BEREA, Ohio — Browns edge rusher Myles Garrett is cooking tackles. Quarterback Deshaun Watson is chucking it downfield. And Vikings star receiver Justin Jefferson is catching touchdowns, then chirping about it.
In August.
Greetings from joint practice, where the starters wear pads, coordinators call plays outside their vanilla menu, and the results approximate real(-ish) football. The competition refreshes players’ spirits and helps coaches realize where their team needs improvement.
Wish you were here to see it.
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I arrived at camp this week hoping to send fans the first and last joint practice postcard they would ever receive. Throughout the week, players told reporters that they would get more out of two practices against the Minnesota Vikings than they would out of any preseason game. Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said he likes scripting practice because the Browns don’t always encounter enough third downs or two-minute drills in a preseason game.
And back in April, league commissioner Roger Goodell hinted that the NFL’s annual exhibition schedule might be outliving its purpose.
“I’m not a fan of the preseason,” Goodell told the Pat McAfee Show in April. “I don’t think we need three preseason games. I don’t buy it, and I don’t think these guys (points to fans) like it either. … I’d rather replace a preseason game with a regular-season game any day.”
Why stop there? If joint practices are so valuable and preseason games so disposable, why not ditch the former for the latter altogether? Why not invite fans to a joint practice at Cleveland Browns Stadium because, seriously:
What can a preseason game accomplish that a joint practice can’t do better?
“The fans are involved, you’re on TV (during the preseason),” Browns cornerback Martin Emerson said. “You wanna see what guys can do under pressure. Or some people might say it’s pressure. But it’s not really pressure.”
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Which is it? Because when fans watch preseason games from home, the stands look half-empty. And when Emerson played at Mississippi State, he probably played for a larger TV audience during his annual Egg Bowl rivalry against Ole Miss, played annually on Thanksgiving.
Pressure? Need a better reason.
“This is more of a controlled environment,” Browns safety Rodney McLeod said of joint practice. “As much as we are full-tilt to a degree, there’s still a different level that the (preseason) game presents. You’re now tackling all the way to the ground. Here, we just thud...”
Couldn’t teams change that, though? Wouldn’t Minnesota and Cleveland decide to tackle if they didn’t have to play an exhibition two days later? That makes more sense than playing football dress-up because, as Stefanski said Monday, “The game’s on the schedule, so we have to play the game.”
... Right?
Right, until you prod Stefanski further. Until he starts talking about the players who depend on these meaningless games to find a job, or at least compete for one. Until he explains the preseason’s true spirit, which, corny as it sounds, conveys a rare human component to the NFL’s bottom-line business.
“I also think it’s important that their resume gets out there,” Stefanski said. “We can’t keep every player, although I would love to. So the tape is your resume, and a lot of those guys go out there and put great tape out there. And it might turn into a job somewhere else if we don’t have a spot.”
We all love a late-round draft success story. Maybe Myles Garrett is your favorite player, but a good roster needs just as many (if not more) players like 2024 seventh-round pick Myles Harden, who is impressing Cleveland during camp this week. Or Wyatt Teller, a former fifth-round pick whom the Browns acquired in exchange for a fifth- and sixth rounder during the preseason.
Sometimes the best way — sometimes the only way — to mine such diamonds is to watch August games closely.
“What you’re seeing over the course (of joint practice) is a lot more for the ones,” McLeod said. The reps of the threes or an undrafted position lessens. So that’s where the game now pays dividends.
“I was one of those guys, undrafted, fighting for a roster spot, and I’ll tell you that the (preseason) game did matter. It was a way for me to show my abilities, my talent, you know, and build trust, from my team, coaches and teammates. So super excited for those guys when they get the opportunity.”
While Garrett bull rushes and Watson rips throws during joint practice, players like McLeod watch. The 13-year safety played just 286 snaps for the Browns’ loaded defense last season, but he’s started 143 games during his career. He won a Super Bowl with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2017. To a man, his Cleveland teammates consider McLeod an invaluable presence.
But without the preseason’s vanilla play calls, anonymous touchdown-scorers and meaningless results, “I would have never been discovered, to be honest,” McLeod said. “So, I still think preseason does serve an importance for everyone’s growth.”
Ok, fine. Me too.
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