Browns gave Redskins a heads up about opening drive

The Cleveland Browns sent an early message to NFL defenses on their first drive of the preseason Thursday night.

Quarterback Baker Mayfield led a no-huddle offense that had no problem going 89 yards in seven plays to score a touchdown. It was quite a way to signal that this Browns offense is one that is going to give opposing defenses trouble this season.

It was a fun way to kick off the night and it got even better on Saturday when quarterbacks coach Ryan Lindley revealed that the Browns coaching staff informed the Washington coaches that the Browns were coming in hot to start the game.

And the Redskins were still powerless to do anything about it.

Lindley spilled the beans during a media session prior to Saturday’s practice, according to Mary Kay Cabot at cleveland.com:

“We let them know pre-game. In preseason, we didn’t necessarily want to go blitzkrieg on and catch them off guard. I don’t know how it went down. I just know we talked about like, ‘hey, you know, the referees knew, the other team knew and everybody was on board.

“The regular season, obviously we’d be ‘let’s catch them off guard and let’s roll. Let’s get them on their heels and knock them down.’ But for us, we want to work it. We want to work against a guy who knows what he’s doing and knows what they’re expecting.

“When you’re rolling like that, as long as we execute and we’re in the right spots and we got the quarterback making the right decisions, we shouldn’t be stopped.’’

Buckle up, Browns fans. This is shaping up to be one heck of a ride in 2019.