SAME LAST NAME, SAME SITUATION

By STEVE KING

If your last name is Coleman and you play for the Browns, then things aren’t looking too good for you as training camp begins.

Shon Coleman is trying to win the left tackle job that came open with the offseason retirement of Joe Thomas, who will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame someday down the road. Coleman is not going into the HOF unless he coughs up the money for admission. In fact, he is likely not going to run out onto the field with the starting offense once the games begin

Coleman is getting the first crack at the job only because he played it here last year after Thomas suffered his career-ending arm injury. When Hue Jackson is asked about Coleman, the Browns head coach says he is working hard. That’s not a compliment but rather an indictment. The Browns know Coleman can’t play. If he wins the job, then quarterback Tyrod Taylor could get hurt. Yes, it is that bad.

Thomas said Austin Corbett, a second-round pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, is not a left tackle. But Thomas also says Coleman can do the job at left tackle.

Thomas is a great guy who is arguably the best left tackle in Browns history. But all that doesn’t make him a personnel sleuth.

Then there’s wide receiver Corey Coleman. After being drafted at No. 15 overall in 2016 and then suffering through two injury-riddled seasons, it is, as new offensive coordinator Todd Haley points out, a do-or-die season for Coleman, even if Coleman says differently. It doesn’t matter what Coleman thinks. It matters what only the coaches think.

With the Josh Gordon situation, the door is wide open for someone on the Browns to jump in and win the job. But that someone won’t be Coleman, who will never recover from that egregious, costly dropped pass at Pittsburgh late in last year’s finale.

Things could change with both players – and I sure hope they do, for everyone’s sake — but unfortunately, I’m almost certain they won’t.