Browns preseason can’t end soon enough

Cleveland Browns fans — at least this one — have come to dread the preseason.

Training camp workouts leading up to the preseason are fun as we try to gauge how much new players are going to help and whether the latest quarterback will be more like Brian Sipe or Spurgeon Wynn.

But since the franchise returned in 1999, the Browns have stunk up the joint during preseason games (actually they’ve been pretty bad in the regular season also).

But the preseason is different than the regular season. During real games, it doesn’t matter how ugly your team plays, the idea is just to win (or to keep it close in the Browns’ case). There are many variables during the season that may or may not affect how a team performs.

In the preseason, though, a team has just come from a couple of weeks of practicing and scrimmaging and — one would think — they should be sharp headed into the preseason games. That has not been the case with the Browns over the last 15 years.

I can recall many a preseason watching with my wife and having her comment about how bad the Browns’ offense looks. Usually what she says is something along the lines of “Don’t they practice these plays?”

Sometimes when they look decent my comment to her is something like, “Wow, they actually looked like they know what they are doing.”

And this has been the case for the most part since 1999 no matter who was the coach or who was the quarterback.

This year, as everyone knows and for reasons still a mystery to me, the rest of the world has taken interest in the Browns because of Johnny Manziel.

So with the rest of the football world watching, the Browns have looked bad as usual this preseason, especially Monday night on ESPN. Manziel was bad, his main competition for the quarterback spot, Brian Hoyer, was bad, the receivers were bad. It looked just like the Browns usually do in the preseason, plus Manziel demonstrated with a gesture that he still has some growing up to do.

Now I happen to think this team’s defense is going to be solid. But I thought last year’s defense was adequate also, but it yielded a lot of points in the fourth quarter. I put a lot of that on the fact the offense often went three-and-out and the defense tired.

The offense must contribute more this year even if its just ball control and field goals. I happen to think that both Hoyer and Manziel can accomplish that task.

I saw Hoyer last year change the body language of his teammates for the better in the three games he played. He had his teammates believing they could win.

I think he still has that ability and Manziel will also once the game slows down for him and he learns to trust his teammates (and keeps his middle finger folded).

Yes the receiving corps is weak (and will be worse without Josh Gordon) but I think this team can compete.

Maybe we should just skip the last two preseason games.

Doug Chapin is a sportswriter for The Vindicator. Write him at dchapin@vindy.com.