Cleveland Browns News and Rumors 9/30/26: The Hulk Don’t Wear a Cape

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CLEVELAND, Ohio (TheOBR.com) Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans!

Fifteen days ago we flipped the switch on the new OBR. That the Browns immediately went on a two-game winning streak is unrelated. I guess.

For years before that, this site spent a fair amount of energy trying to look like whatever the corporate parent of the moment wanted a website to look like. But I can report, two weeks in, that the work gets a lot easier when you stop trying to be somebody else’s website and go back to being the thing you were when you started.

Jared Verse figured out the same thing on Tuesday. He said it better than I just did, too.

THE HULK DON’T WEAR A CAPE: “Since we came here, we had to be the superhero, Superman and everything like that. And that’s not who I am,” Verse told Scott Petrak. “The Hulk don’t wear a cape. I just run through people.” Verse spent the summer at the Sack Summit collecting advice from Maxx Crosby and Von Miller, then spent two games trying out moves that didn’t land. “I think I listened to too much to other people... I forgot that’s my superpower.” So against Carolina he just bull-rushed everybody, all day, because “it was working too good to switch from it.” He still doesn’t have a sack as a Brown. He did, per cleveland.com, have a hand in all three of the team’s sacks by collapsing the pocket. The man came here as the headliner of the Myles Garrett trade and spent two weeks trying to be Myles. Nobody is going to be Myles. Knocking a 330-pound guard onto his rear end is a perfectly acceptable alternative.

COACH RUDY’S BAG: As for the rest of the defensive creativity: Verse lined up at off-ball linebacker for six snaps, Mason Graham played 15 snaps at right end, and Denzel Ward shadowed reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year Tetairoa McMillan into two catches for 17 yards. Darren Waller said the Browns were “playing the chess match.”

Next up is Aaron Rodgers, who last time in Cleveland literally threw the ball away rather than be the answer to a Myles Garrett trivia question. Meanwhile, Daniel Jeremiah is calling out “the bust police” on Graham, per the Beacon Journal, which notes Graham has a sack in each of the first three games. The only other Brown to do that is, yes, Myles Garrett. We just can’t quit that guy.

A HAIR EARLY: Tytus Howard had two false starts in 39 games over the previous three seasons. He had three on Sunday, and five for the year. “They said I was leaving a hair early,” he told Petrak. “Multiple people messaged me all type of crazy stuff about it.” I bet. One of our Watercooler regulars says he looks like Frankenstein out there, and wants Dawand Jones at right tackle (Thurs Stool pass rush). Here’s where I lose the room: I liked Howard’s answer. “I’m gonna play my game. I’m not gonna hesitate to come off the ball because when I do that, that’s when it’s gonna be a problem.” He’s got T.J. Watt on Thursday. A tackle who starts guessing on the snap count against Watt is a tackle whose quarterback is lying on the turf. Clean up the timing and keep the get-off. Watson, for his part, told Mary Kay Cabot that some of that is on him: “What can I do to make their jobs easier so we don’t create those false starts?” Good question. Ask it early and often.

WE’VE SEEN THIS MOVIE: Elgton Jenkins didn’t practice Tuesday and is still in the concussion protocol, so it looks like Luke Wypler at center with rookie Parker Brailsford behind him. Wypler started last year’s finale against these same Steelers and allowed zero pressures on 30 pass-block snaps. The good news is that movie ended with a Browns win. The bad news is it ended 13-6. Teven Jenkins was limited Tuesday, his first practice in three weeks, and Tyson Campbell and Grant Delpit were limited too. Tylan Wallace didn’t practice, and “we’re still waiting on a few things” is not what you want to hear about a knee.

RETIREMENT PLANNING: Todd Monken, asked about Watt: “Well, I think it’s about time that he retires.” Jokingly. Probably. Cabot went on to her podcast to say the whole team is starting to mirror its head coach. “He wears his emotions on his sleeve, he laughs hard, he swears hard.” And: “He is being unabashedly himself.”

