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New York Times
6 hours ago
- Business
- New York Times
In John Mozeliak's final trade deadline with Cardinals, ‘long-term view' of team was the priority
SAN DIEGO — In his final season as the St. Louis Cardinals president of baseball operations, John Mozeliak acknowledged the obvious. He did not want to sell, but his club had not performed well enough to warrant any other option. During this transition season — one that prioritized player development from the start — building towards the future was the sensical solution. By trading Ryan Helsley, Phil Maton and Steven Matz for an assortment of prospects, Mozeliak hopes he's accomplished that, though the organization likely won't see the true payoff from these trades for multiple seasons. Advertisement 'The goal of this trading deadline was about the future,' Mozeliak said. 'I don't think it's necessarily about the immediate future. It's about the long-term view of the St. Louis Cardinals.' Speaking on a Zoom call from his office at Busch Stadium, Mozeliak touched on a variety of trade deadline topics, ranging from why he only traded pending free agents, why minor-league talent — not soon-to-be-major-league-ready talent — was the top target in returns and why he did not trade any of his position players, despite a high interest level from rival clubs. It was not an easy decision for the front office, but it was a familiar one. The Cardinals have sold just twice throughout Mozeliak's 18-year tenure, but this year's sell-off marks their second in the last three years. However this year's purpose was much different. While the Cardinals also only traded expiring contracts in 2023, Mozeliak's first sell season, he targeted pitching depth and upper-level minor-league talent in efforts to avoid a rebuild. That was not the case this year. Mozeliak, with input from incoming successor Chaim Bloom, opted for best overall talent in returns for his top three relievers — a clear sign that bridge year will span much longer than first advertised. 'We went into this deadline trying to move our expiring contracts,' Mozeliak said. 'We were able to do that. The goal of these moves was to position the organization for future talent — not necessarily just guys that are knocking on the door for big-league opportunities next year. It was really about trying to create as much prospect value as possible, and we felt we achieved that. 'It's a cliche answer, but (we were looking) for best talent available.' St. Louis acquired six total prospects: shortstop Jesus Baez and right-handers Nate Dohm and Frank Elissalt from the New York Mets for Helsley, corner infielder Blaze Jordan from the Boston Red Sox for Matz, and pitching prospects Mason Molina (RHP) and Skylar Hales (LHP) from the Texas Rangers for Maton. Though the deadline is over, plenty of questions remain. Advertisement The Cardinals garnered significant interest on an assortment of position players with multiple remaining years of control. The most popular area? Their left-handed hitters. Rival clubs consistently inquired about Brendan Donovan and Lars Nootbaar (two remaining years of control) and Alec Burleson (three remaining years of control). But St. Louis asked for a remarkably high return, with one rival executive describing the ask as 'insane' and another terming it as 'sky-high.' 'We got hit a lot on our left-handed hitters,' Mozeliak said. 'But none of the types of offers we were getting for those players were compelling for us to do it. To say we went into this solely with just the focus of moving three expiring contracts is not necessarily accurate, but we were not motivated to move players that we had under control unless we were, to put it mildly, blown away. And we just weren't.' So the Cardinals instead kept their position-playing core. Nootbaar and Nolan Gorman are on the 10-day IL, but both are expected to return to the big-league club at some point over the upcoming trip against the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers. That will create another logjam for manager Oli Marmol, who has had to juggle playing time all year. When asked how he envisioned that shaking out, Mozeliak hinted it would be something to monitor over the offseason when Bloom takes over the organization. 'Maybe we reflect on it a little bit more in the sense of what does this really mean for next year?' Mozeliak said. 'When the question was asked if we were not willing to move players under control, the answer is the timing wasn't now. The question is a good one, and one that will ultimately be resolved probably over the next six months.' Advertisement Helsley was the Cardinals' big ticket, and rival evaluators had mixed reviews about his return. With no true front-line starting pitcher on the market, contending clubs pivoted to maximizing their bullpen — significantly upping the market cost. St. Louis traded Helsley on Wednesday afternoon with over 24 hours remaining before the deadline. Why did Mozeliak feel that was the right time? 'My concern was that there were four big-name closers out there, and obviously two of them had multiple years of control,' he said. 