Yesterday down at the lake front, on that stunner of a first drive, Brown QB Brady Quinn threw a pass down the seem to a streaking Tight End who made a nice grab. After being tackled, the TV cameras (no, I did not subject myself to the game in person this week) zoomed in on this guy and I see “Moore 89″ on the back of his Brown jersey.
Moore 89? Who? I literally had no idea who this guy was. I feel like we have gone through a lot of that this season. When you see guys like Jason Trusnik, Ray Ventrone, Jake Allen, Blake Costanzo, etc etc on the field at first, you scratch your heads at who these guys are and where did they come from.
This week it was Evan Moore’s turn.
A transaction that failed to register on anyone’s radar Saturday afternoon was the Browns promoting the Tight End to the 53-man roster. In trying to find any information on the guy I could, all I really could come across was that he was an undrafted free agent our of Stanford who caught 103 balls for 1,555 yards and 12 TD’s during his 38 game career as a Wide Receiver. He spent the entire 2008 season on injured reserve with the Packers and didn’t make the team out of training camp. The Browns signed him to their practice squad on November 9th, where he has gotten the attention of “The Manginius.”
“To be able to go from the practice squad to a game and have that type of production, it’s not easy to do,” said head coach Eric Mangini.
With the Tight End position depleted by trades (Kellen Winslow III), a lack of playmakers (Robert Royal could never play another down in the Brown and Orange as far as I’m concerned), and injuries (Steve Heiden), the Browns are now looking to journeyman like Michael Gaines and Moore the rest of the way.
“Our scouts and pro personnel department have background on all the different players we bring in,” Mangini said. “We brought (Moore) in and he looked good in the workout and we gave him an opportunity. … If guys do a good job, they have the opportunity to play in games.”
Moore, who has told the media he is bound for law or graduate school after his playing days, took full advantage of his first NFL action. He had an instant click with Quinn – “He’s from Stanford so I was really surprised we had that much chemistry,” said Quinn after the game – catching two balls on the opening drive which resulted in a Mohamed Massaquoi TD.
For the day, Moore finished with six catches and 80 yards and impressed many of his teammates in the process. “Moore came out of the woodwork and he’s going to be good for us,” said WR Josh Cribbs. “He’s going to be one of those guys that has incredible talent. On scout team, he was unbelievable, just killing our first-team defense. We had to make him active and look what he did out there today.”
Good thing it took them this long to activate the man.
Author: TD
TD is a born and bred Clevelander who agrees with ESPN's Scott Van Pelt when he says "Ranch Dressing makes everything better except for cereal and ice cream." You can follow TD on Twitter http://twitter.com/WFNYTDTD has written 379 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
“He’s going to be one of those guys that has incredible talent. On scout team, he was unbelievable, just killing our first-team defense.
Well that’s ringing endorsement right there.
What Quinn meant to say was “He’s catching passes for the Browns, so I was really surprised we had that much chemistry”
/shakes head
I’m betting next weeks story will have to do with Ramzee Robinson
Under the radar indeed. As of this morning he still wasn’t available in Yahoo Fantasy. I was looking for some bench augmentation and he was nowhere to be found. Hopefully will be on there soon.
I agree he had a really good game, especially considering he cam out of nowhere, but he’s getting a LITTLE more credit than he probably deserves. Lot’s of people are penciling him in as our TE of the future. (Note that I don’t this article takes that stance, I’m just commenting about the general topic.) I think this year is so bad that fans are jumping on ANY potential attempt they can find to think positive.
Let the guy play in more than one game. Let defenses realize they need to cover him. Let him stay on the 53-man roster consistently. THEN we’ll decide whether or not he’s the next Todd Heap.
Let’s see what he does Thursday against the Steelers. If he has a good game against them, I don’t really care what he does against the rest of the league. If we went 2-14 every year and beat the Steelers every time we played them, I would be happy. (I’m only half-joking about that)
Regardless of whether or not he’s a “keeper” long term, it was just nice to see a TE in the middle of the field that can actually catch.
Yes, Robert Royal, I’m glaring in your direction.
First it was Matt Roth at linebacker now Evan Moore, but you know things are in a sad state of affairs when you get a player off waivers or off your practice squad, throw them into the lineup and they instantly become your best player on that side of the ball.
Evan Moore looked like Milt Moran yesterday!
who cares? cle-28 pit-27…steelers are done!
hahahaha. I said the same thing during the game *Cheers aloud* Allright Moore! …Who is Moore? Who is this guy?”
Nice game and all but…well…ya…I dunno…Go cavs!
Evan Moore had a great game and is a good aquisition. Knowing Mangenius, we’ll never see him again!
Give the guy a chance….it was his debut NFL game. He was released from two very good teams. Great first game and hopefully many more to come. It is going to be extremely difficult to consistently play well on a 1-11 team. There are many, many holes on this team.
Evan Moore is the real deal. He had an injury in college (now fully healed) that derailed his career for a while. He then had no one who could actually throw him the ball. The Packers were crazy to let him go, which you will soon find out.