Usama Young Could Still Become the Starter; Pashos Progressing

Cleveland Browns head coach Pat Shurmur and defensive coordinator Dick Jauron talked with the local media Thursday morning, and one of the big topics of discussion ended up involving safety Usama Young and whether or not he could still end up taking over the starting safety role from Mike Adams (note: right now, even though Adams is starting games, they are essentially playing an even amount of snaps). "It’s a real possibility and he’s in there playing all the time," responded Shurmur when asked if Young could regain his starting role. "I look at it this way, I feel at this point we’ve got three safeties in there playing and doing a nice job."

Jauron hinted that the team plans on sticking with the rotation for now, but will probably move toward giving more reps to Young if he continues to play well:

(On if he sees Usama Young getting a chance to start)- "We do,  I think you will see it fairly similar to what you saw a week ago as he gets back into it. He will get play time and then we will just work from there because we like them both.  We like Mike (Adams) and what he’s done. Usama is getting back into it, but we will still split time and give them both a chance out there and then once again just see where it goes as we move along."

In other news, while right tackle Tony Pashos was still limited on Thursday, he did take part in a few team drills with the second-team offense. When asked how Pashos performed on Wednesday, Shurmur said, "I think he had a good day yesterday so we’re looking to see if he can build on that." Regarding if Pashos could play the whole game or if he would rotate if healthy, Shurmur commented, "We’ll have to make that decision later in the week depending on if he’s a go or not. We’ll decide."

Only playing with the second-team offense right now makes me a tad worried about his effectiveness if he does play, but he'd probably still be at least as good as Artis Hicks and Oniel Cousins.