The Cleveland Browns have even more reason to feel good about this off-season. woofwoofnews / 17 hours ago
LinkThe Cleveland Browns had an excellent free agency period with 9 new players signed, upgrading many areas of concern on the team in the process.
They will be looking to replicate that success in the upcoming NFL draft too, when with 10 picks, they will be addressing the few remaining positions of need, while adding significant depth to the roster. Like a lot of fans, I have been going through the Browns roster and looking at the areas requiring attention, and trying to figure out just what Ray Farmer and friends will do on May 8th when the 2014 NFL Draft begins.
In case you have forgotten the 9 players picked up already, they are Karlos Dansby, Donte Whitner, Isaiah Trufant, Andrew Hawkins, Jim Dray, Ben Tate, Paul McQuistan, Nate Burleson and Chris Pressley. In my opinion, there is no doubt whatsoever that these players represent real upgrades for the team, and we are so much stronger now than we were at the end of last season because of them. Indeed, I am struggling to remember another free agency period that has been this productive, or sent out such a strong message of intent.
A lot of fans doubted that Jimmy Haslam would invest in the team, or that Ray Farmer would be able to deliver the players if he did, but both of them have answered their critics in great style, while still remaining shrewd. We all clamored for that ‘blue-chip’ signing, which may not have come, but we did address many needs with excellent players, and showed that the Browns have adopted, and even embraced, a win-now policy which could not be more different to the approach we have seen in recent years.
In keeping enough funds back to encourage negotiations to begin with some of our own free agents next year, there is a sense of comfort in knowing that our front office personnel are on top of their game, and the signs are infinitely more promising than they have been in a long time. While I was re-evaluating the players brought in though, and prioritizing our remaining needs in preparation for the woofwoofnews mock draft 2.0, a thought hit me that added even more to the feel-good factor currently going around, filling me with increased hope that a dramatic improvement in the fortunes of the Browns is pretty much guaranteed, and it is this.
In addition to those 9 free agents already signed, and the improvements that they alone will bring, the Browns will also welcome back at least 5 players from injury that were all badly missed last year, and who will improve their respective positions greatly. It may not be a big thing to some, but it was to me because it is like getting 5 new players for next season, in 5 real areas of need. The 5 players I am talking about are Desmond Bryant, Dion Lewis, John Greco, Travis Benjamin, and of course, Quarterback Brian Hoyer.
At the beginning of last season, if you had asked any Browns fans which players we could least afford to lose to injury, they would probably have said Trent Richardson, Joe Haden, Joe Thomas, and perhaps D’Qwell Jackson. They may have thrown in T.J.Ward too because of his potential, and Davone Bess for his supposed leadership, but I doubt they would have said any of the above 5, yet they each turned in excellent performances, and proved themselves to be irreplaceable over the course of the season.
Desmond Bryant was signed as a free agent Defensive End from the Oakland Raiders. He showed over the course of the year what a great acquisition he was, and our pass rush suffered greatly when he went down with a major heart defect in Week 13. Having had surgery for it, Bryant has only just returned to action, but the early signs are that he will be as good as ever, and the Browns definitely missed him when he went down, missing the last 4 games.
His contribution was noted by many, but his all round play never quite got the credit it deserved. D’Qwell Jackson summed up the contribution Bryant had made when he said, ‘He’s been great from day one. I didn’t know too much about Des before we signed him, and just being around him, he’s a calm, collected, cool guy, but when he’s out there on Sunday he’s a powerful man. He’s able to play every block, he’s able to pass rush’.
Bryant registered 3.5 sacks, and 31 tackles, but he got the attention of the offense on every play, and having him back this year will be a major boost for a Browns defense that was already pretty good to begin with, but will be even better this year with a touch more aggression, intelligence, and discipline.
Dion Lewis looked like a superstar in the making last pre-season, but the broken leg he suffered against the Lions not only ruled him out for the year, it cost us a real asset to the running game which suffered the entire season without him. Lewis had shown us enough in the few snaps he did play to suggest that he would be very elusive, and his play-making skills were unlike anything we had seen in Cleveland for many years.
Willis McGahee could not get it done in his place, and we had no real alternatives so the running game suffered, and with it the fortunes of what was a very limited offense. We now have Ben Tate, and Edwin Baker, but Dion Lewis was by far the best we had in 2013, and a fit and healthy Lewis will unquestionably be a major player this year too.
