The Cleveland Browns are fresh off of a near-victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Brian Hoyer and the offense came roaring back to force the game into overtime. While the Pittsburgh Steelers is an excellent one with the likes of Ben Roethlisberger and Le’Veon Bell, the New Orleans Saints is on a different level. Their running game isn’t nearly as developed and shouldn’t cause the Browns strong front seven too much trouble, but their talented secondary really has to play up to its talent this week against Drew Brees, sensational rookie Brandin Cooks, and well-known stalwarts Jimmy Graham and Marques Colston.
Factory of Sadness
On the other side of the ball, the Browns will need to play well on offense for a full game, because the Saints defense is better than they showed last week when star QB Matt Ryan tore them up in an incredible display of passing dominance. It would be understandable for the Browns to turn to creative tricks in order to help keep up with the Saints offense and keep their pass rush at bay, but the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Mary Kay Cabot reports that Browns innovative offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan stated that he “probably” won’t use Manziel, unless, of course, something were to happen to Hoyer.
I have a feeling the Browns don’t want to use Manziel in any special packages, and they obviously aren’t interested in a foolish two-QB system. Sometimes I wonder if someone with as much creative genius as Shanahan would like to harness Manziel’s special ability in certain packages, but maybe he- or Mike Pettine- feels it’s to gimmicky. Whatever the case, I don’t expect these sorts of packages any time soon, though Shanahan’s “probably not” wasn’t a “definitely not” either.