CLEVELAND — During the Cleveland Browns’ preparations for today’s game against the Denver Broncos, there might been a little bit more film study done to ready themselves for the challenge of facing a young, inexperienced quarterback.
Broncos coach Vic Fangio announced Monday afternoon that starting quarterback Joe Flacco “won’t play this week” because of a neck injury, meaning Denver will turn to third-year professional Brandon Allen, who has never taken a regular-season snap in the National Football League.
“We have to go off of what we see on tape in the preseason and understand young quarterbacks…In the last five years, 42 guys have made their first starts in the NFL, and you’d like to think that stats aren’t favorable for them when they start, but we have to understand that in the last 42 starts, those guys are 16-25-1, which is a lot better than you would just assume,” Browns coach Freddie Kitchens said.
“He’s going to do a good job preparing. Those guys do a good job coaching where they’re prepared to play the game, and the stats of those quarterbacks -- 60 percent completion percentage, 200 yards passing -- we’ve got to prepare for him just like he’s the starter. He’s officially now an NFL starter. We’ve had experience with that before and guys have been successful against us, and we’ve got to prepare for it accordingly.”
Although the Browns do not know what to expect from Allen, neither do the Broncos, at least according to Fangio.
“We have not seen a lot of him, either,” Fangio said in a conference call with the Cleveland media. “We picked him up after the last cut, and he only gets the few snaps a week with the first-team offense. We put him in there with the scout team some, but we have not seen a lot either.
“We are all in the same boat. I like the way he has looked when he has been in there in practice. I think he throws a good ball. He has some movement to him. I think that he is confident that he can lead the offense. I think he is going to go into the game looking forward to it and not too anxious.”
A sixth-round pick of the Jacksonville Jaguars in the 2016 NFL Draft out of the University of Arkansas, the 6-foot-2, 209-pound Allen was a four-year player for the Razorbacks.
In 42 career games over his four seasons at Arkansas, Allen completed 583 of his 1,016 attempts (57.4 percent) for 7,463 yards and 64 touchdowns against 26 attempts.
Allen guided the Razorbacks to an 8-5 record during his senior season (2015) and 7-6 mark as a junior (2014), both of which were good enough to earn Arkansas postseason bowl invitations.
“It is a challenge,” Browns defensive coordinator Steve Wilks said. “I think you have to go back and really look at the preseason tape, which we have. I coached against him in Jacksonville in 2017. I think he does some great things, Allen does. Very smart. You can tell he does a good job at protecting the ball.
“He does not hold onto the ball. He gets rid of the ball. Very athletic out in space. He can buy time with his feet and very accurate with the ball, as well. I still think their approach is going to be -- because they have two dynamic running backs -- they are going to try to run the football and create the play-action off of it.”