Camp thoughts Vol. I

 

(Cogitating the goings-on at training camp in Berea as the Browns get ready for the season opener in Baltimore Sept. 13.)

 

Why in the world did center JC Tretter wait until just before training came began to undergo knee surgery? What in the world was he thinking?

 

Tretter is s smart dude. Ivy League graduate. Newly elected president of the National Football League Players Association. What gives?

 

He knows he plays the most important position on the offensive line from a strategic and tactical standpoint. His likely absence in the opener in Baltimore means Nick Harris, a raw rookie who has never made a meaningful pro football snap, will be at center.

 

Considering the offensive system is brand new – installation doesn’t take root just like that – and there are no exhibition games this season to work out the kinks, not much thought was put into the timing of this surprise.

 

The arthroscopic procedure reportedly was performed to “clean out loose bodies” that have bothered the pivot for some time. Doing it earlier would have made more sense. It would have given him more time to heal.

 

It is believed now that recovery time is in the vicinity of a month, which will put Tretter on the cusp of day-to-day territory on the injury report. If he cant go, Harris, a fifth-round pick in the last college draft, will make all line calls.

 

This team can ill afford to lose anyone on the revamped offensive line even for one game. And there is no assurance Tretter will be ready for the trip to Baltimore, let alone the second game of the season at home against Cincinnati.

 

The earliest he returns, unless he’s a super quick healer, won’t be until days before the Baltimore game. Even then, he will have missed every practice, raising the question as to whether his body can withstand contact after an extended period without it.

 

Of course he says he will be ready for the opener. To say otherwise would be frowned upon from a public relations angle.

 

Having had knee surgery myself (torn medial meniscus 20 years ago), the recovery time Tretter and the club anticipate just might be a little longer than a month.  

*       *       *

So Baker Mayfield now admits he lost confidence in himself during his very forgettable sophomore season in the NFL. He was the antithesis of the quarterback who set a league record with 27 touchdown passes as a rookie.

 

If I recall correctly, he acted quite differently at the end of last season, boasting he knew exactly what was wrong and that he would go back home, work on it in the offseason and be ready to be his normal self in 2020. The confidence might have been damaged, but the brashness remained.

 

Well here we are and a new Baker Mayfield has emerged.  “I’m in a much better state mentally,” he told the Cleveland media recently, humbling himself along the way.

 

“Having success all through high school and college and having that standard so high and then the last couple of years have been a rollercoaster of emotions and not nearly as much success as I’m used to,” he said..

 

“I would say I lost myself not having that success, not finding out what was working. I tried different ways of trying to have that success and didn’t find it. I lost myself in that and wasn’t able to be who I am for the guys on the team.”

 

That had to be difficult to admit for someone so cocksure of himself.  But, he said, all that has changed. The confidence, it seems, is back. Perhaps it’s because the Browns are starting all over again with a new head coach, coaching staff and philosophy.

 

Mayfield needed a change, although he didn’t know it at the time. Little did he know the problems that affected his performance last season would disappear just a few days after the Browns’ final game of the 2019 season.

 

The firing of Freddie Kitchens, the main cause of Mayfield’s nosedive to the bottom of the NFL’s quarterback rankings, was the first step. It became obvious early on last season that the Mayfield-Kitchens duo often misfired. It lasted all season. The supreme self-confidence and public brashness disappeared.

Now the slate is clean. Everything is new. His new head coach has connected with him, helping him regain the lost confidence. And there is a good chance his public humbling with regard to last season will more than temper that brash personality.