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Cleveland Browns News and Rumors 8/18/26: Get Him the Ball This story from TheOBR.com was published as part of a partnership. CLEVELAND, Ohio (TheOBR.com) Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans! THE DAILY BLOVIATION About halfway through last night’s Gang of Three livestream on our YouTube channel, I started to realize that the program was a bit, um, downbeat. As the host, I take full responsibility. I guess it’s my software engineering background. I take things that are working for granted and worry about any bugs that might be lurking in the system. Same is true for the Browns, where we spent the first part of the show talking about the primary issues that the Browns are facing: Questions at the quarterback position and offensive line. Problems, problems, problems. That’s what I tend to focus on. So, about 40 minutes in, I tried to turn the focus of the show onto the positive things we saw against the Bears last Saturday afternoon. Here, I was hard-pressed. “What about, um, the special teams?” I desperately asked. And, yes, the special teams looked good. Maybe they’re going to go from a black mark to a bright spot, as they have continuity and what appears to be an actual kick returner on the squad. Which brings me to what I consider the most positive thing that came out of Saturday: KC Concepcion, my friends, looks like he’s the real deal. We have a first-round wide receiver who returns punts and talks like he is offended when he does not score. That makes me happy. Do not ruin it. KC Concepcion was picked 24th overall out of Texas A&M, dropping out of the top ten perhaps because of a supposed tendency to drop passes, a sight so far unseen in training camp. Pete Smith was arguing pre-draft that Concepcion was a potential top ten pick, and he looked like it on Saturday. Concepcion got his first NFL touch on a punt return on wet turf in Chicago. 31 yards. He slipped and still wanted six. “I literally saw a green wide open.” He thought a Bears special-teamer tripped him and then admitted he forgot the number. I believe him. I would have forgotten the number too. “I really wanted to score on a punt return.” Correct. Then the offense. Chris Easterling had the snaps: 25, which is all but eight of the first-half offensive snaps. 3 catches, 27 yards, 4 targets from Watson, one of them a ball that bounced in front of him. And a 14-yard jet sweep around right end on the first play of the second quarter. Tylan Wallace set the edge. KC kept his feet through a tackle a cornerback will still be explaining. “So we had like a little jet sweep. My dog Ty [Tylan Wallace], he had an amazing block for me. He set the edge. I take pride in never being tackled by a cornerback. So, you know, I saw the edge, I fought through the tackle, I kept my balance to score.” He actually said this: “I take pride in never being tackled by a cornerback”. Write that on the wall. Watson, after the game, said that Monken schemes plays to get Concepcion the ball, and that he can be very dangerous. Well, yeah, we just saw that. Monken was already there yesterday, on camera and in the room. He called the kid explosive and kept coming back to contact balance. They talked before the game about whether putting him back there put him at risk, then they put him back there anyway. The ABJ’s Chris Easterling compared the usage model to Zay Flowers when Monken was in Baltimore. I will take that comparison and put it in my pocket. “Contact balance” is Monken’s phrase. It is also the tape. He does not go down when a defensive back thinks the play is over. Dan Labbe this morning called the first touch a shot out of a cannon and said Jacksonville will have to react every time he motions in Week 1. Dylan Sampson is the other chess piece; his 43-yard screen with 2:39 left in the first quarter set up the touchdown drive. I may write about Sampson when I am finished being happy about this. Monken’s question is the adult one. “How are we able to get players with an elite skill set to do what they do best without being so tendency-oriented that that’s all you do when they’re in?” I do not have the answer. It’s way too early in the morning to wrap my mind around that, but it sounds like Monken is already anticipating defenses will key on Concepcion and that he’s going to have to be clever to get him the ball. I just know the first-rounder already looks like the reason you bother asking. The official presser is here if you want him saying it himself. Have a good one! GO BROWNS! OBR GOODIES OBR VIDEO OBR ARTICLES - Cleveland Browns Updated Defensive Roster Prediction Post Chicago Bears - What Way is Browns Todd Monken Leaning Between Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders in the Competition for QB1 - Cleveland Browns Film Room: Spencer Fano vs. Texas Tech 2025 - Cleveland Browns Updated Offensive Roster Prediction Post Chicago Bears FROM THE FORUMS - Predict the 2026 season Browns record - Browns Rookie Coaches: A Concern? - Gang of Three - MADDEN 27 - LiveWire Thread for 8/17 - Twitter, Video, Articles - Way OT- Hayden Panettiere dies age 36 THE LIFT Positive news from the world of sports and beyond... I’m a webdork. A digital guy. I hate paper. Anything that arrives on paper that I need to keep gets scanned and stored in the cloud and my hard drive. There are no piles of paper on my desk. I do have a filing cabinet for things that are too big to bother scanning, but having important scraps of paper around drives me nuts. I’d like to say that is because I’m an environmentalist, but it’s rooted more in a desire for neatness and order. Still, I cringe when I see people printing out reams of paper which I view as “mushed up trees”. So, I’m happy to hear that Kimberly-Clark spent 20 years and $250 million hunting a wood-fiber replacement. The winner is hesperaloe, a long-leaved desert succulent. They had already tried about 70 other plants, bamboo and hemp included. Craig Slavtcheff called it a Goldilocks find and a moonshot. A pilot is running. Commercial scale is still a promise. I will not print this column. WRAPPING UP When not counting ways to get a rookie the ball, 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. SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES CONTACT Barry to sponsor the OBR. We have plans for nearly any budget! 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