'In our case, Helsley had two months. I was cognizant of how far we had leverage. What I didn't want to have happened was to take this into the final day, and not be in a position to try to do the best deal possible. A lot of times in this business, people think the longer you wait, the better the deal. I was scared that the longer we wait, the music might stop and we might still be standing.' Jhoan Duran (traded from the Minnesota Twins to the Philadelphia Phillies), David Bednar (dealt to the New York Yankees by the Pittsburgh Pirates) and Camilo Doval (acquired by the Yankees from the San Francisco Giants) all have multiple years of team control remaining. That's to say nothing of the biggest relief pitching deal made: The San Diego Padres stunned the industry by trading for Athletics' closer Mason Miller, who will not be a free agent until 2030. Helsley's value, while considerably high given the market, was not going to match the above. 'You can see there were other closers that were traded that have years of control, and their returns were different,' Mozeliak said. 'We were trying to focus on maybe some young starting pitching, but as you can tell, that was not really our highest level of return. It came down to the potential suitors that we were speaking with, and we tried to navigate it the best we could, but ultimately ended up deciding to go with the players that we thought had the highest upside.' With their top three relievers gone, the Cardinals have three active roster spots to fill. One will undoubtedly go to Ryan Fernandez, who has turned things around in Memphis with a 3.12 ERA after a disastrous start to the season in April. Advertisement As for currently rostered players, Mozeliak said left-hander JoJo Romero will see more high-leverage situations. Riley O'Brien and Gordon Graceffo were also identified as pitchers who will see more distinctive roles in the bullpen. St. Louis has used Kyle Leahy in late innings semi-regularly; that usage is expected to increase as well.
New York Times
a day ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Football Architects: The England DNA behind the pursuit of tournament-winning teams
This is the fifth of a six-part series looking at figures who have played a pivotal role in a modern football success story. The first piece, on the rebuilding of Ajax, can be found here. Part two, on Belgium becoming No 1 in the FIFA Rankings is here. Part three, on the rise of Croatian football is here. And part four on the sport's data pioneers is here. Each article comes with a related podcast, which can be found here on The Athletic FC Tactics Podcast feed. The rationale is simple, John McDermott says: 'Under pressure, players often revert to type.' He is explaining why, in December 2014, just six months after England had finished bottom of their World Cup group, Dan Ashworth and Gareth Southgate announced the 'England DNA' at St George's Park. Ashworth was the director of elite development at The FA and Southgate had just completed his first year as England Under-21s men's head coach. Advertisement The DNA was an overarching term for their 'approach to elite player development' that applied to England age-group teams from under-15s through to the men's under-21s and women's under-23s. It laid out the vision for future internationals to be exceptional across four 'corners' — technical/tactical, physical, psychological, social — and contained five core elements. Best practice for coaches was outlined, expectations for the 'future England player' were listed and the FA said holistic support would be provided. They articulated how age-group teams should play, which would be 'the strongest demonstration of the England DNA'. A focus was placed on a two-way understanding of heritage and culture in an increasingly diverse country. Over the next decade, England's senior men had their greatest spell of sustained success at tournament level, reaching successive European Championship finals in 2021 and 2024, and a World Cup semi-final in 2018. The senior women went even better, winning the Euros on home soil in the summer of 2022, finishing as runners-up at the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, and then retaining their Euros title in Switzerland this summer. The notion of 'proper England' became a buzzword that powered them to the title. Success in age-group football has been abundant: the women's under-17s were Euros runners-up last May; the men's under-21s won the Euros again this summer, like they had in 2023; the men's under-17, under-19 and under-20 sides have all won continental or world silverware since 2017. The England DNA project was an important moment, comprehensively covering how to instil cultural change at the same time as catalysing technical and tactical evolution. 'Traditionally the Dutch, and more recently the Spanish, have very clear playing identities,' McDermott says. Advertisement He has been the technical director at the FA since early 2021 — having been Les Reed's assistant previously — and first worked there in 1995. McDermott coached the under-16 through to under-21 national teams in the mid-2000s, and worked in the academies of Leeds United, Watford, and Tottenham Hotspur. 'A player isn't going to change profile in a World Cup final into something which they aren't at their club,' he says. 'There's got to be a reflection (within England teams) of how they play at their clubs, in the Premier League, the Champions League.' The DNA was intended as the foundation of the FA's quest for tournament-winning teams. In 2014, though, England's senior men's side were on a run of eight major tournaments where their ceiling was the quarter-finals. The pressure kept compounding and players kept crumbling under it. So where did they look for inspiration? 