Whether or not they really, truly believe it is another thing entirely, and, in the big picture, it’s not important at all now or even in the future, but the Browns are doing exactly the right thing — the perfect thing and really the only thing they can do — with their handling of the Cade York situation.
The last thing the kicker needs to hear right now is any more criticism. There’s already plenty of that to go around. And the last thing he needs to see is another kicker being brought in to give him some competition throughout the rest of training camp and the final two preseason games. He’s already putting more than enough pressure on himself.
What York needs — and what he is getting, especially from head coach Kevin Stefanski followi g Friday night’s 17-15 loss to the Washington Commanders in which he missed another attempt, making him 0-2 in the two games thus far — is a big heaping helping of positivity and confidence.
There is no new kicker being signed, according to the coach. It’s just a matter of young player working on his development and trying to find his footing, Stefanski explained.
The Browns took a chance and used a pick in the 2022 NFL Draft to get York — something that is rare in the league — after spending a year looking for the best kicker in college. That’s a big investment of time, money and manpower, and the club — in the person of power brokers Stefanski and General Manager Andrew Berry — aren’t about to throw all that away after some rookie struggle last seasonn and a couple of misses in the always quickly-forgotten preseason games this year. That would be silly. That would be bad business.
They need to keep feeding York good stuff — positivity and other confidence-building techniques — so he has the time and the best chance to right the ship and become the kicker the Browns were convinced they were getting when they drafted him.
On one final note, the one-hour, 46-minute delay of the start of Friday night’s game due to thunderstorms is reminiscent of what occurred 24 years almost to the day. It was Aug. 14, 1999 when a severe evening thunderstorm in Tampa delayed the start, for two hours and 45 minutes, of the new Browns’ second preseason game ever.
More Browns news
- Five players who hurt their stock in the second preseason game (Browns Wire):
- A pecking order among the greatest (Browns Daily Dose)
- Browns 53-man roster prediction after recent moves (The OBR):
- Report: Browns to sign safety Nate Meadors (Browns Digest):
- 5 takeaways from Deshaun Watson, Kevin Stefanski’s press conferences (Browns Wire):
- Special Teams’ Job: Don’t mess it up (Quincy Carrier): Sounds pretty simple, huh?!