John Greco’s absence highlighted just how thin the Browns were on the offensive line last year, when he went down with a knee injury against New England on Dec 8th. Most of us knew that our line was a weak link already, but with Greco out, in came Garrett Gilkey, who confirmed that he was still some way off being an adequate replacement.
The left Guard position was key to the Browns last year as the little success we did enjoy with the running game came when we ran to the strength of our line, the left side, anchored by Greco and Joe Thomas. We lost even that at the end of the season, and it showed. This season we will have Paul McQuistan playing at left Guard, but with Greco back, and plugging in at his favored right Guard position, we actually look like we have a decent offensive line now, and that is before a draft which will almost certainly add more depth.
Travis Benjamin may have shown us last year that he is not quite an NFL caliber starting receiver, but he also reminded us how explosive he is as a kick returner, and when he went down with a torn ACL in Week 8, his injury signaled not only a turning point in his career, but a significant one for the Browns entire season.
There was an air of excitement every time Benjamin touched the ball, but when he suffered the injury against the Chiefs, it was in a game where the Browns had battled back from a big deficit, and were on the verge of what could well have been a landmark victory against a previously undefeated team. It was one that could have propelled us on to greater things, but with Benjamin out, the punt returning duties went to Davone Bess. Late in the game, at a time when the Browns could have been in position to win, Bess infamously fumbled a punt, giving the ball and the game to the Chiefs. The rest, as they say, is history.
Benjamin will be back this year, and his return will once again give us a real threat on special teams, a threat that we missed last season, and one that Benjamin showed can so quickly change momentum in games.
The final player of the 5 is of course Brian Hoyer, who began last season as the number 3 Quarterback, but got his opportunity in Week 3, and seized it with relish. The Browns really buzzed when Hoyer came in to the team, and victories against Minnesota, and then the Bengals, seemed to coincide with the confidence he brought to the team, and the upgrade in performance at the Quarterback position.
Hoyer made mistakes, but he was entitled to that, and opinion was that he would get better as the season went on by virtue of getting more playing time, and gaining more familiarity with the offense. Everybody rallied around him, and when the Browns played the Buffalo Bills on a Thursday night in October, it provided the Browns with the chance to go to 3-2, and the fans showed their support on a night the entire city was rocking!.
Sadly, it didn’t last long. On the second drive of the game, Hoyer went down under a suspect challenge from Kiko Alonso, and that was that. A torn ACL ended Hoyers season, and the Browns never reached those heights again. Hoyer’s injury probably proved the most devastating of all, as we didn’t just lose our Quarterback that night, we lost our belief too. After years of waiting for someone to lead us, we had him snatched away just as quickly as he had come.
In 2014 though, Hoyer will be back, and the early signs at camp this week suggested that he will be fit and ready to play when it matters in August. We will draft another Quarterback, and hopefully, if I can be selfish for a moment, it will be Johnny Manziel, but whoever it is, they will have a great mentor to learn from in Hoyer, and the Browns will have a guy at the helm that will not only make us competitive, but sow the seeds for a change in culture that the new Quarterback can only benefit from.
All 5 of the players mentioned above will return fit and healthy for pre-season training, and the Browns roster, including the starting 11 on both sides of the ball, will certainly look a lot stronger with them on it. The running game, offensive line, special teams, pass rush, and Quarterback, will all have their best player from 2013 returning, and each facet of our game will be improved overnight.
Injuries happen in the NFL, we know that, and all teams do get them, but to have so many elements of the game affected at the same time, to the extent that the Browns did in 2013, is quite rare and in part it does explain some of the losses the Browns suffered last year, and our subsequent 4-12 record.
With 9 new free agent signings, 5 returning players, and 10 new draftees, almost 50 per cent of the Browns roster may well have changed for 2014. Each of those changes may well prove to be a positive one too, which in turn is yet another reason for us to once again believe that the Cleveland Browns may finally have turned the corner, and are once again on the path to relevance in the AFC North.
![[Linked Image from i.ibb.co]](https://i.ibb.co/mTRTtTp/cleveland-browns-dawg-pound-detail.png)
![[Linked Image from i.ibb.co]](https://i.ibb.co/6WV79RV/Browns-Coach-Sig.png)
![[Linked Image]](http://www.dawgtalkers.net/uploads/small-gator-chomp.gif)