'I would think we're all probably magpies,' McDermott says. 'If you were to speak to Pep Guardiola, you'd hear about the influence that Johan Cruyff had on him, the influence Rinus Michels had on Cruyff, and the influence that Vic Buckingham had on Michels. 'There's not this ivory tower where somebody comes up with this formula that nobody's ever thought of.' Consequently, Ashworth started close to home, visiting national training centres in France (Clairefontaine) and the Netherlands (Zeist). 'You speak to a lot of people. We're trying to get as many experiences as we can. You go to America, see what's happening in other sports, and ask: 'What do we do next? What's the evolution of the DNA?'. 'There's this curiosity where we're trying to look and then mould ideas into the English way, to make sure that's aligned with how the league is and where the playing system is.' 'I remember being at a FIFA conference and one of the speeches described how in senior football you're winning the next game or the next tournament, while in youth football it's about winning the next 10 years. I thought that was really clever, but there are subtleties.' Advertisement As such, they were not prescriptive with formations like Belgium (4-3-3), the Netherlands (4-3-3) and Italy (4-diamond-2) can be. 'It's less about the specific system and more about how it looks and how the players perform, playing the style that we want — expansive football, dominating the ball, playing through the thirds.' It is why the 'how we play' component of England DNA included transition as a phase of the game — counter-attacks and counter-pressing were given as much emphasis as build-up and defensive shape. 'The principles around in-possession, out-of-possession, transitions and set plays, I'm sure Alf Ramsey (England manager between 1963 and 1974) was talking about that. The examples and language changes. 'Have those principles been honed? Have they been better presented? Is the teaching better now with young players? Yeah, it probably is. 'One of the mantras we have is 'unearth, connect, develop and win'. Again Howard (Wilkinson) would have had that, and Dan (Ashworth) would have that in different words, but it's updating the wallpaper, updating the furniture.' It is an area where McDermott feels they have made progress but are still not perfect. He talks about 'footballing culture' and how players arrive at national team camps in the technical and tactical moulds of what their club coaches want. This was 'quite apparent' to McDermott when he started his current role. 'You'd see the Leeds players under Marcelo Bielsa, the Manchester City players under Pep Guardiola, some of the Liverpool players under Jurgen Klopp, and they'd want to do slightly different things — Leeds players going to man-to-man, Manchester City players wanting to stay on the ball, Liverpool players wanting heavy-metal football.' England DNA was therefore not just a blueprint but also something to unite players, who might spend so much of their season playing in different systems and styles to one another. He points out that, with age-group teams — whom the DNA was actually for — players can come from different levels of the English footballing pyramid. Increasingly, they are venturing into other major European leagues too. McDermott is talking via video call from Slovakia, where he was with England's men's under-21s at the European Championship. He was speaking mid-tournament as Lee Carsley's side defended their title from 2023 with an almost completely different squad, beating Germany 3-2 in the final compared with the one that was victorious over Spain two years prior. Advertisement Aidy Boothroyd once said that, if being the senior head coach was an 'impossible job' then being under-21s head coach was 'utterly impossible'. Trying to win tournaments and keep progressing talent to the senior side, he felt, were at odds with each other. For McDermott to say 'it's not win at all costs' feels almost ironic, considering the relative recent success of the under-21s and other age-group teams. 'There's a way in which we want to play and there's a way in which we want to get to those finals and win. It's finding that right balance between winning and developing — the two are very closely interlinked.' In 2008, England's men failed to qualify for the European Championship, and, the very next year, the under-21s were beaten 4-0 by Germany in the age-group final. Does the unreliability of memory mean that year is misremembered as the nadir from where change stemmed? 'There was not one day when it all happened. To say that this all began in 2008 disrespects some of the brilliant brains we've had in the past. It's definitely an evolution.' Success, as the saying goes, has many fathers. For McDermott, how you view the progression 'probably depends on who you speak to. I guess I'm steeped in FA history'. He namechecks Bobby Robson, who managed England's men's side for 95 games and took them to the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Dave Sexton also gets credit from McDermott. He was twice England men's under-21s coach and led them to Euros wins in 1982 and 1984, back-to-back winners like Carsley's teams. McDermott traces things all the way back to Walter Winterbottom, England's first ever men's coach from 1946 to 1962. 