Rounding Up the Latest Cleveland Browns Offseason Buzz
Once the Cleveland Browns' mandatory minicamp wraps later this week, the team will have more than a month off. Then, training camp begins, with full pads and contact allowed. As a result, the depth chart will start to take shape, as the team not only can practice with contact but also take the field in preseason contests.
As the offseason period heads toward a month of hibernation, here are the biggest storylines swirling around the Browns.
Tashaun Gipson Shows Up
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Browns safety Tashaun Gipson had been sitting out of the team's voluntary OTA sessions in protest of being given a second-round restricted free-agent tender this spring, worth $2.356 million this year. But with the June 15 deadline to sign the tender rapidly approaching and mandatory minicamp starting the following day, he chose to sign the deal Friday and report for minicamp Tuesday.
Gipson said, per Scout.com's Fred Greetham, "I can't be bitter about the situation because at the end of the day this game is football. I'm just being positive about it; hopefully, eventually sooner than later we can get something worked out and this will be in the past."
Gipson did not work out Tuesday, as he was sidelined with a tight hamstring. But the knee that he injured last season that cost him the final six games is 100 percent healthy. Because of this, Jordan Poyer resumed working with the first-team defense. But Gipson is the starter, to be sure. While the hamstring may have him on the bike for the duration of Cleveland's minicamp, he has returned to his team, which is good news for one of the NFL's best secondary units.
No Tension for Running Backs This Year
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Browns running backs coach Wilbert Montgomery spoke candidly last week about tension that existed between then-rookie Terrance West and veteran Ben Tate last year, saying to the Plain Dealer's Tom Reed that "[Tate] came in early and they paid him [free-agent] money to come here so he felt he was 'the guy' and the other guys were in his way."
The friction got so bad between West and Tate that it spilled from the locker room and into social media:
"It was bad. You would see West tweet something out there on social media and then Ben would tweet and they would go back and forth all the time talking about they had no competition. They would get into it, you know, in the locker room, just having words, and in the meeting room, and it takes away from what you are doing out on the field. It becomes a distraction.
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Cleveland signed Tate to a two-year, $6.2 million contract last year but released him in November after he dealt with injuries and was surpassed on the depth chart by West and Isaiah Crowell.
The good news is that there is no such tension between the running backs this year. Montgomery said, "This year there's no friction at all. Everybody is out relaxing and playing. ... We have no personality problems."
Given that the Browns drafted yet another running back this year (Miami's Duke Johnson), there could have been potential for West to be disgruntled again, but it appears that a more mature West, along with no Tate-style ego in the locker room, has made things much better this year.
The Minicamp Plan
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The Browns spent OTAs intensively installing new offensive coordinator John DeFilippo's system play by play. But that process will be on hold during mandatory minicamp, according to head coach Mike Pettine, who spoke with ClevelandBrowns.com's Andrew Gribble on Tuesday.
Instead, the minicamp will try to identify the offense's "core." Pettine said:
"I always talk about the sponge theory—just keep throwing stuff at them until it starts to run off. We're seeing signs of that, and that's good. We've got a good sense that we have a pretty smart team, but we've got to take this next week and just take that time and try to dial it down a little bit, try to find out who we are.
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The Browns not only need to feel secure at the quarterback position but also to figure out their starting rotation of running backs and wide receivers and determine role each tight end on the roster will play. Thus, minicamp will be a more evaluative exercise compared to what Pettine deemed the "overwhelming" OTAs.
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Danny Shelton Arrives
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The only time the Browns have been able to work with rookie defensive tackle Danny Shelton was at May's rookie minicamp. He was unable to participate in the 10 OTA practices because he was still in college at the University of Washington. But Shelton graduated on June 14, just in time to join his team for the June 16 start of mandatory minicamp.
Shelton debuted with the veterans on Tuesday, according to Kevin Jones of ClevelandBrowns.com. He notes that Shelton has been receiving long-distance coaching from defensive line coaches Anthony Weaver and Tony Tuioti. He has also taken up MMA training to stay in shape.
According to the Plain Dealer's Tom Reed, head coach Mike Pettine said on Tuesday that "I just think [Shelton's] a little bit behind from a conditioning standpoint. There's really no way to simulate what our guys have been doing out there for all this period of time, which is unfortunate just the way the rules are." The coach did add, "From a playbook standpoint, I think we feel good about where he is."
Obviously, there will be a learning curve for Shelton, but Pettine and the coaches aren't worried that it will be so steep that he won't be able to overcome it. But the rookie is finally practicing with his entire team, which is the first step on his journey toward being part of the starting defense.
No New News at Quarterback
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The plan going into OTAs and minicamp was to have quarterback Josh McCown working as the starter. And that doesn't appear likely to change heading into training camp later this summer.
Head coach Mike Pettine, per Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal, said that "he doesn't foresee" the quarterback situation changing before camp starts in late July, with McCown still likely to start Week 1. Ulrich also noted that Pettine did not discuss any possible competition between McCown and Johnny Manziel.
That doesn't mean that Manziel won't have opportunities. Pettine also said to ClevelandBrowns.com's Andrew Gribble, "You’ll see us in training camp, even with the quarterbacks, just mixing and matching lineups just to see guys playing with different supporting casts."
But for now, the Browns are sticking with their initial plan at quarterback, which means McCown is still the favorite to start this year. McCown had a good day of practice on Tuesday, with Jones reporting McCown was "slinging the rock," connecting on deep passes to Andrew Hawkins and others.
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