Browns: 3 big storylines for Week 2 against Philadelphia

There are many storylines for the Cleveland Browns this week as they prepare to take on the
Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday

The biggest storyline of the preseason for the Cleveland Browns continues to revolve around quarterback Deshaun Watson. He’s expected to be suspended for the majority of the season although we still await an actual decision. While that stormy cloud still sits over the team and its future, we have other more pressing storylines for this upcoming preseason game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

After the Browns went down to Jacksonville last weekend for their first game and came back with a win and a decent showing, especially from some of their new rookies, the team still has to address some pressing issues.

Let’s take a look now at a few of those topics.

3 storylines for Browns versus the Eagles

No. 3: The injury-prone offensive line

It feels like Deja Vu.

Cleveland struggled a year ago with offensive linemen going down with injuries and it became a constant battle of trying to fill in the gaps throughout the season. 2022 has already gotten off to a similar start. Starting center Nick Harris went down with a serious knee injury in the first preseason game and then one of his potential replacements, Dawson Deaton, went down as well with a torn ACL during practice on Monday.

Deaton was a seventh-round draft pick out of Texas Tech who they hoped would help backup their new starter, Ethan Pocic.

A former second-round selection in the 2017 NFL Draft, Pocic started 40 games in his career for the Seattle Seahawks. Cleveland also has Brock Hoffman, a rookie the team signed out of Virginia Tech to fill in if needed.

The concern obviously is that they’re already two players down. Over the last several seasons the team’s offensive line had been considered one of its strengths — and when they have all been healthy the team has excelled. The best season to showcase was 2020 when the Browns made it to the playoffs.

Tackle Jack Conklin is still working his way back from a serious injury last season. He’s been a veteran on the team that really had provided some stability on that line until he got injured last year. Third-year player Jedrick Wills was also injured on and off last season as well. Wyatt Teller and Joel Bitonio are all back and healthy so that’s some good news.

The season is a lengthy one and we just saw how fragile things can be when within a few days of each other, two players go down with season-ending injuries.

Fingers will be crossed as we see how things go in this game on Sunday against the Eagles. Let’s hope to see no more injuries on the line or anywhere else on the team.