The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Don’t rush Kizer into starting job
DeShone Kizer’s last real chance to win the job of Browns starting quarterback for the season opener will come Aug. 21 in the preseason game against the Giants.
Osweiler will start in the 8 p.m. kickoff at FirstEnergy Stadium and maybe play three series before Kizer takes over. It will be interesting to see if the playcalling changes. Osweiler did not get the opportunity to throw downfield in the preseason opener the
same way Kizer did.
Coach Hue Jackson wants to name his regular-season starting quarterback before the Browns play Tampa Bay on Aug. 26 in the third preseason game.
If Kizer doesn’t beat out Brock Osweiler to face the Steelers on Sept. 10? No big deal. It certainly doesn’t mean the Browns were wrong to pick him 52nd overall on April 28.
So Kizer starts a month into the season, or on Nov. 12 against the Lions after the Browns return from their bye or at some other point in 2017. He is the quarterback of the future, but not necessarily the immediate future.
“(Kizer) has done a good job,” Jackson said on the final day of training camp. “He has to keep growing, and I keep saying this to you guys — it’s the raising of a quarterback. I don’t think you do things too soon.
“He has to earn the right if he can, and if he can’t (immediately), that’s OK. We’re just going to keep pushing him and putting him in the right environment to keep getting him where he needs to be.”
When Jackson speaks of “raising of a quarterback,” he’s comparing it to raising a son. Don’t give him responsibilities he isn’t ready to handle.
It will be much easier for Jackson to justify switching from Osweiler to Kizer in mid-October than the other way around.
If Jackson were to announce Kizer as the starter in the opener and be forced to go Osweiler after four weeks, he’d look like he doesn’t know what he’s doing if he goes back to Kizer sometime in November.
Tim Couch was forcefed into the starting lineup in the second game of the expansion era in 1999 before he was ready. The move by Coach Chris Palmer ruined Couch’s career. Charlie Frye in 2005, Colt McCoy in 2010, Brandon Weeden in 2012 and Johnny Manziel in 2014 all started before they were ready.
Excluding Couch, no quarterback in the group
above has the raw talent Kizer possesses, which is all the more reason to not ruin Kizer by playing him before he’s ready.
“If the guy isn’t ready, I think it’s hard to put a young man out there because of so many different reasons,” Jackson said. “These quarterbacks only have so many hits in their bodies. If you put those guys out there and they start getting sacked and hit early in the year and aren’t sure how to do things correctly, then I don’t think that helps them. I would never do that to a quarterback.
“I wouldn’t do that to any player on our football team. You have to make sure a guy is ready and can handle the pressure of playing at that level.”
Other position battles could gain clarity against
the Giants but not get resolved until the preseason ends with a game against the Bears in Chicago on Sept. 1.
• Cody Parkey and rookie Zane Gonzalez are locked in a tight duel to be the kicker. Parkey seems to have a slight edge based on kicks in practice.
• Tank Carder and Joe Schobert are in a battle to be the starting inside linebacker. Schobert could gain ground with a strong game against the Giants.
• Wide receiver Rannell Hall was not drafted by the Browns (or any team; he was signed as an undrafted rookie by Tampa Bay in 2015), but he has done more in training camp than Rashard Higgins, a fifth-round pick by the Browns last year. A strong showing by the Giants is critical to Hall.
• Rookie Jabrill Peppers is expected to start at strong safety. He has a tall task making sure he isn’t tricked by Giants 14-year quarterback Eli Manning.
• Roderick Johnson is starting at left tackle because Joe Thomas is resting and Cameron Erving (calf) is injured.
This is Johnson’s chance to show he should make the final roster and perhaps push Erving off the roster.
This is the Browns, so the main focus is going to be on who will be named their 27th starting quarterback since 1999, but it is not the only position the bears watching in the second preseason game.