What To Look For In Browns Scrimmage

Browns Preview

The Browns take the field for the first time tomorrow in a “game” situation.

How much you can glean from this scrimmage is debatable.

Head coach Eric Mangini stated he’ll try and keep the teams as balanced as possible with the senior coordinators acting as the head coaches.

This game will be run on 10-minute quarters with Mangini playing the role of observer. He said he’ll be listening in on both coaches, Brad Seeley and Carl Smith, as they run the Brown and White sides.

“It's as much like game day as it can possibly be,” said Mangini. “Including a pregame itinerary, coaches in the booth, teams split up, head coaches for each team, officials come in, head coach will address the teams, have a coin toss, there'll be TV timeouts. The whole operation across the board.”

The quarterbacks are still going to be protected, so don’t look for anything substantive to come out of the quarterback competition. The only things that might be worth noting are if Brady Quinn or Derek Anderson have trouble getting the plays off, or are nowhere near the mark on their passes.

Other than those two things, you can’t really tell how the quarterback is going to be in the pocket until a couple of opposing defenders looking to kill them come hunting next weekend during the first preseason game.

There also will be no live tackling, which is fine at this point in the camp.

Mangini said the scrimmage is mainly being used as a teaching tool, and the fans should take it as such.

Notes:

Shaun Smith was released this morning. No reason has been given, but it’s safe to say Mangini probably had a few goals in mind for Smith to stay on the team that he obviously wasn’t close to achieving.

Smith had a bad 2008, and his altercation with Quinn as the season concluded last year was a huge mark against him, especially with a coach like Mangini, who is far less tolerant of those kinds of shenanigans than Romeo Crennell was.

So long Shaun, you won’t be missed.

Also, happy trails to Don Carey. Carey was waived after he injured his shoulder. No specifics were given, but Mangini neither confirmed nor denied Corey might need surgery to repair the damage.

"None of those steps have taken place yet," he said on the Carey injury.

He was officially waived/injured, meaning if he clears waivers, he reverts to the Browns IR list and won't be allowed to return to the team until after the season.

This tells me Mangini wasn't impressed with what he saw in the rookie, and his chances of making the team were minute.

Still, it's refreshing to see the Browns admitting a mistake and moving on, rather than riding multiple mistakes into 4-12 seasons.

UPDATE: Carey has been claimed by the Jaguars.