A Giant Week

By STEVE KING

If you want to see where the Browns are at – really, truly at — as they get ready for the start of the regular season in a little less than a month, pay strict attention to what goes on in the upcoming week.

The Browns will practice twice, on Thursday and Friday at team headquarters in Berea, against the New York Football Giants and then play them at 1 p.m. Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium in the first – and only – home preseason game of the year.

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The game will reveal more – much, much more – than last Saturday’s opener at Jacksonville because the Browns are likely to play more of their starters, but more than that, it’s those practices and controlled scrimmages that will really tell the story.

At some point sooner rather than later, I think the NFL will chop the preseason down to two games or even one, and fill in those game dates with these practices against other teams. It’s safer because they are controlled by agreed-upon conditions by the head coaches, and it’s better because the coaches can structure the work in areas where their teams really need to improve.

It’s better for the fans as well, because they’re closer to the action at these training camp sites than they are in any stadiums.

The Browns and Giants practiced against each for several days in 1991 in their final training camp at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland while the finishing touches were being added to the aforementioned team headquarters. It was an interesting dynamic as Bill Belichick was in his first year as Browns head coach after being the defensive coordinator of a Giants team that had shut down the high-flying Buffalo Bills offense to win the Super Bowl just seven months before.

The Browns held their own against the Giants in the practices, and then won the preseason game against them a few days later at Cleveland Stadium, 16-10. But New York won the regular-season game in Week 4 at the Meadowlands, 13-10.