5 Cleveland Browns preseason stars who had us all fooled

1. DeShone Kizer, QB

Cleveland Browns fans still have a hard time reliving the painful experiences of the 2017 season. A historically proud franchise, the Browns have struggled since returning to the NFL in 1999 but no season was as bad as that campaign.

It was the second year under Hue Jackson and the former Cincinnati Bengals head coach botched just about everything he could. He followed up a 1-15 season with a winless 0-16 campaign and a lot of it had to do with his inability to find success under center — which was shocking in itself since rookie DeShone Kizer had done enough to give fans hope he could be competent.

Kizer started out strong, completing 19-of-31 passes for 258 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions in the first two games. He slowed down from there as he finished 6-of-18 with 83 yards and an interception the rest of the way. Still, it was enough to win the job over Brock Osweiler.

The problem is, Kizer wasn’t ready. And every single scouting report told us as much but the self-appointed quarterback whisperer, Hue Jackson, decided he knew best and threw Kizer to the wolves. And unsurprisingly, The results were disastrous.

Kizer was 0-15 as a starter for Cleveland while completing just 53.6 percent of his passes for 2,894 yards with an 11-to-22 touchdown-to-interception ratio. His saving grace was his 419 yards rushing and five touchdowns but he still didn’t do enough and by 2018, he was no longer a member of the team.

Not all the blame falls on Kizer’s shoulders but the way the Notre Dame product played early in the 2017 preseason proved to be nothing more than a major tease.