The Cleveland Browns wrapped up their first week of OTA sessions Thursday afternoon. As previously announced, the Browns’ OTAs this year would be broken down into three sections: May 21-23, May 28-30, and June 3-6.
During each of those sessions, practice is only open to the media on one of the dates. Therefore, some of the things that happened are kept under wraps. Nonetheless, here’s a summary of what we learned during the first week of OTAs:
1. Deshaun Watson is Back: After a season-ending shoulder injury last season, the status of Deshaun Watson was slightly up in the air. I think the assumption is that he’d be ready for training camp and the season for sure, but we weren’t entirely positive.
Therefore, it was a good sign that he was active during the first week of OTAs, and that included throwing on Tuesday and Thursday (the two days not open to the media). On Wednesday, with the media having eyes on him, Watson was given a rest day as far as throwing the ball goes, but he still took part in reps like this:
2. Switching to a New Offense: You might look at the clip of Watson going through the motions (but not throwing) in the previous section and think, “Come on, what’s the point of that?” One important element to remember is that the Browns have a new offensive coordinator in Ken Dorsey. Stefanski answered a reporter’s question on the importance of getting that stuff ironed out early:
