After suffering some struggles during the first day of Cleveland Browns mini-camp, quarterback Jake Delhomme and the rest of the offense were back in good form during both of the Friday sessions. Among the players that made an impression is rookie undrafted free agent receiver Johnathan Haggerty, according to the Plain Dealer’s Mary Kay Cabot.
Haggerty is this year’s “it” undrafted rookie — a relatively unknown player who manages to intrigue the coaching staff. Signed as a free agent out of Division II Southwestern Oklahoma State just after the draft, Haggerty has been impressive in minicamp and has a shot to stick around.
Whether he’s this year’s “it” player or just another undrafted free agent that everyone will forget about come the regular season, one thing is for certain — the Browns are willing to give anyone a shot at a position that was dismal last season. With reports of Mohamed Massaquoi and Brian Robiskie maturing though, maybe things won’t turn out so bad for the unit after all.
Also, after rookie defensive lineman Cliff Geathers threw punches at the offensive line on Thursday, head coach Eric Mangini made it clear that the same attitude will not be tolerated going forward:
“We shut that down,” said Mangini. "We are not fighting at practice. We don’t do it. We’re never going to do it. I’ve seen too many bad things happen in that situation where either the guy that throws the punch breaks his hand or gets hurt, or he hurts somebody else and they’re rolling around. There’s so many chances that the guys have to show how tough they are, and that’s not one of them.
Mangini might have made some questionable coaching decisions early on last season, but it’s hard to doubt that the guy goes the extra mile to ensure his team is disciplined come crunch time.
Dawgs By Nature, our SB Nation Browns blog, has a recap of what went down during the rest of Friday’s two practices.