Kadarius Toney might be a little closer to finding another team.
Per Field Yates of ESPN, Toney had a tryout on Friday with the Browns.
Toney previously had a visit with the Seahawks earlier this week.
Cleveland’s receiving corps is currently led by Amari Cooper, Jerry Jeudy, and Elijah Moore. But Toney could provide the group with a little more depth.
Toney was waived by the Chiefs after the team was unable to find a trade partner. He caught 27 passes for 169 yards with one touchdown last season in 13 games.
Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy enters the season on a seat so hot he’s possibly gotten used to it, like Bart Simpson’s intriguing take on hell.
How will McCarthy stave of termination and secure an extension? By running.
Not literally. Not himself. He says he’s going to embrace the running game.
“We will be good running the football and that’s because we’re going to commit to it,” McCarthy said on 105.3 The Fan, via Jon Machota of TheAthletic.com.
That’s fine. But it’s also a little off. You don’t become good at running the ball by simply committing to it. If the running game is going nowhere, committing to it should get the coach committed. It has to be effective, which encourages using it more and more.
Will it be? They’ll need to block. And they’ll need to hope Ezekiel Elliott can turn back the clock. And that Rico Dowdle can help carry the load.
From time to time, one of the smartest-person-in-the-room types will spout off stats about a team’s success when it runs the ball a certain number of times or for a certain number of yards. That’s very misleading. A team doesn’t have success simply because it runs. Successful running combined with commitment to successful running results in a victory and, coincidentally, more than (for example) a certain number of attempts and a certain number of yards..
So if the Cowboys are able to run effectively then, yes, they should commit to it. If they’re not moving the chains, they should rely on a passing game fueled by a receiver making $34 million per year and a quarterback who, if he stays, will be making $60 million or more per year.
The Browns will definitely be missing one starting tackle against the Cowboys and they may be without both of them.
Left tackle Jedrick Wills has been ruled out for the opener as he continues to work his way back from last year’s season-ending knee injury. Wills practiced for the first time this year on Wednesday, but did not take part in Thursday.
Right tackle Jack Conklin is one possible replacement for Wills, although he’s also dealing with a knee injury and his own status is questionable for this weekend. Conklin was injured in the first week of the 2023 season and he began practicing with the team in late August.
James Hudson and Dawand Jones are listed as the backup tackle options on Cleveland’s depth chart.
Among the storylines in Thursday night’s game between the Ravens and Chiefs was four illegal formation penalties called on the Ravens over the course of the game.
Three of them were on left tackle Ronnie Stanley, who said after the game that he felt officials were trying to make an example out of him to emphasize a crackdown on the calls. Stanley also said that he didn’t feel the calls were being made evenly, but the flurry of flags caught the eye of coaches who are preparing to play this weekend and want to make sure that their team doesn’t wind up picking up a slew of penalties.
“We talked about it in practice,” Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo said during his Friday press conference, via a transcript from the team. “I had two guys on both sides of the line of scrimmage making sure those guys were lined up correctly. Once again, we always talk about we’ll do business as business is being done. So, we’ll see what this crew has for us this week.”
Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski also touched on the subject Friday. He said, via the team’s radio announcer Andrew Siciliano, that “when the league wants something emphasized, you better adjust” and similar messages will likely be shared around the league heading into Sunday.
Much like last year, Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson remains a mystery factor entering the 2024 season.
After undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery last year, will he get back to his 2020 level of performance? Or will he struggle in a revamped offensive scheme?
New offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey said in his Thursday press conference he thinks Watson is excited to get back to playing.
“I think he’s a competitor, he wants to be out there with his guys and out there playing ball, and he’s looked like himself at practice from what I’ve seen on tape from him in the past, you know?” Dorsey said. “So, I think he just continues to progress and continues to kind of get back in that rhythm a little bit and I’m excited to see him out there and excited to watch him kind of fly around and be himself, you know?
“And that’s all we want from him. We just want him to go out, be himself. No more, no less. Go out and make good decisions. Everything else will take care of itself.”
Dorsey added that Watson has been “extremely hungry” and has “been great for me in terms of just taking the coaching” that he’s put out there. Some of that has to do with balancing when to extend a play by potentially putting himself in harm’s way with just moving on when a play might be dead.
“[H]e’s going to make some exceptional plays for us that no one else in this league can make and he’s going to be able to do that for us,” Dorsey said. “Balancing that with, there’s a time to throw it away and move on to the next down, you know? So, there’s definitely that balance you got to strike with guys because you don’t want to lose that aspect of what makes them special in their own way. And I think the great thing about Deshaun is he can do that outside of this just normal system, and then he can get back and work a progression and rip it to an outlet or a third progression in the read, just as equal.
“So, I think it’s just a balance you got to strike with these guys and make sure you don’t put the handcuffs on them in too many ways.”
Over the last two seasons with Cleveland, Watson has completed 59.8 percent of his passes for 2,217 yards with 14 touchdowns and nine interceptions in 12 games.
The Cowboys added an important player to their practice report Thursday.
Rookie cornerback Caelen Carson popped up with a knee injury. An addition to the report after the first reporting day usually is an indication the player was injured at practice, but Carson had a full practice.
Aaron Kasinitz of lonestarlive.com reports that Carson was walking without a limp in the locker room after practice.
Coach Mike McCarthy will have a news conference Friday morning, and the team will release its status report later in the day.
