CLEVELAND: Here are some quick hits from Browns head of football operations Sashi Brown’s question-and-answer session Wednesday with the Press Club of Cleveland at FirstEnergy Stadium:
• The Browns have never been featured on HBO’s documentary series Hard Knocks, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be this summer during training camp and Brown is just fine with that.
“For me personally, I won’t speak on behalf of the entire organization — we’ve had a lot of discussion on this — I just think there’s an intimacy to what we do that doesn’t belong on television,” Brown said. “That’s just me.
“Hard Knocks does a great job of working with the team to make sure they can protect some of that information. But it would take a lot of convincing for me to sign on to it. At some the point, the league may force it on us. Right now, teams have volunteered to do it. That’s the way that’s happened, so I’ll leave it at that.”
• Quarterback DeShone Kizer was one of four or five prospects with whom the Browns met for a half day before the draft, Brown said. They picked him in the second round (No. 52 overall).
“He’s got all the physical tools and intellect that you would want,” Brown said. “I actually think he came out a pretty tough situation at Notre Dame, so that’s something else we factored in. He had a lot of talent move off a pretty good roster in 2015 and in 2016 was still in a quarterback battle. That’s not making any excuses. He wants to play better than he did there.
“We like the idea of adding another very young — he’s only 21 — guy who’s from right down the street in Toledo to our room. If we can fix some of the things that weren’t quite operating correctly for him, he’ll be a tremendously intriguing prospect for us moving forward, and [quarterbacks coach] David [Lee] and [coach] Hue [Jackson] are masters at developing quarterbacks.”
• An afterthought in a March trade designed to land a second-round pick from the Houston Texans, Brock Osweiler now has a chance to compete with Kizer, Cody Kessler and Kevin Hogan for the starting QB job.
“For us, there’s kind of no pride in authorship at our quarterback position,” Brown said. “Whoever can fill it and sustain it and play it well over a period of time will be our quarterback.”
• Brown insisted he wasn’t surprised the Chicago Bears traded up from No. 3 overall to No. 2 to draft North Carolina quarterback Mitchell Trubisky, a Mentor native.
“Quarterbacks always go high,” Brown said. “We have bets on where players will go, what position gets picked first in the draft and I do quite well on that.”
• So why didn’t the Browns draft Trubisky at No. 1 instead of Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett?
“The reality is, even taken at the top of the draft, the fail rate is extremely high,” Brown said. “... We felt just simply the better option for our team because we didn’t have a great pass rush either, we would get Myles. But that’s not a slight on Mitch. We actually think he’s talented and has the potential to have a bright career ahead.”
• Coming off a 1-15 season, Brown said the franchise is “on schedule” in building the team.
“We probably have been a little bit more effective than we thought we would be compiling the resources that are necessary,” Brown said.
“We thought our roster was void enough of talent in 2015 that we needed to take some drastic steps to position ourselves to catch up with the rest of the league,” Brown added, alluding to the stockpiling of picks by trading down in two drafts. “So we’ve added in about 18 months 12 more picks to our group, and five or six of those are going to be in the first and second rounds. So that gives us basically two or three drafts over the course of one or two years, and that’s how we’re going to catch up. That’s catching up, not exceeding everybody else. But that’s to get us back on path.”
• Everyone knows draft picks can spark a turnaround if they’re used on the right players, but that’s easier said than done. The Browns’ 14-man 2016 class didn’t light the NFL on fire.
“Not going to be a lot of fire lighters in rookie classes period, and I would expect the same this year,” Brown said. “The reality is when you look at the evolution of the NFL players’ careers, they all take time with very few exceptions.
“We’re realistic about that, understanding the development cycle of our young players and sticking by our coaches as they get them ready and get them steeped in our scheme and culture.
“Now, when we get it right, it’s going to be special.”
• Browns radio play-by-play announcer Jim Donovan emceed the press club event and told Brown he fantasizes about the Browns beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in an AFC title game in Cleveland to earn their first Super Bowl berth.
Playing along, Brown added, “We’re going to go to Pittsburgh, rip their hearts out.”
Brown then said, in all seriousness, the franchise is working hard to make that championship dream a reality.
“Hopefully we can bring that to fruition with a Super Bowl championship here that would have 3 million-plus people at the parade,” Brown said.