The NFL preseason has some unwritten rules, and coaches frequently talk beforehand especially if they have something unusual planned.
To that end, Browns quarterbacks coach Ryan Lindley revealed Saturday that they informed Washington pregame that they were opening with a no-huddle offense. Washington still couldn’t stop the Browns.
Even without Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry, the Browns needed only seven plays to go 89 yards. Baker Mayfield threw a 24-yard touchdown pass to Rashard Higgins.
“We let them know pregame,’’ Lindley said, via Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “That was the deal. In preseason, we didn’t necessarily want to go blitzkrieg on and catch them off guard. I don’t know how it went down. I just know we talked about like, ‘Hey, you know, the referees knew; the other team knew; and everybody was on board.’”
The Browns felt even better about the drive considering Washington knew the plan.
“Sure,’’ Lindley said. “The regular season, obviously we’d be ‘let’s catch them off guard and let’s roll. Let’s get them on their heels and knock them down.’ But for us, we want to work it. We want to work against a guy who knows what he’s doing and knows what they’re expecting.
“When you’re rolling like that, as long as we execute and we’re in the right spots and we got the quarterback making the right decisions, we shouldn’t be stopped.”