'Followed by Allen Wade and then I worked under Charles Hughes. They all had their principles of play or how they saw the game being played,' McDermott says. Advertisement He is not sequentially listing England coaches, but figures who were inspirational in shaping — for better or worse — English footballing identity. Wade became the FA's director of coaching in 1963 and wrote The FA's Guide to Training and Coaching in 1970; Hughes was Wade's assistant — he'd later hold the role himself — and coached the Great Britain Olympic football team for a decade from 1964-1974. 'Charles was probably epitomised quite wrongly,' he says while squinting, as though digging into his subconscious to remember correctly. 'He wrote a book called The Winning Formula around direct play. He probably didn't sell his ideas as well (as he could).' Hughes is best known now for building on the work of Charles Reep, who was one of the earliest statistical analysts in English football. Reep collected data by hand in the 1950s. It must be remembered that this was innovative at the time, even if by modern standards the notational methods were simplistic and the findings over-reductive. Reep identified that most goals were scored from sequences of fewer than four passes, half of all goals were following opposition-half regains, and one in 10 shots were scored. The problem, as future research showed, was he did not adjust for frequency in a low-scoring sport. There were fewer goals from long passing sequences or deep build-ups because these happened less. Hughes, lauded by Robson in his autobiography, spun this into a concept he called the position of maximum opportunity (POMO); this stressed the importance of flooding the box with crosses and always having a player in line with the back post. Hence English football developed a reputation as direct and agricultural, perhaps cemented by the poor-quality, muddy pitches that it was often played on, which did little to facilitate intricate, short passing. Advertisement McDermott describes 1997 as 'a landmark,' with Howard Wilkinson, four months after being sacked as Leeds United manager, becoming technical director at the FA. He says it 'turbocharged' the development of English football. 'That was the start of the academies, starting to get full-time coaches. Before that we had centres of excellence. Howard was very much about the facilities and the time spent (coaching).' Wilkinson authored the Charter for Quality, a 90-page document of 32 aspects that outlined how the FA would maximise player potential, with specific demands on facilities and coaching, and proposing an action plan for small-sided games programme for players aged seven to 10. 'After Howard, there was Trevor Brooking. Trevor concentrated around improving techniques that built upon Howard's work. He brought in a document called The Future Game.' That technical guide, published in 2010, was three-times as big as the Charter for Quality, In it, Brooking outlines a vision of developing players who are technically excellent and innovative coaches who train them into existence. The backdrop of the time was England's age-group teams underachieving compared with European counterparts, with game-time for English players in the Premier League on the decline. McDermott explains that developing technicians was Brooking's 'passion,' owing to Brooking himself being physically lacking but two-footed and technical — he made over 500 appearances for West Ham between 1966 and 1984, twice won the FA Cup, and played 47 times for England. 'The EPPP (Elite Player Performance Plan) came in around that time (2012) within the academies. It turbo-boosted the initial work that Howard did — more investment came into clubs.' Wilkinson, McDermott feels, built the foundations for Brooking to try and improve players from. From that, 'Dan (Ashworth) came in and brought the DNA we now work off. Maybe because I've been around a long time and I've known a lot of the players, I don't see milestones.' The crowning moment for the England DNA on the men's side was at Wembley in summer 2021, nearly seven years after it was announced. England were 2-1 up in extra time against Denmark. Nothing says pressure like being one goal ahead in the 116th minute of a European Championship semi-final on home soil. Advertisement They had been dropping deeper and deeper and restoring to defending the box — reverting to the England type of old. But then something clicked. Denmark had used their subs and had to chase the game with 10 men when an injury hit. Raheem Sterling picked up a loose ball after England cleared a Denmark corner, and the two and a half minutes that followed were everything Brooking once dreamt of. England did not score. They did not have a shot. They did not cross the ball. What they did do was stitch together 53 passes, the longest possession of the tournament. An exhausted Denmark were pulled left and right as England went up and down the pitch and from side to side. There were one-twos, triangles, even an audacious switch from centre-back Harry Maguire to marauding right-back Kieran Trippier. England captain Harry Kane said 'that was a great sign of what we're about, that shows the unselfishness of the team. We ended up keeping it for a good few minutes and killed Denmark off. It was our night tonight.' They ended up being penalty kicks away from becoming a tournament-winning team, losing against Italy in the final. That