this season was due to him missing out on last season he wouldn't see any real actions until about game 3 or 4 but with how impressive he's been in training camp it seems he's going to be just put out there. Every report I've read on him in training camp so far is that he is a beast, he has been hauling in almost every pass thrown to him and he's built a pretty good relationship with Weeden already.
Travis Benjamin is another rookie WR who has done nothing but up his stock since OTAs. He came into OTAs and looked absolutely terrible but he credits an offseason working with Andre Johnson and a few other WRs to his sudden drastic improvement. Since training camp has started he has pretty much been catching everything thrown his way. He already was a speed threat (dat 40 time of 4.36) but with his tenacity towards making a big play he may see himself inserted into the lineup, currently he is #4 on the depth chart. He may also get some work on punt returns as the Browns seem to be shifting Josh Cribbs towards more kick returns and coverage. The one thing to watch out though for him is he is undersized (5'10, 170lbs) so keep an eye on if he's able to handle the knocks he'll get from corners in this league.
After these four there isn't much of anything else. The only darkhorse I could really talk about is
Josh Cooper. Undrafted rookie who was the slot receiver for Weeden in college. I don't expect him to make it onto the roster though.
RB -
Trent Richardson will be a huge reason for if the Browns falter or do well this season. His tenure is already off to a bad start with the "minor" surgery he had on his knee yesterday. All reports are expecting him to be ready for week 1. He should be on the field pretty much all the time, the Browns liked the fact that while he may not have blazing speed he's a big bruiser and he is willing and able to block. A fantasy side of it he may be the only Browns player you may use a pick on. He should get the majority of the carries for this offense.
Montario Hardesty will be the back up to Trent. The Browns took a gamble on him two seasons ago by moving up to draft him. He already had an injury history in college and he seemed to continue in that trend being injured most of his NFL career. He seems to have come into camp this year with a new attitude. He has been impressing so far and with Trent out for the preseason we will get to see a healthy dose of him.
Brandon Jackson is the only other RB who should get significant time (barring injuries) this year. He was signed last year to help compliment Hillis but he suffered a season ending injury in the preseason. I don't know much about him other than those few games he played with Green Bay so can't really comment on him.
FB - Nothing to say here it's
Owen Marecic's job to lose, and he won't.
TE - This is the only position on the Browns I feel is truly up for grabs. Currently the Browns have 4 guys who they will use as TE through the year. 3 of which have a chance to be the starter now:
Benjamin Watson as of right now is the starter, he has the most experience here and if not for some concussions issues last year would have put up some solid numbers.
Evan Moore is currently injured but when healthy he was a red zone target for the offense. He's big and very athletic.
Jordan Cameron is who the front office is hoping will be the TE of the future. They took a gamble on him last season drafting him late. He has a basketball background but hasn't played much football. From all reports the coaching staff have high expectations for him this year and in the preseason you will see him out there a lot. If he's able to show an ability to pick up the blitz and help on blocking he could become the starter before the end of the year. The coaching staff is definitely going to give him every opportunity to snatch it away from Ben Watson. So far in training camp he is the one player everyone has been talking about making a huge step forward in his development. He is definitely the most raw talent we have on this team.
Alex Smith is our blocking tight end, offensively he'll give us nothing.
OL - We got two probowlers in Center
Alex Mack and dreamboat/hero of the people Left Tackle
Joe Thomas. Pinkston did a pretty good job at LG and will continue to be there. The major problem with the OL was on the right side. The Browns went out and drafted RT
Mitchell Schwartz with their second round pick to help shore it up. He should get the nod right from the start as our starter there.
Defense
I'll be grouping everything together here as I'm still not knowledgeable enough to know the difference between DE/DT/LB. The Browns were dreadful in rush defense. Without looking I am pretty sure they were bottom 5 in that category yet they were top 5 in pass rush. The rush D should continue to be an area of concern with as stated above a decent amount of starters won't be around for the first few games. We'll be relying mostly on
Jabaal Sheard to continue from a strong rookie season to attack the QB but frankly without
Phil Taylor there I'm not expecting much. In the secondary we're looking to have a strong bounceback season by SS
TJ Ward, he had a solid rookie season but injuries forced him to miss most of the games last year. As well a shock to a lot of fans was that FS will be played by
Eric Hagg. He was selected 248th overall in the 7th round of the draft and ended up having a real solid rookie season before his injury. The front office is hoping he can continue on that success.
Joe Haden had a decent year but where this secondary needs to improve is on takeaways which the majority of which will fall on Haden. He had zero INTs last year but not without having some chances. He couldn't hang on to a plethora of passes thrown his way. Otherwise on the opposite end we have the veteran
Sheldon Brown, the Browns have no plans to move him from CB nor should they yet. He is reliable out there and he's not going to be guarding the top players. With
Buster Skrine,
Dimitri Patterson and
Usama Young as the backups the Secondary is one of the few places the Browns actually have some good depth.
Special Teams
This is one of the few areas the Browns are pretty good at. The goal this year seems to be having
Josh Cribbs focus more on special teams then as a WR. He will still get some work at WR but it won't be as much as he did last year. We also have
Reggie Hodges coming back from a devastating knee injury he suffered in training camp last year. Reggie is a solid punter and two seasons ago had a fantastic year. If he can regain his form don't be surprised to see a lot of teams start off deep in their own zone on a regular basis.
Hope that helps out a bit, sorry for any weird spacing or spelling mistakes, I wrote it at work and didn't have a chance to really doublecheck it inbetween doing actual work today.
