It's unbelievable that the Cleveland Browns are about to square off in Week 11 already. The game between them and the New Orleans Saints is sure to be a doozy, with both teams struggling mightily with their quarterback play and with both on the edge of either fully tanking out or actually trying to piece together some wins for some sort of photo finish at the end of the season.
For the Browns, the former feels like the right move. After all, they have a first round pick to look forward to in 2025 along with several other picks they've procured in the trades of Amari Cooper and Za'Darius Smith. But, given the first injury report for Week 11, Cleveland might actually look like a winning club by Week 11's kickoff.
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According to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com, the Browns had zero DNPs for Wednesday's first practice of the week before their game against the Saints. That, of course, doesn't include players like Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah who is currently on the injured reserve list with a nasty neck injury sustained in Week 8.
Clean slate on injury report great for looking ahead to 2025
This is a great thing for the Browns as they need full health in order to actually evaluate the talent they have on this roster for the rest of the season. There's no guarantee that Cleveland will continue to have this great injury luck with seven games still left on their schedule, with some of those against some great teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs. But, it'll help to see who the coaching staff and Kevin Stefanski wants to evaluate ahead of free agency and the draft.
This is especially true for Cleveland's quarterback depth and for their wide receiving depth. At QB, the Browns have the opportunity to potentially start Dorian Thompson-Robinson for a game or two instead of Jameis Winston, just to see if it'd make sense to draft a quarterback with their first or second round pick or if it'd be smarter to simply keep developing Thompson-Robinson for the future.
At wide receiver, Jamari Thrash could be a fun plug-in for the team to add some new looks alongisde Cedric Tillman, who seems to be gelling best with Winston. Both could be great deep ball threats with Winston as opposed to an aging receiver like Jerry Jeudy or even Elijah Moore, who can't seem to catch a break on potentially big plays.