England team, managed by Southgate (he stepped up to the senior team in 2016) manifested into the very blend of everything that he and Ashworth explained the DNA was in 2014. Parts of Southgate's team were stereotypically English, being so defensively strong and compact — they only conceded twice in seven games and neither were from open play — and yet they made a first tournament final for nearly 60 years by keeping possession. They were, to borrow McDermott's term, 'cosmopolitan'. England's player of the tournament, Sterling, was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and raised in Wembley. McDermott says that there are some age-group teams that can have a majority of players with multiple nationalities. Advertisement 'I don't remember really having competition on recruitment,' he says of the early 2000s. 'Competing for young talent (now) is probably more similar to competing for talent at a club than it was 20 years ago. 'The question also becomes an ethical one as they get a bit older. What I'm always aware of is giving somebody one or two caps, but they might have got 50 or 60 caps for another nation. Making good judgements in the interest of the player becomes a dimension.' But despite England's age-group success, McDermott still thinks of those who might have slipped through the net. One mention of Belgium's futures teams — which run parallel to their age-group sides and are for late-developing players — prompts him to bring up the relative age effect. That is the term to describe the overrepresentation of players born earlier in the year (academic year in England, calendar year elsewhere in Europe), because they tend to be the first to physically develop. 'It's always fascinated me. Quite early on, I didn't see the talent of Ashley Young when I was at Watford, we didn't offer Ashley a contract at under 16. Thankfully he stayed on. That was a near miss that I had very early in my career.' 'We are trying to get our coaches to be aware of that — it's something we do within all of our recruitment meetings. I don't want our coaches to be frightened of playing a younger player or a physically immature player just in case we lose.' He cites stats from the under-19 Euros where just 17 per cent of players were fourth-quartile babies (i.e. the youngest in their year groups). 'That includes a lot of countries that have been looking at futures projects for some time,' McDermott points out. 'It probably balances off a little bit as you get older and sometimes those August birthdays are probably more resilient because of it, because they've survived. We had quite a few when I was at Spurs: Kane, (Ryan) Mason, (Andros) Townsend were all late in the year. 'If I had a magic wand that'd be one thing I would probably look to address, especially in this country but across world football as well — it's everywhere.'
New York Times
22-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
NBA Summer League is ‘extremely valuable' for scouts. Here's what they look for
The rosters are random. The stats are messy. Half the players won't be on an NBA team come October. However, for scouts sitting courtside in Las Vegas, these games are as good as gold. NBA Summer League isn't about box scores — it's a live evaluation ground where scouts search for translatable skills, development potential and hidden value beyond the surface stats. Advertisement Some fans treat summer-league performances as little more than playful sparring, while others see them as definitive statements about a player's future. However, in reality, how important is it? Do the stats, wins and individual performances matter? For NBA scouts, the summer league is far from meaningless. It's one of the most critical evaluation periods outside of the regular season. While box scores don't tell the whole story, the games offer real insight into player development, coachability, and potential fit, not just with their current team, but for the 29 others watching courtside. The Athletic interviewed several scouts, granting them anonymity to allow them to speak freely about their evaluation process. 'It's extremely valuable. Before the draft, no matter what your opinion is about a player or how analytics project him to be, it's always interesting to see how competitive they are once they get to summer league,' said one scout for a Western Conference team. 'How quickly they pick up terminology, are they culture fits and can they keep the main thing the main thing? Can they be attentive, on time and professional, especially with all the distractions in Vegas?' A poor summer performance doesn't necessarily mean a player won't turn into a quality NBA player. Jalen Brunson (7.1 points per game on 38.3 shooting), Derrick Rose (9.5 points and 4.5 turnovers per game, shooting 29.4 percent) and Nikola Jokić (8.0 points in five games) didn't wow fans or scouts right away. Summer league stats can be inflated or misleading, but scouts don't completely ignore the numbers. Efficiency, decision-making, rebounding effort, assist-to-turnover ratio, and defensive metrics are all evaluated in context, especially when paired with film and in-person observation. 'All stats matter,' one scout said. 'This is the last professional setting until training camp starts. Everything is relevant.' Advertisement An Eastern Conference scout said specific statistics validate the eye test. 'Plus/minus is considered in context to gauge overall impact,' he said. 