Welcome to the Junkyard: 'Dying to win,' Grant Delpit is here to change the Cleveland Browns forever
He wants the responsibility. He saw firsthand what it takes to build a cutthroat world in this sport. Now that the Cleveland Browns have a chance to build something new, Grant Delpit is ready to lead.
BEREA, Ohio — He’s clutching his cleats in one hand, his gloves in another.
Beads of sweat trickle down his temples.
His arms are crossed. His eyebrows are curved, and stern, and completely disinterested in hyping up himself or the team.
This is only his fifth season as a member of the Cleveland Browns but — standing here after a spring practice? — Grant Delpit sounds like a man who’s lived this organization’s immortal torment. The team’s hard-hitting safety doesn’t enjoy discussing “culture” and “rebuilding” because such topics are so hammed, so nebulous. By now, all locals have justifiably filtered out such corporate mumbo jumbo from their lives. Grandfathers still ail from Brian Sipe’s Red Right 88 floater and Earnest Byner’s fumble. Fathers survived Art Modell’s desertion. Sons lived the Johnny Manziel Fiasco, Hue Jackson’s rock bottom, the cruel 2019 bait and switch and, most recently, the Deshaun Watson trade.
Industrious Clevelanders do not want flowery promises. Only results.
Delpit, in that sense, is you.
Delpit, a winner his entire life, is also fed up.
Right here, he declares that enough is enough and embraces full responsibility as the leader who morphs the Browns into a team that’s something more than merely competent: Feared.
“Get comfortable with the uncomfortable,” Delpit says. “I want to do more. Whether that’s being more vocal. Whether that’s having guys at the crib. Whether that’s having extra meetings with the guys after. That’s really what’ll elevate my game and set a certain standard for even, shit, years from now when I’m not here. Guys can uphold it.”
In other words, Delpit is essentially preparing for a trip to Mars. The Browns have never experienced sustained winning. Yet, the kid who escaped Hurricane Katrina, who thrived in LSU’s violent world is determined to change everything we think about the Browns. To fully understand, travel back to the final game of a 3-14 season. By Jan. 4, they were a decomposing club with nothing but pride on the line against the Baltimore Ravens. This is not the locker room glorified in cinema. Delpit’s voice rose. “Look,” he said to everyone, “we find out who I’m going to ride with in 2025 in this game.” Safeties coach Ephraim Banda loved it.
“What Grant really wants?” Banda says. “Grant wants to win the Super Bowl because he’s a winner.”
The Browns were trampled that night by the Ravens. Sweeping roster changes ensued.
Both the front office and coaching staff acted as if they were following Delpit’s orders in seeking players who do not flinch when cold-cocked to jaw. This is a team hoping to stay competitive in the present (see: $40 million per year to Myles Garrett) while simultaneously pursuing a new youthful core and searching for that long-lost quarterback. Since their 1999 return, the Browns have cycled through 40 different starters. Four arms will compete this season and the Browns have the ammo to go quarterback hunting in 2026.
If there’s one lesson to glean from incinerating $230 million as well as your ’22, ’23 and ‘24 first-round picks, it’s that no team can simply press a button and become a Super Bowl contender. Only blood, sweat, tears — daily habits — will ultimately steer them out of purgatory. This organization doesn’t need to take its next quarterback swing yet. Win or lose, the goal is to serve as a perilous foe.
Delpit welcomes that responsibility. Both he and the team have been through hell.
The time’s right for No. 9 to be the official tone-setter.
Don’t know his name? That’s fine. Delpit doesn’t feel overlooked at all. (“I’ve got to pop more.”) Nobody expects a thing from Cleveland. He doesn’t care. (“Shit, that has nothing to do with us.”) Super Bowl dreams are dancing in the heads of the other three AFC North teams. Cleveland can play the antihero… and finally lay a foundation that lasts. As the Browns free themselves from Watson — the football player, if not the contract — this is an opportunity to create an entirely new world.
In this week’s 2025 NFL Season Preview feature, we examine what that world looks like.
One of this franchise’s greatest players ever — Hall of Famer Joe Thomas — survived 11 years of losing here. In Delpit, he sees a speck of light.
Go Long strives to bring you unfiltered pro football.
We’re your home for longform coverage in America’s game this 2025 season.
“He can obviously make plays,” Thomas says, “and also be that vocal leader that the defense really needs if they want to rally around this idea being the best, most physical, most dominant defense in the NFL.”
Fans have been bamboozled too many times. Trust is not earned overnight.
Banda knows any citizen in any line of work here in Cleveland will see themselves in Delpit.
To him, this 6-foot-3, 208-pound safety is a direct reflection of the city.
“He’s gritty. He’s tough. He’s hardworking. He’s a blue-collar guy,” Banda says. “But at the same time — like this city has a lot of charm — so does he. He’s got another side to him that has a lot of charisma. And when it comes to what he means to the Cleveland Browns, he epitomizes the city. His desire to compete every day shines through. The guy loves football. And in a division like this one, you need guys like him.”
