National Post (National Edition)
Browns take a chance on rookie QB Kizer
DeShone Kizer will helm the Browns’ ship, for sure this week, perhaps beyond.
The Cleveland Browns did indeed decide Wednesday on a starting quarterback, as promised, but just for Saturday night’s preseason game at Tampa Bay, and not to open the regular season, as expected.
It’s rookie Kizer, the Browns’ fourth draft pick last April, taken in the second round, 52nd overall.
In consultation with team executives, Browns head coach Hue Jackson chose Kizer over sixth-year veteran Brock Osweiler. Jackson made the announcement in a statement released early Wednesday morning.
The Week 1 regular-season starter for the Browns remains undecided.
“This is awesome,” the 21-year-old Kizer said. “I obviously know there’s a lot of responsibility (on the field and off ). But as awesome as it is, it just means I have to work harder and try to do whatever I can to continue to have some success out on the field, and hold onto this position as tight as I can.”
Osweiler started Cleveland’s first two preseason games.
The NFL’s Week 3 preseason games — Thursday to Sunday this week — traditionally mean most. Teams usually play their starters for 2-3 quarters, before resting all impact players in the final preseason game in Week 4, in which all games are played on the Thursday before Labour Day weekend.
The choice of Kizer as Cleveland’s starting QB this week is no surprise. He has performed well for a rookie in extended stints against both the New Orleans Saints and New York Giants. He not only has flashed the impressive throwing skills he was known to possess, but has shown better feel and comfort than expected as a pro pocket passer, after having played in a pure shotgun spread attack at Notre Dame.
“He has made a lot of progress by investing the time necessary to learn our offence, working hard to improve on his fundamentals while also effectively moving the offence in preseason games,’’ said Jackson in his statement. “Development is so important for a young quarterback. This is the next step he needs to take and he deserves this opportunity.
“(He) is certainly positioning himself well to earn the starting job heading into the regular season.”
That’s as far as Jackson or the Browns would extrapolate from Saturday’s start. The easy takeaway is that the regular-season starting job is Kizer’s, unless he falls apart on Saturday night.
Kizer began training camp as the third-string QB, behind last year’s rookie starter Cody Kessler (who’s now the No. 3) and Osweiler. Kevin Hogan, another 2016 Browns rookie, has been fourth-stringer all along.
All four looked dreadful on the day I visited Browns training camp on July 29. But Kizer completed the sweetest passes that afternoon. It took no great insight to conclude, as I did, that if neither Osweiler nor Kessler separated themselves from the pack, the Browns might as well start Kizer.
That Kizer has grown so much in the nearly four weeks since that assessment all the more justifies Jackson’s decision.
“I don’t want to compare it to the other guys. I don’t think that would be fair,” Jackson said at an afternoon news conference. “My job is to make sure that I put the best players out there that give us a chance to win. That is what I’m trying to do.”
Osweiler, whom the Browns took off the disappointed Houston Texans’ hands via a creative trade in March, did not stand out in either preseason start. If he was disheartened or distraught upon learning the bad news Wednesday morning, you’d never know it from the upbeat news conference he held with Browns beat reporters shortly afterward.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for DeShone,” Osweiler said. “He’s a great quarterback with a lot of talent, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do against the Bucs. To be completely honest with you, I have absolutely no regret on anything. From the day I arrived in April, I was working extremely hard. I felt like I had a great training camp. I definitely left it all out there on the table.”
And Osweiler, to his further credit, said he still thinks he has a chance to start for Cleveland against the visiting Pittsburgh Steelers on Sept. 10.
“I do. Until we have an official Day 1 starter, I feel like I have a great opportunity here,” Osweiler said. “As far as I know it’s still wide open, but I’m given the same information you guys are.
“I love being a Cleveland Brown. I think this is a great organization, I think we have a tremendous head coach.”
If only Osweiler did the right things on the field, just as he says the right things off it, Kizer wouldn’t be in his newly elevated position.