Jameis Winston loved playing for Sean Payton with the Saints. He wouldn't say if the feeling was the same under Payton's successor, Dennis Allen. (Cleveland Browns)
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland. He has covered the Browns since 1984.
Takeaways from Browns practice and interviews …
Jameis Winston was the NFL’s first overall draft choice by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2015, and four years later he led the NFL in passing yards (5,109) and touchdowns (30) with them.
But his best football was a seven-game stretch for the New Orleans Saints in 2021. That’s when Winston had the undivided attention of coach Sean Payton as the team’s starting quarterback in the first year after future Hall of Famer Drew Brees retired.
Winston won four of his first six starts and was going toe-to-toe with Tom Brady and the Buccaneers when he suffered a major knee injury on a horse collar tackle, ending his season.
The next season, Payton walked away from the Saints and was replaced by Dennis Allen as coach. Winston won the starting job in training camp and then missed Games 4 and 5 with back and foot injuries. When he got healthy, Allen didn’t give him his job back.
Allen was fired as Saints coach two weeks ago and that change removed the “Winston revenge game” angle from Winston’s return to New Orleans on Sunday.
In fact, he prefers to dwell on the more joyful Payton era of his four years with the Saints.
“I’m really grateful for the time, really one year [in 2020] that I had with Sean Payton and Drew Brees, of just learning how to play the quarterback position the right way,” Winston said.
“It’s what to do and what not to do. And when you see a quarterback that has done it at a high level for a long time under a system that he’s been in for a long time, you just see the day in and day out detail and intentionality that is taken with every play.”
In his stretch as Payton’s starting quarterback in 2021, Winston was extricating his reputation as the most intercepted QB of his time. He had 14 touchdowns and just three interceptions in his seven starts, with a career-high passer rating of 102.8. Then came the season-ending knee injury.
“We ran the ball well, we threw the ball well, and we played great, complementary football,” Winston said. “And that’s the key to success for any team. But that was a fun year that ended shortly.”
Winston re-upped with the Saints in 2022 after New Orleans engaged in the Deshaun Watson sweepstakes and was knocked out by the Browns’ fully guaranteed contract offer. Ironically, he now is Watson’s teammate in Cleveland.
Winston hasn’t started more than three games in a row since that 2021 season. He’ll make his third start in a row Sunday in New Orleans and try to reverse a 2-7 Browns season from getting worse.
“One play at a time,” Winston said of how he intends to do it. “We cannot fall victim to what’s behind us. We cannot press too far to what’s ahead of us. We have to focus on one day, one play, executing it perfectly, one play at a time.”
Wills’ business decision, The Epilogue
When Jedrick Wills said he made a business decision not to play in the Baltimore Ravens game on October 27 because of his recurring knee injury, it was interpreted by many as the reason Wills lost his starting job.
Not so.
The Browns already had made the decision to move Dawand Jones to left tackle at the beginning of the Baltimore practice week, coach Kevin Stefanski confirmed. Wills’ “business decision” didn’t take place until Friday after not practicing all week.
Jones had a good debut at left tackle, after which Stefanski made the decision to keep him on the left side, which has been a trouble spot since the first day of training camp. Jones responded with another decent game against Cincinnati, relegating Wills to the role of swing tackle.
Stefanski supported Wills when asked about the player’s comments made on Monday.
“I talked to Jed. It was a poor choice of words,” Stefanski said. “I know the connotation of ‘business decision.’ That’s not how he meant it. [He] did not feel like he was near 100 percent to help us. But a poor choice of words and he understands that.”
Asked if Wills’ “business decision” would impact his playing time the rest of the season, Stefanski doubled down.
“No. Let me reiterate -- it was a poor choice of words. I know what that phrase means. That’s not how he meant it,” he said.
Hicks is back
Linebacker Jordan Hicks returned to practice after missing four games and playing through an infection in his elbow and a triceps injury in two games.
Hicks said he acquired an infection in the elbow in Game 3 against the Giants and checked himself in the hospital afterwards for two days to fight it with antibiotics. He played Game 4 against the Raiders, suffered a broken rib, played Game 7 against the Bengals “basically with one arm,” and then decided to shut it down and let everything heal.
“In my 10 years, injuries have been the hardest part of this game – overcoming them, staying positive through them. Any time you’re dealt those cards, it just sucks,” he said.
JOK update
The Browns have intentionally not given any update on Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah since the linebacker was carted off the field with a neck injury in Game 8 against the Ravens.
JOK was released from the hospital the next day and attended the facility a day later. But he has not been seen by media and the Browns have declined to give any details on the nature of the injury or a timetable for his return.
Something said by Hicks, however, indicates the injury is more serious than we’ve been led to believe.
“It was tough,” Hicks said. “We play this game because we love it. We sacrifice our bodies for it. We understand the risks that are involved in it. At end of the day, you see something like that … it’s real life. I have a wife and three kids at home and you think, ‘What if I came home like that.’ It puts things into perspective.
“You hope and you pray he’s going to make a miraculous recovery. It’s tough.”
Brownie bits
Looks like the bye week did its job in healing the Browns. For the first time in several weeks, every player on the active roster was active at practice. The only player listed as limited was Joel Bitonio (pectoral) …
The Browns poached cornerback Chigozie Anusiem from the Washington practice squad and signed him to their active roster. Anusiem, 6-1 and 200 pounds, ran a 4.39 at his pro day. He was undrafted coming out of Colorado State. In three college seasons at Cal and two at Colorado State, Anusiem had one career interception.