Earlier this week, Browns quarterback Brandon Weeden urged people not to push the panic button because the team’s offense didn’t play well in their last preseason game against the Colts.
Head coach Rob Chudzinski seems to feel the same way. Weeden and the majority of the other Browns starters will get the night off on Thursday when the Browns close out the preseason against the Bears, who will be taking a similar approach to the game. It’s a change from what Chudzinski said he was planning to do earlier this summer, but the risk-reward ratio obviously swung toward too much risk for the Browns to roll their first team out there.
Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal reports that Weeden and running back Trent Richardson both said that they’d like to play in the game, but Jason Campbell and Brandon Jackson will be taking their respective places. The only offensive starters to play will be wide receiver Josh Gordon, who will be serving a two-game suspension to start the season, and right guard Oniel Cousins, who is trying to officially lock down the starting job.
The Browns offense looked better in the first two preseason games than they did against the Colts, when they ran fewer plays out of the shotgun than they had in previous contests. It seems Chudzinski feels that those earlier games were enough to convince him that the starters have worked enough this summer.