Cleveland Browns News 11/23: Thanksgiving Football, Injury Recap & Who Steps Up
Happy Thanksgiving to you all as you are reading this and especially Barry McBride who I’m covering while he has a nice and relaxing time with his family. I’m sure he will read this first thing just to double check I haven’t launched World War Three or anything in his absence. Maybe since I’m English it would be different if this was Independence Day, celebrating Bill Pullman fighting back the alien invasion but Thanksgiving is for Football, Family & Food! Something we can all agree on.
The NFL has blessed us with a questionable slate of games, all three of them have a betting spread of more than seven which is never usually a good sign for the viewer but I couldn’t ever complain when getting extra NFL coverage. If you haven’t got to me rooting guide yet, I will be cheering for the Lions and 49ers. In the middle game I don’t really mind who comes away victorious.
The most important news out over the last few days has been the injuries to the defensive side of the ball, something we haven’t really seen so far across the season with every piece of bad news landing on the offensive side with Chubb, Watson, Conklin and Wills all landing on injured reserve. Compare that to the defensive side where only Mitchell the fourth choice cornerback had landed on injured reserve. Now Rodney McLeod has joined him they have signed Duron Harmon, if we just back to my free agency cheat sheet in February here is what I had to say about him: “Would be a great veteran leader for the room, while he isn’t a long-term answer I think a short-term fix and the draft makes a lot of sense for this position room.” If they had brought him in as the third safety I would have been happy, so keep an eye on him being moved up to the 53 man roster soon, signing veterans to the practice squad and then later elevating them is a common process.
Ward is a real concern and we don’t currently know how long he will be out, how they treat the final spot in the nickel is key as it is a starting role. Harmon, Green or Ford are the main choices, it might be one where they rotate through the group based on the skillsets they are trying to matchup against. I would expect Newsome to play the boundary but when we saw injuries to Ward before he stayed inside and Ford took the boundary. The key thing will be getting Thornhill back healthy for the game else it could be a tough day for the secondary.
We also saw the Jordan Kunaszyk designated for return from injury which means he has a 21 day window to be moved off of injured reserve. For me the most likely candidate is Diabate who I believe will be waived and then re-sign with the practice squad if unclaimed. If we go back to the Cardinals game when it was over in the fourth quarter Jim Schwartz rotated in the backups to give everyone playing time as a reward and thank you. Every player on the defense got nine or more snaps that day with the exception of Diabate who had two. This told me he is the most likely candidate, either they don’t think he is ready or they don’t want him out there as people will see him and more likely to claim him as they knew he was being waived soon. Kunaszyk is a special teams star who Bubba Ventrone was gushing about in the preseason so he will help make that unit even better and Schwartz has been impressed with his defensive play too but I don’t think we will see much of that.
OBR Film Breakdown – Jake is joined by Andrew Spayde and Jordan Zirm to provide immediate reaction, analysis, and thoughts to the banged-up DB room and what to make of the news Denzel Ward might be missing multiple weeks. They also discuss Joe Flacco’s first day in front of the media and what the feeling is around his role in Cleveland. They close with their Thanksgiving focus on what they’re thankful for with the Browns and their Thanksgiving food power rankings.
