Every NFL preseason, guys are lost for the year, or end up injured at some point and miss games. While the Cleveland Browns play against the New England Patriots on Thursday Night on Prime Video, both teams have decided to get one last look at the bottom third of their roster, and rest the starters.
Even some key backups won’t be playing as well, such as backup QB Shedeur Sanders,.
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The decision to rest starters is nothing new. Forever, teams have followed
the lineup of no starters in game one, starters play two series in the second contest, then play a half, and finally, sit in the fourth exhibition game. However, now NFL teams only play three practice games. So sitting the starters is now what occurs in the final preseason contest.
Browns head coach Todd Monken explained:
“I talked to Coach (Mike) Vrabel; we had talked about initially wanting to play our starters and get them a series or two. They really hadn’t played their guys. But we both felt like we were thin, especially up front on both sides of the ball, and we just felt like we’d be better off not playing our starters in the game Thursday night.”
In today’s preseason landscape, teams have been using their starters for when they host another club and share practice sessions before their exhibition game at the end of the week. For Cleveland, they hosted the Buffalo Bills and then played them last weekend. But few starters played in the actual game, whereas all of the starters on offense and defense were in full pads during the weekly scrimmages.
Even though this Browns offense is new and has had its fair share of bumps in the road, this unit has a distinct advantage: they are able to scrimmage against a defense that last year was ranked #4 in the league.
For Cleveland’s offense against the Patriots, QB Dillon Gabriel will play the first half while the second half will feature sixth-round rookie Taylen Green, who hasn’t taken a snap so far this preseason.
Dillon will play with the second-team offense while Green will trot out with the third-string. Dillon’s place on this roster has been questioned, as most NFL teams only keep three signalcallers. The final cutdown is Sunday, August 30. Gabriel might be retained, or perhaps traded.
Monken stated that in the last game against the Bills, Gabriel was inserted in the final quarter with the third-string offense against Buffalo’s third-team defense and threw just one pass. In this contest, Monken wants to see Gabriel leading the second-team offense and see what he can do:
“We’re not playing them because we’d like to see Dillon (Gabriel) more. It worked out last game, that was unfair to him. So, in order to do that, to see more of him and see Taylen (Green), there’s just not enough reps. That’s the reason, there’s really nothing else.”
Green hasn’t taken many snaps in preseason and has yet to throw a pass. He played sparingly against the Bills. The coaching staff is anxious to get him some extensive live action and see how he handles it. Green has been tabbed for development. He is a gifted athlete and is an incredible runner, one of Monken’s favorite traits in his quarterbacks. But Green has an accuracy issue that will take time to cure.
“Just trying to see Taylen after he played pretty well in the limited reps he had against the Bills, and we want to see more of Dillon. It just hasn’t worked out trying to get those other guys reps. That’s the reason.”
The Browns haven’t won a preseason game yet, but that is not important. Exhibition games are designed to give players live action so that the coaches can see how they react in stressful game situations. After all, the bottom third of the roster is fighting for not only jobs but a place on the final roster.
