Tuesday, Aug. 11 (PM) – This is a day for the Browns – and their opponents in the regular-season opener – to consider the importance of having capable back-up quarterbacks. Because of stiffness and soreness in his right elbow, No. 2 quarterback Johnny Manziel did not throw in Tuesday morning’s training camp practice as the Browns wrapped up the bulk of their on-field preparations for Thursday night’s preseason opener against the Washington Redskins at FirstEnergy Stadium. With Manziel not working, Connor Shaw and Thaddeus Lewis, who are competing for the third spot – if indeed three quarterbacks are kept – got increased snaps behind starter Josh McCown. While all this was going on, Geno Smith, who had been slated to start at quarterback for the New York Jets when they host the Browns in the season opener on Sept. 13, was sucker-punched by reserve linebacker wearing No. 51, Ikemefuna Enemkpali, in the locker room and will be out six to 10 weeks. As such, he will not play against the Browns and back-up Ryan Fitzpatrick will now get the start. That changes everything for the Jets. That opener and the first part of their season are viewed through a much different prism now. It’s not exactly what the Jets’ Todd Bowles was hoping for, or expecting, in his first year as a head coach at any level. Bowles, of course, was secondary coach for the Browns from 2001-04 under head coach Butch Davis. In 2000, the year before Bowles arrived in Cleveland, the Browns got the same kind of the bad luck that befell the Jets. On the last play of practice on Thursday, the last big workday of the week leading up to an Oct. 22 game at Pittsburgh, a reserve linebacker also wearing No. 51 by the name of Ryan Taylor got too close to starting quarterback Tim Couch as he threw the ball and broke his right thumb. Couch was out for the rest of the season, and as such the wheels began to turn for Chris Palmer to be out as head coach. The backup, Ty Detmer, had suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in the preseason finale at Chicago and was lost for the year. That forced the Browns to sign Doug Pedersen, who wasn’t exactly Bernie Kosar and Brian Sipe to start with and, to further complicate matters, had taken only a limited amount of snaps in practice all week. There was no possible way to get him ready in time, and it showed. The Browns, who had beaten the Steelers 23-20 in Cleveland five weeks before, lost 22-0 in the rematch at Three Rivers Stadium. The Browns dropped 12 of their final 13 games to finish 3-13 and Palmer was fired after only two seasons. As a footnote, Palmer couldn’t cut Taylor fast enough after he injured Couch. And in the same way, Bowles wasted no time in cutting Enemkpali, who, after knocking out Smith, will now be free to pursue a career in boxing. One final note: NFL head coaches sit in their offices until the wee hours of the morning trying to make sure they have prepared for everything that could possibly go wrong. But what do you want to bet that Bowles never prepared for losing his starting quarterback in such a manner? Misery loves company, so perhaps he should get hold of Palmer, who never prepared to lose his No. 1 passer in such bizarre fashion.