They may be bad this year. They may be good. But for the first time in a long time, the Browns are relevant.
The relevance comes from the second of their two first-round picks, a former Heisman winner who made plenty of off-field headlines and who wears No. 2 and currently sits in that same spot on the team’s depth chart. But Johnny Manziel will play for the first time in the NFL tonight, and it’s the biggest story in the league -- as evidenced by the clock on the league-owned network counting down the seconds to a game that Manziel won’t enter for the first 900 of it.
When Manziel plays, keep an eye on whether he can run away from pressure the way he did at the college level, and whether he can get up when he takes a square hit from an NFL caliber defensive player who is surely sick of hearing about Johnny Manziel.
Coach Mike Pettine plans to pick a starter before the third preseason game, which means that half of the hay will be in the barn tonight. If you want to know when the game starts, just tune in to NFL Network and wait for the clock to strike zero.