Colt McCoy Could Start As Cleveland Browns Quarterback, Mike Holmgren Says

Colt McCoy has been leading the Cleveland Browns through their unofficial team workouts, as reported here earlier. Not surprisingly, this has put him in the mix to lead the Browns during the regular season as the Browns starting quarterback according to team president Mike Holmgren.

McCoy, who started eight games for the Browns last season, seems to be the front-runner in Holmgren’s eyes whenever the NFL Lockout finishes.

“We have Seneca Wallace, too, and Jake Delhomme as well right now,” Holmgren told the NFL Network’s Albert Breer. “But (McCoy) got his feet wet last year. I didn’t necessarily want him to play that much last year, but we were injured, and so he had a chance to play. He showed us enough where he will go in, and we’re hopeful that — it’ll be competitive — but if he does what I think he can do, he’ll probably be the guy, yeah.”

The former Texas signal-caller has impressed Holmgren quite a bit, it seems.

“I’ve always been impressed with Colt and his leadership ability — that’s one of the reasons we drafted him (in the third round),” Holmgren said. "So I’m not surprised by this. They love to play the game, so he’s going to do what he has to now as he gets his chance to be the starting quarterback and the leader of the football team.

“He’s going to do what he has to do, what he thinks is best, in this time we’re going through right now. I’m not surprised by it. And yeah, it puts a little smile on my face.”

If Holmgren is smiling, all is good in the Dawg Pound, right?

New Browns Defensive Coordinator Dick Jauron Has Tall Task of Defensive Rebuild

One of the toughest parts about the lockout is that teams with new coaches and new systems are not allowed to get into camp and start implementing their schemes. That is true for the Cleveland Browns in the worst way, as they are transitioning to a new offense as well as a new defense under new coordinator Dick Jauron.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer had a chance to talk to Jauon about the offseason, and it’s clear from his words that the lockout is hurting the team. The only thing to do now is hope that cooler heads prevail:

“We have work to do,” new defensive coordinator Dick Jauron said. “I suspect that’s why we’re all here [meeting without players]. There’s work to be done. We’re looking forward to try and get it done. Hopefully, we’ll have a chance soon.”

The Browns are obviously switching to the 4-3 defensive alignment, and they began the rebuild by drafting Phil Taylor in the first round. Jauron said Taylor was the player they wanted from the moment they made the deal with Atlanta:

“We’re glad we did. I guess that’s the way I’d put it,” Jauron said. “He’s a player we’d talked about going in. I know Tom [Heckert] and Mike [Holmgren] really liked him. So that was kind of the plan. The rest is kind of revisionist history. If we didn’t, what would have happened? I think we’d still have a good draft, but it would have been disappointing for us at the moment, because that’s a guy we had targeted.”

Jauron also talked about the revamped Browns secondary, one that included two high picks last year (Joe Haden and T.J. Ward), players who broke out as solid contributors. Jauron hinted that the Browns would be looking to free agency to solve the team’s void at free safety:

“We need to keep looking and add players when we can, when we’re able to get back into this thing. And we need to get our guys in and learn about them, particularly the backup players from a year ago. T.J. [Ward], we know. Joe [Haden], we know. Sheldon [Brown], we know. Eric (Wright) had a tremendous year the year before. We’ve got to get him back and get to work. The rest we have to get to know and see what we have. And once business starts up again, keep looking.”

All of this being said, it’s probably better that the Browns are making the switch to the 4-3 as opposed to the 3-4. Most kids in college come from 4-3 systems, and it’s a lot easier to make the adjustment than moving to a 3-4 like the Houston Texans are doing.

The Browns showed last year that they can compete with the best in the league (wins against New Orleans and New England consecutively) and the 2011 season will show how much they truly built off of that.

Colt McCoy Leads Cleveland Browns Through Unofficial Offseason Workouts

Optimism is in the air along Lake Erie. The Cleveland Browns seem to be heading in the right direction, and for the first time in several years, it appears as if the right leadership is in place to make sure the organization continues moving forward.

After a very successful 2011 NFL Draft, second-year quarterback Colt McCoy continued to impress his teammates and fans by organizing the first set of unofficial players-only workouts. McCoy then kept the positive momentum going by facilitating a second session of voluntary workouts with his teammates this week at Baldwin-Wallace College in Barea. The primary objective of the workouts which ended today? Getting more comfortable with the Browns' new offensive system.

 "The West Coast offense takes time to learn and develop, but we're way ahead of the game by doing this,'' said McCoy after working out at B-W's Finnie Stadium. "You need coaches around while you're learning it, but aside from that, I feel really comfortable coaching it and talking about it.''

Attendees of the three-day event included Mohamed Massaquoi, Brian Robiskie, Josh Cribbs, Carlton Mitchell and Jordan Norwood, and tight ends Ben Watson and rookie Jordan Cameron, according to Mary Kay Cabot of The Plain Dealer. The biggest surprise participant was veteran Jake Delhomme. The consummate professional, Delhomme was told quite clearly he had lost the starting job to McCoy. But it's not in his nature to sit on the sidelines, pout and feel sorry for himself. The former Panthers QB is no stranger to running the west coast offense, so his input and knowledge was valuable to the younger guys.

"We're just trying to hear the language of it, we're hearing the calls as they would come in the huddle and we're familiarizing ourselves with it and hopefully we can just keep it going,'' said Robiskie. "We'll wrap it up and see what happens with this lockout and proceed accordingly.''

All very encouraging signs for one of the NFL's most storied franchises.