Browns
Browns GM Andrew Berry explained why the team passed up on WR/CB Travis Hunter and opted to trade back and select DT Mason Graham instead. Although he didn’t use the world “rebuild,” preferring instead to dub it a “strategic pivot,” this is the closest Berry has come so far to acknowledging that the Browns aren’t in an open window of contention.
“We knew we were due for a little bit of a strategic pivot,” Berry said, via SI’s Albert Breer. “That can be in a variety of ways when you’re sitting with the No. 2 pick. Probably the most direct path is you take a young quarterback, hit on him and it’s the most important position in sports. One of the alternative paths is you take a non-quarterback. In this position, potentially the best player in the draft with Travis and someone that the league hasn’t really seen before in terms of a two-way player. And then the third avenue … you’re able to take a very good player but significantly increase the amount of resources you have to build the team over a multi-year time horizon.”
Ravens
Ravens OL Coach George Warhop said he hopes that one of G Ben Cleveland and G Andrew Vorhees to emerge as the starter at left guard.
“I believe in a starter. I don’t like playing two guys,” Warhop said, via the team’s website. “So, we [have] two veteran guys here with Andrew and Ben. Let them fight it out. If one of the young guys comes up, and they can add competition to that, we’ll let that happen. But I prefer to have a starter and a backup. I don’t like going in with combination guys.”
Steelers
Steelers DB coach Gerald Alexander said CB Joey Porter, Jr. needs to continue working on his technique, as well as his confidence.
“There’s a process to having success within a given play and obviously not dealing with an error of penalizing yourself due to maybe a lack of technique within the route. Joey does a great job. I think he’s one of the elite guys at the line of scrimmage as far as disrupting releases and getting hands-on and stuff like that. And so it’s really post that. It’s not necessarily getting aggressive beyond that combative stage within that five yards, and now it’s just time for just to trust his transition, trust his process, trust his coverage ability, and then obviously when he’s in a position to be able to defend the ball down the field, it’s getting his eyes up and challenging that and going for the ball instead of trying to think about how do I keep the receiver from not receiving the ball,” Alexander said, via Penn Live.
Alexander added that his technique can be corrected by his mindset on any given play.
“A lot of the elimination of those things comes in the form of how do we develop and continue to detail some of the technique, and that’s within covering the route, the top of the route transitions or routes going down the field, making sure that we’re getting our eyes back and playing the ball and not necessarily playing the receiver, especially when we’re in good positions to do so. So some of that stuff can be mental, and some of the things that I always say is, you know, you want to play to win versus play not to lose. And so I try to get those guys to understand the mentality that it takes in order to be able to play the ball down the field and not so much worry about if the receiver catches it. And you’re not thinking about failure. You’re thinking about how do I put myself in position to finish this play versus preventing him from making one,” Alexander said.
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