'More than the totals, scouts focus on how these stats are generated and whether they align with winning habits. The stats should validate what you're watching and seeing a real time.' Scouts aren't just watching to see who puts up 20 points. They're studying how players react to coaching, how they communicate on the floor and whether their skill sets translate to defined NBA roles. For rookies, it's often the first time they're judged on more than just potential. 'You want to see how quickly they can adjust to the pro game — not just physically, but mentally,' another evaluator shared. 'It's not just about buckets. It's about focus, learning systems and doing the little things right.' Summer League also serves as a checkpoint for returning players on two-way deals or fighting for a roster spot. 'Developmental progression in your older players — they've usually attended summer league the year prior, so they aren't overwhelmed by the spectacle,' one scout explained. 'You're looking for leadership, consistency and execution out of those guys.' The margin between a fringe player and a playoff contributor has never been thinner, especially in the new CBA era, where teams must extract value from two-way contracts and minimum deals. The summer league has become a talent marketplace where every team is scouting not just their bench, but everyone else's. 'The new CBA deal has made it even more crucial to try and find potential fits from a bottom-up perspective,' one scout said. 'Open roster spots and two-ways could end up playing deep in the playoffs. Look at someone like Pat Spencer for the Warriors — people were like, 'Who's that and where did he come from?' And he's playing in the semifinals. Every team is there scouting every other team's roster with the hope of finding that diamond in the rough.' Advertisement One scout emphasized the importance of keeping an open mind at summer league, while another noted the need to 'watch the game within the game.' '(There is) no blank canvas because you've already seen 90 percent of these guys in college,' he said. 'You come in with your biases good or bad, but the key is to be open-minded to how they can help you.' Scouts work year-round, so it's challenging to find a hidden gem. If they find such a player, they may need to sweeten the deal to sign him before another team secures his services. Only around two or three players from every summer league team will make an NBA roster. The remaining guys sign two-way or Exhibit 10 (one-year, non-guaranteed minimum contracts) deals, play overseas or remain free agents. 'It's hard to spot someone that no one else sees, because every team has scouts at every game for that reason,' a scout explained. 'If a team gets credit for discovering a player, usually that means they offered a better deal (e.g., two-way with incentives) than the other six or seven teams that were interested in that player. 'This is like being in a petri dish. Every scouting department sees every player. The best you can do is find players who are two-way worthy.' (Photo of Dylan Harper and Cooper Flagg: Ryan Stetz / Getty Images)
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Browns roster ranked by positional units
With veterans reporting to training camp shortly, the 2025 NFL season is just around the corner. While expectations aren't too high for the Cleveland Browns this year, it'll serve as a crucial season for player development as the youth movement takes hold of the depth chart. Some positions are better off than others, as the team was forced to reset at some spots, bypass others, and added elsewhere. This looks to be a year where they will get youngsters on the field early and often and look to develop toward the future. So, as we enter another season, lets take a look at how the Browns depth chart stacks up and rank it by the talent of the positional units 7. Quarterbacks It's an awkward and confusing mess at quarterback and the future of the position is likely not on the team right now. Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett will battle it out to be the sacrificial lamb to start the season, but odds are that the pair of rookies, Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders, will see a bulk of the starting time as the team determines if either can possibly be a future starter. The hit rate on mid-round quarterbacks is quite low, so odds of the third or fifth-round draft picks hitting is not in the Browns favor. While watching the young quarterbacks battle it out through the season should be fun, fans will mostly be watching how the 2026 quarterback class shapes up. 6. Linebackers The writing is on the wall for linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, who went down with a scary neck injury during the season. The reports and whispers from leadership have not been promising, but when the team drafted a similar style of linebacker, Carson Schwesinger, atop the second round of the last draft, it spells out what is expected out of Owusu-Koramoah. It's a terrible cherry on top of an awful cake that has been the DeShaun Watson era for the Browns. Owusu-Koramoah was one of the team's emerging young talents and had been rewarded with a contract extension, but now fans and teammates alike have to hope we'll see him return to the field at some point at all after it was announced he won't be back for at least 2025. It'll leave the Browns with