The fifth-rounder is being counted on to start while Pro Bowl cornerback DaRon Bland is out following foot surgery. Andrew Booth and Israel Mukuamu, who have combined for five career starts, are options behind Carson.
The rest of the team’s injury report remained the same: Tight end John Stephens (hamstring) was the only player to miss practice, and linebacker Damone Clark (knee), defensive end Marshawn Kneeland (knee), cornerback Israel Mukuamu (groin), defensive tackle Mazi Smith (Achilles) and safety Juanyeh Thomas (groin) were full participants.
A report Thursday indicates the Cowboys and Dak Prescott’s representation have made progress toward a long-term contract for the quarterback. How much progress is the question.
Three days before the season opener, Prescott remains headed toward free agency in March.
“I’d say they’re working,” Prescott said of talks, via Schuyler Dixon of the Associated Press. “I don’t know if that’s necessarily the time line. I can’t say, ‘Hell, I’ll put a timeline to [vice president of football operations/football administration] Todd [Williams] and Stephen [Jones] if we don’t get this done, this or that, but I know they’re working.”
Prescott, though, makes clear that he’s working on getting ready for the Browns, not worrying about his contract. He said what happens on the football field is the “only thing that matters.”
“I’ve never played the game for [money],” Prescott said. “I play the game for the pure love, for the guys in that locker room. This game has always brought me something that not a lot of things in life do. That’s the type of peace it does, being out there between the lines with people you share a brotherhood with. There is something special about this game of football, and we’re just blessed that money comes with it, and I’m in the position I’m in that we can be having these conversations, but that doesn’t motivate me.”
Prescott had less to say about contract talks than last week when he said he didn’t care whether a deal got done before the opener, while indicating the start of the season was his deadline. Prescott also said last week he no longer listens to anything owner Jerry Jones tells the media.
“People change their feelings daily. Can’t say I have the same feelings I had last week,” Prescott said Thursday.
Prescott has leverage, with no-trade and no-tag clauses in the four-year, $160 million deal he signed in 2021. It’s his decision whether he enters free agency in 2025, regardless what the Cowboys offer, and it will take a record deal with much of it guaranteed to get him to sign now.
Browns left tackle Jedrick Wills returned to practice on Wednesday, revealing afterward that he won’t start as he works his way back from an MCL injury last Nov. 5. He did not practice Thursday.
It seems unlikely that Wills even dresses for the game.
Either Jack Conklin or James Hudson will start at left tackle.
Conklin, the right tackle, is returning from a knee injury that limited him in practice a second consecutive day.
Wide receiver David Bell (quad), linebacker Jordan Hicks (calf), defensive tackle Maurice Hurst (hamstring), defensive tackle Quinton Jefferson (Achilles), defensive tackle Dalvin Tomlinson (knee) and linebacker Nathaniel Watson (quad) also remained limited.
Wide receiver Jerry Jeudy (knee), linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah (hand) and defensive end Alex Wright (elbow) were full participants again.
Wide receiver David Bell won’t be in the lineup for the Browns when they face the Cowboys on Sunday.
The Browns announced that they have waived Bell on Thursday afternoon. They did not make any addition to the 53-man roster, so they have an open spot to work with heading into the opener.
Bell joined the Browns as a third-round pick in 2022. He appeared in 31 regular season games for the team and caught 38 passes for 381 yards and three touchdowns. He also had eight catches for 54 yards in last season’s playoff loss to the Texans.
Amari Cooper, Jerry Jeudy, Elijah Moore, Jamari Thrash, and Cedric Tillman are the remaining receivers on the active roster in Cleveland.
Before Brandon Aiyuk signed his extension with the 49ers, he was involved in several trade rumors — one of which included the Browns and receiver Amari Cooper.
Around the time that reporting came out, Cooper posted “lol I wouldn’t mind at all” to his Instagram story.
As the season arrives, Cooper is still with the Browns and said in a Thursday press conference that he didn’t need to speak with anyone from the team about the potential deal.
“At the end of the day, it’s neither here nor there. So, I’m just focused on playing my best football,” Cooper said, via Jeff Schudel of The News-Herald.
As for that cryptic social media post, Cooper said, “Hey, I mean, the media is all about sensationalism, so I’ll let y’all have fun with whatever you thought that might’ve meant.”
Cooper and the Browns agreed to a renegotiated contract at the start of training camp, giving him a raise for the coming season. But Cooper is still set to become a free agent for the first time next March. He said this offseason hasn’t been trying for him — “I’m not an emotional person, so no” — while noting that he doesn’t take the business aspects of the game personally.
“At the end of the day, you might be traded away from one team — it’s all about how you perceive things,” Cooper said. “Life is all about perception because in regards to trades, you’re traded away from one team but you’re being accepted into another team. So I just look at it as, that’s how the business is arranged. There was a time when there was no free agency. Although I’ve never been a free agent, but I’m just saying that to make a point where players weren’t getting traded as much. It’s just a part of the business now.”
The veteran receiver also isn’t thinking much about the possibility of hitting the open market.
“There’s nothing to be said because I’m just trying to be where my feet are,” Cooper said. “I’m not even thinking about the future when there’s so much at stake now.”
Cooper became the first receiver in Browns history to record back-to-back seasons with at least 1,000 yards in 2023. He finished last season with 72 receptions for 1,250 yards with five touchdowns.