Recap: Episode 2 of Cleveland Browns on HBO’s Hard Knocks

The second episode of HBO’s Hard Knocks, featuring the Cleveland Browns, took place Tuesday night and picked up right away with a lot of drama. Let’s recap the major storylines that were on display in the action shown to viewers around the globe.

Corey Coleman Traded

The episode started right away with the Corey Coleman situation. After showing his massive shoe collection, a montage showed offensive coordinator Todd Haley consistently displeased with the way the third-year receiver was running his routes, or the lack of effort he was putting forth.

The only behind-the-scenes footage we got to see was when Coleman stormed into head coach Hue Jackson’s office and said, “Why am I running second team? That shit’s crazy,” to which Jackson told him to ask Haley. That prompted Coleman to say, “If y’all don’t like the way I play, why don’t you just trade me?” And traded he was. One can only speculate that things got more intense/awkward after that, but those parts weren’t shown. Defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah could be heard talking about the trade parameters, acknowledging that a 2020 7th round pick basically meant Cleveland told Buffalo “Here, [take him].”

DBN’s Mike Hoag has more on the story here.

The Antonio Callaway Hour

The real star of the hour was wide receiver Antonio Callaway. After Callaway’s incident, but before he told the coaches what happened, both Hue Jackson and Todd Haley could sense something was up on the practice field. They each asked him what was wrong, but instead of being overly harsh on him, it was like a pair of “father-son” moments, with the puppy dog sadness written all over Callaway’s face.

Cameras were rolling when Jackson and GM John Dorsey called the rookie in to discuss the situation after learning about it. They expressed their disappointment, but allowed Callaway to explain the story. The team indeed believes him:

Not only do the Browns believe his story, they believe in him. A lot. Todd Haley challenged wide receiver Jarvis Landry to take Callaway under his wing:

You Know Him Now

One of the surprising features of Episode 2 involved backup tight end Devon Cajuste, who is fourth on the depth chart. A clip package of him being roughed up in practice was followed by a few segments with he and his father. Cajuste had known about his father’s two heart attacks, but on the show, right in front of his son, he revealed that he actually had a third heart attack.

Cajuste is then shown gutting it out against the Giants. Despite writhing in pain with a shoulder injury, he is throwing his body into blocks, making catches, and hurdling defenders.

Other Notes

• I really loved how Hue Jackson and Todd Haley came off this week, and Gregg Williams will be Gregg Williams. I know people will poke fun at the “CEO” role, but when Haley was brought in this offseason, these are exactly the types of things (shown in this episode) that it frees Jackson up to do, and I’m all for it.

• Gregg Williams ripped his defense a new one at halftime of the first preseason game. At the end of the episode, he also had a lighter moment when he says a company sent him a couple of boxes of lozenges.

• Myles Garrett likes to write poetry. He also looked like he was about to intensely kill Greg Robinson during a practice rep. That’s the psychotic intensity I want to see against Pittsburgh.
• Brogan Roback continues to get some air time. BRObie is his nick name; that coming after Todd Haley was making fun of Carl Nassib, saying how does someone name their kid “Carl” when naming a baby?
• Some ribbing on TE David Njoku for his drops:

• GM John Dorsey talked to the analytics area about possible receivers to bring in. The list was presented to him, and Dorsey right away asked why Dez Bryant wasn’t on it. The person responded that Bryant was at the bottom of the list, saying that he’s 30. Dorsey corrected him to 29, and the other person said “well, 29.7.”

Next Week

The promos for next week mainly highlighted the Bills vs. Browns game, where Tyrod Taylor faces his former team and Corey Coleman matches up against Cleveland.

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What did you think of the second episode, Browns fans?