plenty of questions at the position for this season. A lot will be on rookie Carson Schwesinger's plate to take up the role Owusu-Koramoah left behind. A pair of veterans, Jordan Hicks and Devin Bush, can take up snaps but won't provide much impact. Otherwise, it'll be up to Mohamoud Diabate to take the next step. T4. [Tie] Pass Catchers & Defensive Backs It was hard to determine which group will do the Browns better next season. From a team perspective, the secondary will get far more support from the pass rush than the receivers will from their quarterbacks. However, from a pure talent perspective, there's a little more upside to the receivers. The secondary features the best player, Denzel Ward, holding down their top spot. Ward is elite enough to warrant giving the DBs an advantage, but behind him has been disappointing despite the high investments. Greg Newsome hasn't lived up to his first-round status, and Grant Delpit had a poor season after getting paid. There's some solid depth here from Martin Emerson and free agent Rayshawn Jenkins, but one safety spot will remain a question mark. While the receivers may not have a player as elite as Denzel Ward, David Njoku isn't too far behind when healthy. He's been a bright spot in bad seasons, and showed what he's capable of when Flacco had his last run with the team. Furthermore, Jerry Jeudy has shown some of that first-round upside last season when a capable passer was starting. Those two, when paired with some upside behind Cedric Tillman, gives this group a little more versatility than Ward does alone. Either way, it'll be nice to get some answers for both of these groups this season. They both feature pieces to build around, but need younger talent to step up to become mainstays. 3. Running Backs* For a brief moment, there was significant hype around the Browns run game going into the season. It was likely that the return to Kevin Stefanski's scheme would allow the Browns to lean on a ground-and-pound approach behind a stable of promising running backs. Then second-round pick Quinshon Judkins was arrested. An incredibly promising athlete, Judkins should have taken the lead back role, and while he still can, it'll come with far less enthusiasm from fans who've been through this plenty of times recently. There is still a contract and potential suspension to deal with, so there's no promise that we'll see a full season of Judkins right away. Now, returning Jerome Ford at a reduced price seems to be a blessing even if expectations aren't too high. There is still Dylan Sampson, the lightning to Judkins' thunder and the team's fourth-round pick. Sampson was a strong prospect himself, but now may get the chance to lead the team. Assuming Judkins still plays a majority of the season, there's plenty of depth and upside at this spot. 2. Defensive Line With Myles Garrett championing the defensive line, this unit couldn't not be near the top. There's still some questions surrounding Garrett, but the team has youth and the ultimate advantage next to them. Garrett has continued to be his elite, All-Pro level self as he stacks seasons toward a first-ballot Hall of Fame nomination. Adding Mason Graham to the interior with their first-round pick finally bolsters the unit with another high upside defender next to Garrett. Graham was typically seen as the next best pass rusher aside from Abdul Carter in the class, so while rookies are hard to project, the Browns landed a strong bet. The team has a solid cast of youth and experience otherwise. Players like Maliek Collins, Shelby Harris, and Mike Hall Jr should be a reasonable rotation of talents to keep each other fresh. On the edge, there's a few young players in Isaiah McGuire and Alex Wright who hope to play themselves into mainstays across from Garrett. This is a unit teeming with upside across from one of the league's elite players. You could certainly argue it's the team's best group, but… 1. Offensive Line The teams' depth and continuity on the offensive line makes them the best unit in my eyes. There are still questions among this group, most notably at tackle with the status of Dawand Jones and the health of Jack Conklin. However, there's a chance both can play at their highest level this upcoming year. The true strength is at guard where both Joel Bitonio and Wyatt Teller feature All-Pro upsides, while center Ethan Pocic has at least been a reliable starter. The guards make everyone's jobs a little easier, and can pave the way to make lesser talent more productive. What's more exciting is that there's legitimate depth here. Third-round pick Zak Zinter awaits for this opportunity, while the team managed to get Teven Jenkins on a very cheap prove-it deal. Furthermore, bringing in swing tackle Cornelius Lucas who has plenty of starting experience on both sides is great versatility. After the brutal hits the line took from injuries last season, any stretch of health would help. But, now the team is a little more prepared with capable players in backup spots, and a couple of elite talents in the middle. This article originally appeared on Browns Wire: Browns roster ranked by positional units
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Flyers Prospects Among Favorites to Win NCAA Title
The future of the Philadelphia Flyers is all about the player development of today, and many of their top prospects are set to be the chief competitors for this season's NCAA title.
