Brock Osweiler hinted Wednesday that he didn’t win the starting quarterback job for the Browns for Saturday night’s preseason game at Tampa Bay because “the general manager” decides who plays and who doesn’t.

He was referring, of course, to Executive Vice President of Football Operations Sashi Brown.

 

We’ll talk more about that in my next post, but in essence, it doesn’t matter who is making the personnel decisions. Anybody in the Browns organization – from Brown to head coach Hue Jackson to the guys who take care of the fields – all saw the same thing.

 

That is, that DeShone Kizer is a better option at quarterback – not just in the future, but right now – and it is why the rookie won the job.

 

Despite his comments to the contrary, Osweiler was horrible in training camp. And he was even worse in the first two preseason games.

 

That’s why Jackson didn’t want him in the first place when he arrived from the Houston Texans in a trade.

 

Was Kizer lights-out? No, but he was better than Osweiler in both regards, camp and the games, and he will continue to improve. Osweiler isn’t going to get any better. If he were, then it would have happened already.

 

When Kizer’s in the game, there’s more excitement – more electricity, more hope – among  the players, coaches and fans. Yu can just feel it. It is definitely there. You can almost cut it with a knife.

 

With Osweiler, the atmosphere has all the enthusiasm and pizzazz of watching bread bake. There is simply nothing there.

 

Jackson kept his word. He gave everybody a chance to win the job, and Kizer did it, beating out first Cody Kessler and then Osweiler.

 

He is also keeping his word by refusing to announce Kizer as the starter for the regular-season opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He said recently that the starter for the Tampa Bay game will likely be the guy in the opener. He left the door open for that to change if Kizer bombs out, which the coach said isn’t going to happen.

 

In the meantime, Osweiler can stand on the side and watch. He could have won the job by just playing average. That, plus his experience, would have been enough. But he didn’t.

 

And he has only myself – not “the general manager” — to blame.