Berea, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – The Browns wasted little time clearing out of the locker room Wednesday.
Such is life in the NFL when teams hit their bye week.
Following a 2-4 start, and with quarterback Baker Mayfield banged up, it’s a good time for a break, but not a time to worry according to safety Damarious Randall.
“Every goal we set out at the beginning of the season is still right there in front of us,” Randall said. “To win the division and obviously host a playoff game is our No. 1 goal and that’s the only thing we’re thinking about right now.”
Randall didn’t sense that players felt talent would be enough to win, contrary to what head coach Freddie Kitchens suggested earlier in the week.
“We just lost some games,” Randall said. “It is football. I mean, a couple balls haven’t bounced our way, a couple calls haven’t gone our way. It’s football. At the end of the day, this isn’t college football where you have to win every game to obtain our goals…and as long as our goals are in front of us we have to reason to panic or anything.”
During his bye week press conference Wednesday afternoon, general manager John Dorsey echoed what Randall said.
“The facts are we’re 2-4, but nobody in this organization is happy about 2-4,” Dorsey said. “That’s real. Let me remind everybody here, there’s a lot of football to be played here. We have 10 games left in the season.”
Official accountability – With the outcry over the state of officiating across the NFL – and not just Browns games – linebacker Joe Schobert offered a pretty reasonable proposal.
“Like players, we get fined if we make a mistake – if we get a facemask penalty, even if you’re not trying to do it you get fined – there’s just gotta be an accountability,” Schobert said. “I’m not saying they should get fined but an accountability step or scale that everybody knows so you can’t just say, ‘Oh we disciplined them’ and nobody knows what it is.”
The key for Schobert is that it should be and needs to be public.
“Accountability, they messed up, this is what happens [as a result],” Schobert said. “Something you can track, and people can see so people aren’t like, ‘Well they messed up a call and we never saw any punishment at all.’ Even if they do get punished, I don’t know if they do. People assume that they get away with it. Make it a bit more public and accountable.”
Rest up – Quarterback Baker Mayfield didn’t actively participate in practice for a second straight day but he did spend significant time speaking with coaches, receivers and the other two QBs that handled the throwing during the portion of practice open to reporters.
Injury report – DNP: QB Baker Mayfield (hip), S Damarious Randall (leg), DL Daniel Ekuale (concussion)