THE MAIN THING: Watson called Thursday “huge” and “major” and said he’s “not getting too caught up in all the antics in the media and things like that... Keep the main thing the main thing.” Cabot has the numbers: the Browns are 10-2 on Thursday night at home, 4-0 against Pittsburgh in that spot, and 7-0 on Thursdays since 2018. Watson is 0-3 lifetime against the Steelers. Something has to give. Ian Rapoport also went on 92.3 to say Watson was never close to being benched and could be back in 2027 if he stays healthy, even with two first-round picks in the Browns’ pocket. Treat that as radio. If you want the actual homework on how a Watson extension could even work, we’ve got the poison pill piece for you.

BROKEN, PROBABLY PLAYING: Jalen Ramsey says he broke his right wrist on Pittsburgh’s first defensive series against Cincinnati, then played every snap and made eight tackles, per ESPN’s Brooke Pryor. He wore a sling Monday and says “of course” he’ll try to go Thursday. “We’ll see. That’s all I can give you, I think.” Slot corner Brandin Echols is in the concussion protocol, and Joey Porter Jr. was a full participant in walkthroughs for the first time after a back injury and a contract fight that never produced an extension. The Steelers secondary is held together with tape right now. Test it.

NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS: Thursday is also the third annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Game, and the honorary coin toss captain is Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols. MC Lyte is the guest DJ, there’s a Metallica “takeover” on Dawg Pound Drive with a guitar-smashing photo op, and you’re supposed to scan a QR code at your seat so your phone can be part of a light show. The last thing Johnny Rotten said on stage at the Sex Pistols’ final show in 1978 was “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” Every Browns fan in that building has had that feeling. Some of us have had it weekly since 1999. Let’s give the guitarist a nicer night.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS, FINISHED: The Giants released Odell Beckham Jr. on Tuesday, per ESPN. He played 19 snaps in three games and didn’t catch a pass. His one target, from Jameis Winston, was nearly intercepted. He went back to New York to finish some “unfinished business” with the team that drafted him in 2014, and the fans chanted “OBJ!” at him Sunday, and that was about it. Going back to being yourself works fine, as Verse just showed us. Going back to being who you were eleven years ago is a different project, and it rarely ends well.

PRACTICE SQUAD SHUFFLE: The Browns signed CB Myles Bryant and TE John FitzPatrick to the practice squad and let D’Angelo Ross and Messiah Swinson go. FitzPatrick is 6-foot-7. Somebody in Berea is shopping for height.

And finally: if you’re coming down to the game Thursday, a few of us will be at Noble Beast Brewery on Lakeside starting around noon. Fred Greetham, Joe Mazzulo and Mike Keefe have committed. You can RSVP here. I’ll be the dorky guy in the Chubb jersey. No cape.

Have a good one! GO BROWNS!

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This feels like an “elephants” kind of day. Maybe a “we’re not really alone on this planet” kind of day.

This herd of rescue elephants ‘adopted’ a new little brother: ‘He will never be alone again’ - Rangers in Kenya found an 8-month-old elephant wandering alone after lions scattered his herd, so the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust named him Daba (“left behind”) and brought him to its Nairobi nursery, where a young matriarch named Muridjo took him under her wing. He’s 20 months old now, has memorized the schedule and location of every milk feed, and when the night bottle is late he reaches up and pulls the blanket off his sleeping keeper. If that doesn’t work, he stands on his hind legs and wakes the man with a trunk kiss. I have a cat who runs the same play.

A male elephant ‘adopted’ a calf and kept her alive long enough for rangers to rescue her - A 7-month-old orphan in the Maasai Mara survived by tailing an older bull for protection until rescuers could get her to the nursery. She’s three now, and the Trust says she plants herself in the middle of her keepers whenever they gather. Big guy, no cape.

WRAPPING UP

When not rediscovering his own superpower (typing badly, mostly), Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.