I was unable to make it to rookie camp this weekend to see and behold the skills of Brandon Weeden and Trent Richardson. In some ways that’s probably a good thing. I learned last year in regular training camp that it is quite a vacuum to look at football. Without some serious perspective it is easy to think the team is far better or far worse than reality.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile to go see rookie camp or training camp. I am still happy that I saw the kind of potential that guys like Jordan Cameron and Armond Smith have. At the same time, what I missed last year when I started talking about those guys was just how much of a gap there was between their training camp performances as true rookies and the timing of them potentially contributing on the field. I think both can potentially contribute to a woeful Browns offense, but to expect them to do so as rookies was optimistic at best and naive at worst.

Of course a guy like Trent Richardson has all the potential in the world to be different. He’s a guy with such potentially elite talent that he should be able to step in and contribute at a high level right away. Past Richardson, everyone else is a bit of a longshot to be much more than a rookie.  [Read more...]