BEREA, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Mother nature forced the Browns to finish training camp indoors Thursday.
Head coach Kevin Stefanski used the final week of camp and the regular season as a regular season dress rehearsal so the last three practices to mimic a Wednesday-Thursday-Friday work week.
Here are our non-waterlogged top Brownie Bites from Thursday.
Turn of events – Hours after Stefanski said that Joshua Dobbs will open the season as the No. 2 quarterback behind starter Deshaun Watson, the Browns traded him to Arizona. The Browns brought Dobbs back on a one-year fully guaranteed $2 million deal this offseason with the intention he would back up Watson before sending the QB to the Cardinals along with a 2024 seventh round pick for a 2024 fifth rounder. The trade elevates rookie Dorian Thompson-Robinson has had an impressive preseason and he will finish the game Saturday against the Chiefs but isn’t ready for the No. 2 job just yet. “He’s coming along, he’s making great strides,” Stefanski said. “We’re excited about his future, and the focus for him and for all our guys is just to continue to work. I mean, going into week one, you look at your depth chart and you just want guys to continue to grow and get better because as you all know, there’s times that guys are unavailable due to injury or otherwise. So it is a constant striving to get better.”
Instant recall – Earlier in the day the Browns waived quarterback Kellen Mond as well as defensive end Charles Wiley but following the Dobbs trade, Mond was recalled from the wire and he remains with the team. “I think very highly of Kellen the player,” Stefanski said. “I think he got better with us over the course of this season that was with us the year that he was with us. Had some good tape out there from this preseason. Just felt like the timing was right in this case, but I fully expect that he’s going to bounce back on his feet very quickly.” The Browns were awarded Mond off waivers at the start of the 2022 season but was inactive for all 17 games while Wiley was signed on August 7. Rosters must be down to 53 by 4 p.m. Tuesday.
Delpit day-to-day – Safety grant Delpit will be fine after suffering an injury to his right arm following an away from the ball collision with receiver Jalen Wayne. “Anytime there’s an injury, I feel relieved when it’s not something that’s going to hold a guy out for weeks or months, of course you’re relieved,” Stefanski said. “And that's part of playing football and practicing football. You’re going to have some collisions that are unfortunate, but hopefully we dodged a bullet.” Delpit was on the field Thursday and he did some individual work but sat out team drills.
Perfect, again – Kicker Cade York had another perfect day kicking field goals. York went 6-6 from distances ranging from approximately 32 yards to beyond 50 Thursday. He has yet to miss a field goal during practice. Will Stefanski play for field goal attempts Saturday? “We’ll see how the game goes,” Stefanski said. “It’s hard to tell the offensive players that you’re kicking field goals, but we’ll see how the game goes. But obviously we want to get work for all of our guys.”
On the bubble – Linebacker Mohamoud Diabate, who had a spectacular performance against the Eagles that saw him force a safety and fumble, has another chance to make his bid for a roster spot Saturday. “It feels good to let everybody else know what I already know for myself. It feels good to be able to put that on tape as solid proof,” Diabate said. “You know what they say, men lie, women lie but the film doesn’t lie. So being able to put that on film, that was big and I’m thankful to God to be able to make me be healthy and be able to do that.” The Browns signed Diabate as an undrafted free agent this offseason after he received a surprise recruiting call. “After the draft concluded, I get a FaceTime call from a random number. I don’t have the number saved, I answer it and the person starts giving me a spiel, like ‘This is why you should come to Cleveland,’” Diabate said. “And I didn’t know the person’s face, so I was like, ‘excuse me, who are you?’ And it was Stefanski. If you would’ve asked me April 28, are you going to be a Cleveland Brown? I would’ve thought no shot because I never communicated with them. But they did a great job in vetting me. They did a great job of scouting me because when I came here [and] they had all the information that I could even imagine. So that’s commitment to them.” For many, the next few days leading up to cut down day are stressful, but not for Diabate. “It’s really not. I try to think about what I can control, control the controllables, do what I can and let the people who make decisions make their decisions,” Diabate said. “I don’t sit around worrying about something that I don’t have a decision in. So I’m focused on going out there on Saturday and having a great game and giving a good impression to the entire league.”
Puppy Pound counter – A total of 45 puppies were adopted this year at the Browns Puppy Pound over six open practices. Since the program’s launch in 2015, 739 puppies from the Northeast Ohio Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) have been adopted by Browns fans at training camp practices.
Roll call – WR Marquise Goodwin, CB Cameron Mitchell, TE Harrison Bryant, WR Anthony Schwartz, WR Michael Woods II, RB Jerome Ford, DE Isiah Thomas, G Wes Martin, G Drew Forbes and DE Alex Wright did not practice.