Then, there’s Bill Busch. The man who coached defensive backs at LSU flat-out claims this player changed his life. Delpit was the soul of those 2019 national champs.
“Because here’s the deal,” Busch adds, “you only have culture one way: If your best players are your hardest workers.”
Delpit doesn’t care if the rest of the country views the Browns as the AFC’s official punching bag. Under his watch, the days of pussyfooting are over. Those who do not fit in with what he’s trying to build can kindly pack their belongings. The airport is a short 2.9 miles from the facility.
Pack your stuff and scram.
“We’re dying to win, man,” he says. “It’s time for me to do what I got to do.”
Mom and Dad didn’t explain why they were abruptly leaving New Orleans.
Six-year-old Grant Delpit thought this was nothing more than an impromptu vacation to Memphis. All he remembers is grabbing his Nintendo GameCube, a handful of clothes and his parents driving 400 miles north. That weekend, they all tried to enjoy themselves at the National Civil Rights Museum and then they cruised through a local zoo. Considering this was 2005, they were able to effectively detach themselves from the rest of the country. No phone alerts, no tweets or texts would spoil this getaway.
Upon returning to their hotel, however, the Delpits saw guests huddled around the TV in the lobby.
Not only did Hurricane Katrina swallow New Orleans—the worst of the storm was raging right through their exact neighborhood. They recognized the images on the screen. Two weeks later, Dad helicoptered over the wreckage.
From high above, Marc Delpit saw their home was gone.
There would be no returning to New Orleans.
“It was tough,” Grant says, “but I’m here now.”
How easily we forget that an entire generation of kids was traumatized by Katrina. Twelve years ago, I ate dinner with Packers rookie Eddie Lacy for a piece at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The burly running back admitted he never truly recovered from the storm. It robbed him of his childhood innocence — completely. He sounded severely damaged. Share this with Delpit, and the Browns safety nods. He, too, was forced to leave behind his old life for a new one in Houston. New friends, new everything.
Nobody died in his family — he knows other kids suffered far worse — but it wasn’t easy to start over from scratch. Mom (Endya), Dad (Marc), Sister (Grace) and Grant all moved in with Grant’s aunt on the west side of the city. Eleven people jammed into a house built for two.
“The first month, everybody got sick in the house. Super sick,” Delpit says. “That’s all I remember. Everybody being sick as hell in the house. Sharing beds. Stuff like that. We definitely had to just figure it out.”
Life in Houston hardened him — quick — especially when it came to his first love: football. He was always the runt of the roster. At age 8 and 9, he played against 11- and 12-year-olds. All the way up to high school, Delpit was the smallest kid on every single team. He got battered around. He took his lumps. (“That definitely hardened me.”) Delpit didn’t idolize offensive players, either. He was not the teen who harbored dreams of scoring touchdowns with choreographed celebrations in the end zone. No, the players he loved were those legends in the LSU secondary back in Louisiana: Patrick Peterson, Tyrann Mathieu, Jamal Adams.
His freshman year, he straight-up quit playing offense altogether.
His junior year, Delpit sprouted to 6 foot 2. All of a sudden, he was the one teeing off on chumps.
“I want to hit. I didn’t want to get hit,” says Delpit, smiling. “I want to inflict pain. I don’t want to take hits.
“You can play the bad guy, the villain role. I love doing it.”
Far back as he can remember, Delpit has been hardwired to “separate the man from the ball.” Striking 5-9 and 5-10 receivers at 6-3 today is not easy. Park Avenue Suits seem to forget they’re legislating humans, not robots. Zeroing in on this craft so early primed Delpit — he can navigate this infuriating terrain. As a senior in high school, he transferred to prestigious IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., where ex-Buccaneers cornerback Donnie Abraham served as his DC.
LSU was the natural college choice.
LSU also was a wake-up call. It didn’t take Delpit long to realize life is different in the bayou. He enrolled early that spring, ran with the ones, and admits he should’ve known there was a bounty on his head. The king of all hitting drills in Baton Rouge — a test of manhood — is the 9-on-7 inside running drill. It’s simple, really. “You know it’s a run,” Delpit says. “You’ve got to fit that bitch up.” His first adversary? The SEC’s reigning rushing champ. The prior fall, Derrius Guice led the conference with 1,387 rushing yards, 7.6 yards per carry and 16 touchdowns. Delpit filled the hole, broke Guice down and… there was just one problem.
He assumed players weren’t going all-out. He attempted to “thud up” Guice and the 218-pound running back rendered him road kill.
“Ran me smooth over,” Delpit says. “I’m on my ass. I’m on my back. Everybody was like, ‘Ooooo!’ That was like my ‘Welcome to LSU’ moment. … It was a dog-eat-dog world there. Everybody just wanted to be greater than whoever came before them.”
Ask anyone in the pros who was once an LSU Tiger — be it for Nick Saban, Les Miles or Ed Orgeron — and they’ll vehemently argue the physicality of the sport is preserved here. Players often speak of those LSU practices with Fight Club-like caution: What happens in the swamp stays in the swamp.
