The Cleveland Browns have been in the headlines this week for numerous topics, so I wanted to sit down here and share my thoughts on each one.

The Connection between Tommy Rees and Jalen Milroe

When the news broke Tuesday that the Cleveland Browns were promoting Tommy Rees to offensive coordinator, many were very quick to connect the dots between Rees and his former quarterback at Alabama and 2025 NFL Draft prospect Jalen Milroe. The duo spent one season together in 2023 and had good success going 12-2, winning the SEC Championship, and making it to the College Football Playoff. Milroe threw for 2,834 yards and 23 touchdowns while also rushing for 531 yards and 12 touchdowns.

With Rees now assisting Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski in trying to resurrect the offense, Milroe could certainly be an option for the Browns in the NFL Draft. I wouldn’t say he’s an option at 2 unless the scouts see it and the media will catch up in the next several months leading up to the draft. I’m certainly skeptical of Milroe’s game translating to the next level but I see some of the qualities that others like about his game and his best season as quarterback came under Rees’s coaching.

Milroe has a chance to starting to prove his skeptics wrong in a few weeks when he’ll participate in the Senior Bowl which also has some Browns’ connections to it as well.

Ventrone and Cesaire to coach at Senior Bowl

Two of Kevin Stefanski’s assistant coaches will be representing his staff and the Cleveland Browns organization at the 2025 edition of the Senior Bowl in a few weeks.

Special Teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone will be the head coach for the American team and Defensive Line coach Jacques Cesaire will be the Defensive Coordinator for the National team when some of the top senior prospects in the NFL Draft will congregate in Mobile, Alabama for the yearly All-Star game.

Ventrone has been linked to the New England Patriots as part of Mike Vrabel’s new coaching staff but as of now nothing officially has been reported of Ventrone’s potential departure. The coordinator has been linked as a future NFL head coach, so this is another opportunity for Ventrone to showcase his leadership on a big stage.

This is a great opportunity for Cesaire as well who has been working his way up the coaching ranks in the last decade with coaching stints in San Diego, Buffalo, and Houston before arriving in Cleveland last offseason.

The two coaches will also provide more insight for the organization too as they ramp up their scouting efforts. While the rosters for each team haven’t been set, the list of players was revealed on Monday including the quarterbacks (Jaxson Dart, Jalen Milroe, Dillon Gabriel, Will Howard, Riley Leonard, Tyler Shough) and offensive tackles (Josh Conerley Jr., Wyatt Milum, Grey Zabel, Emery Jones, Aireontae Ersery) which the Browns should be targeting in the first several rounds of the draft.

The Athletic’s story on Deshaun Watson

The biggest story of the week came on Wednesday when Jason Lloyd of The Athletic published a story titled “The Browns Gave Deshaun Watson what he wanted. Now they’re paying the price.”

Nothing in the story was completely earth shattering because much of the stories in it has been discussed to some lengths during the season with the quarterback’s struggles on the field before his season-ending Achilles injury. The Browns blowing up the offensive scheme in an attempt to fit the offense around Watson despite not having the personnel on the roster to make that work and the fact that Joe Flacco picked up Stefanski’s offense last season much quicker than Watson ever could were some of the “stinging indictments” mentioned in the story.

The organization has to try and pick up the pieces of what will likely go down as the worst trade in NFL history and the current regime is lucky that they’re getting another chance to try and make the quarterback position right because they’re the same regime that surrendered multiple first-round draft picks and also fully guaranteed Watson’s contract for $230 million.

Lloyd also mentioned on Wednesday’s edition of Ultimate Cleveland Sports Show (his opinion) that he believes it was Andrew Berry that was the driving force behind the Watson acquisition and that Baker Mayfield’s off the field behavior was why they moved on. Well, given Watson’s history of alleged off the field transgressions, whatever processes led them to thinking Watson was the franchise quarterback given everything that came with the football talent he once had, it was a horrible calculation on the organization’s part.

The Cleveland Browns are getting another opportunity to make things right, when many other football organizations are so lenient.