There is an old joke about a guy complaining about a restaurant, pointing out that the food is no good and adding, “And such small portions!” The Cleveland Browns have a similar experience, only in reverse, with their quarterback room. No one on the roster can really play the position at an NFL starter’s level–and they’ve got four of them! But hey, we can leave rookie Taylen Green out of it, at least.
We know the difficulty that the Browns had in setting up their quarterback bunch this offseason, having the surgically repaired and wildly unpopular Deshaun Watson compete with the popular but unprepared Shedeur Sanders as diminutive former third-round pick Dillon Gabriel watched from his tip-toes. It always seemed doomed to failure.
But Green, at least, moves outside that group. He was always drafted to be a developmental project, and at 6-foot-6 with 4.39 speed in the 40-yard deash, there is certainly plenty that can be developed there. Heading into the roster cuts, there was some consternation that the Browns would lose him as they tried to keep their Watson-Sanders-Gabriel trio together, but in the end, they made it work.
No News Was Good News for Taylen Green
Yes, the Browns have arguably the worst quarterback room in the NFL, and it is taking up three spots, plus Gabriel’s injured list spot no the roster, But Green was reportedly set to be scooped up by a few other teams if he had been put on waivers in an attempt to get him on the practice squad.
So, he made the 53-man roster.
Maybe the funniest part about Green’s making the roster was the way he found out: He did not hear anything. That’s true of most NFL teams, which have to cut 37 or 38 players from the 90-man training camp rosters and spend their time talking with players they’re letting go about the bad news.
Green heard nothing. “Look, this is my first time,” he said, “so I don’t know. I hope that’s good news.”
It was only when the Browns posted the roster online that he knew. Said Green: “It’s definitely a blessing. It’s a dream come true. I just woke up, went to church, then was enjoying my day off. I didn’t get a call or a text to come in, so I was just excited and saw the post.”
Browns Keeping Taylen Green at Quarterback
Indeed, he is still on the Browns, and the Browns will look at both developing him and finding ways to potentially use him this year. Already, the team has had Green taking second-team reps alongside Sanders, after Green mostly was not taking reps at all during training camp.
The Browns won’t hurry Green, but they will begin preparing him as though he could play–at quarterback. There has been speculation he could move to receiver, but that’s not happening.
Coach Todd Monken explained: “It’s hard to be elite at one thing, let alone switch to something you didn’t really play in college. At this point he’s a quarterback, and there’s really nothing we can do now. Let’s say we put him at receiver or on special teams and he got his shoulder knocked around, or his back. Especially with us putting Dillon (Gabriel) on IR, that’s really not something we want to engage right now.”
Browns Could See Rookie Under Center This Year
Green will continue to work to get better for the Browns. It’s certainly possible that if Watson flames out and Sanders does not produce, either, the team could see Green at some point in the back end of the season.
Said Green: “Just continue to do what I’m doing. I didn’t get a lot in training camp, but I still have some mental reps and just be behind Deshaun or Shedeur (Sanders), whoever’s going and I’m taking the snap. I just continue to ask questions and I’m in a great quarterback room and have a lot of knowledge, so continue to ask questions there and I keep asking my coaches questions. I know they have what they call a ‘hungry dawgs period’ to get extra reps in those periods.”
Browns’ Rookie Taylen Green Reveals 1st Reaction to Roster News