Helmets and shorts

So what exactly can coaches glean from mandatory minicamps around the National Football League? What can Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski and his staff learn in the next three days in Berea that will make a difference this season?

Correct answer? Not much really.

These sessions are nothing more than an extension of an earlier rookie minicamp and voluntary organized team activities. Key word: Voluntary. Read absolutely nothing into the absences of Myles Garrett, Nick Chubb, David Njoku and Joel Bitonio. 

This minicamp is the final stage in getting the 90-man roster ready for training camp next month. It's a reintroduction to what lies ahead for the next seven months. Hopefully longer. 

It's also time to get to know your new teammates who have been acquired through different means, whether by the college draft, trades or free agency. Everything is relatively laid back. This is just a preview of what's to come later.

Not much coaches can learn watching players going through their paces wearing shorts and helmets. Contact is not permitted. All that good stuff comes later. 

This is as much an indoctrination to brand new coaching in all three phases of the game with new coordinators for the defense and special teams and a totally new offensive philosophy for an offense geared around a $230 million quarterback playing in his first full season with the club.

So what will the coaches be looking for? 

On offense, it's all about timing. That simple. Stefanski and offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt, who share choreographing that offense, have no more excuses with an attack that is more loaded than last season. Teams with exquisite timing, whether on the ground and/or through the air, generally realize great success.

The Cleveland receiving corps has been greatly upgraded with a number of the newcomers who have never been on the receiving end of a Deshaun Watson forward pass. Establishing good timing in this phase is extremely important. 

On defense, it's all about aggression. Winning defense is nasty, opportunistic, fearsome. It is and has always been about aggression. That characteristic has been AWOL from the Browns for three long seasons under the departed Joe Woods.

New coordinator Jim Schwartz is the antithesis of his predecessor, whose laid-back approach to that phase of the game cost the Browns at least three games last season and a chance to return to the postseason. His goal is to always make the opposing offense feel uncomfortable.

General Manager Andrew Berry responded to the beat of Schwartz's drum by bringing in veteran linemen Dalvin Tomlinson, Ogbo Okoronkwo and Za'Darius Smith and third-round draft pick Siaki Ika (6-4, 360) to complement Garrett, the otherworldly quarterback punisher.

All they'll do this week, though, is just walk through many of the pass-rush schemes Schwartz is plotting. 

Aggression in the secondary will come in the form of much more man coverage and press coverage in the passing game. None of that zone stuff nonsense that seemed to confuse the secondary last season and resulted in too many embarrassing losses in games that should have been won.

What will be interesting to look for in this camp is how the new receivers fare against the new-look (at safety with veterans Juan Thornhill and Rodney McLeod Jr.) in the secondary with regard to the timing with Watson.

Warning: Don't get too excited about the news that comes out of this minicamp. Or take it seriously. Most of it will lean toward the positive. It should. After all, they're going up against each other in relatively slow motion in  helmets and shorts.