Busch, the DBs coach, recalls those 9 on 7 sessions with the same reverence. If one of your chinstraps was unbuckled, there was a good chance your helmet would go airborne. “The drill of all drills,” he calls it. And in his thunderous Cajun accent, Orgeron stressed to all players that opponents would be “unable” or “unwilling” to match his Tigers’ resolve. The best way Busch can describe life here was that Coach O treated each day like it was “fourth and 1.” If you had a jersey on your back, you fought for those 36 inches. LSU won national titles with Saban (’03), Miles (’07) and Orgeron (’19) and Busch knows Coach O took this whole “going hard” philosophy to a new level.
To him, the speed in which LSU practiced was even more intense than the physicality.
Whenever coaches and players walked off the practice field, every square inch of clothing was drenched in sweat.
“I know it’s Baton Rouge, I get it. But I’m talking squishy,” Busch says. “Your shoes. You sweat through everything 10 times over. Because even as coach, you were working so hard to get your players ready. That was the anticipation. ‘O’ coached a million miles an hour.”
Delpit was the player who brought O’s vision to life because Delpit fully understood who came before him. His guiding light in the sport was the Honey Badger, a 2011 Heisman finalist and a top 10 all-time college player in his book. He took immense pride in wearing the school’s famed No. 7. On Saturdays, Delpit was a feral predator in his own right.
Says Busch: “He can flip a switch into extreme anger on the football field.”
All of which creates a jarring juxtaposition.
As Delpit raves about one culture, he’s wearing the colors of a pro team that has represented quite another. These Browns have been searching… and searching… and searching for an identity of their own since opening the doors to their stadium on the shores of Lake Erie 27 years ago. Now, they’re plotting a move to a new stadium.
I ask Delpit what little things go into maintaining the badass ecosystem he lived in Baton Rouge.
He never realized it was different in the moment. Only later.
“It’s the standard, the expectation of what you’ve got to do every single play,” Delpit says. “It’s just different. You don’t want to be that one guy that’s not upholding the standard. A lot of people talk about standards everywhere, but it’s a hard thing to implement. I think we took a little bump last year. We definitely had the right environment, right algorithm our 2023 year.”
He’s right. There are bursts of hope.
The Browns’ defense finished No. 1 in the league two years ago. Myles Garrett may be the best pure football player in the sport. Kevin Stefanski has won Coach of the Year twice. When healthy, this Wyatt Teller-powered offensive line can bully opponents. What’s lacking is direction — someone who effectively turns this 120-yard field into a junkyard. The locker room is bound to emulate the most talented players. What time they show up. How they take notes. How they finish drills. How they hit. That’s why Delpit says point-blank that establishing a new standard is not about talk, not anything that’s neatly typed in 12-point Times New Roman font on a sheet of paper.
Permanently changing the Cleveland Browns boils down to making plays.
“You can say all the right things off the field,” Delpit says, “but when you get on that field — and you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do, and I’m not punching the ball, I’m not thuddin’ how I'm supposed to be thuddin,’ I’m not doing everything I’ve got to do in practice to be a great player? What I’ve realized is I’ve got to make everybody else around me better and that’s also going to elevate my game as well.
“I’m taking that step this year.”
The 2019 LSU Tigers will be remembered for the ridiculously unfair sight of Joe Burrow heaving bombs to both Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson. Their 63- and 42-point detonations in the college football playoff seem AI generated.
Yet, those sights were only possible because of what occurred in the third quarter of an Oct. 26 game at Auburn.
Back when one SEC loss could poison-pill your season, LSU was locked in a 10-10 tie. Auburn’s D.J. Williams cradles a handoff at his own 17-yard line, hesitates a split-second and hits the gas. Very quickly, this looks like a sure touchdown. There’s nothing between Williams and the end zone but green. And yet? The lone DB in the frame doesn’t quit. Arms pumping, Grant Delpit steadily gains ground, launches his body, dives and… swipes at Williams’ legs with the force of a hatchet to veer him out of bounds at the 9-yard line.
LSU stops Auburn the next three plays, forces a field goal and ultimately wins 23-20.
Ease up a millisecond? Williams scores, LSU loses, the dream season is at-risk of fizzling out. Alabama was next.
“That was the most meaningful play that he ever made during my time,” says Busch.
These Browns are starving for such a seminal moment. Their own player making his own play that defies logic.
Busch knows it’s coming.
“When you push all your chips in on certain people,” Busch says, “you want to go all-in on competitive spirit. That’s what Grant led with: competitive spirit. When the ball was snapped, he wanted in on everything. Every play. At all times. And he practiced like that, too.”
Head to toe, body and mind, the former LSU DBs coach then examines exactly why Delpit is what these Browns need.
Intelligence. At LSU, Delpit graded in the 99th percentile of a processing test administered to all players. He could anticipate plays at warp speed. The best way Busch can explain Delpit’s instincts? He likens it to a slugger in baseball reacting to a slider, curveball or 104 MPH fastball in real time or a point guard in basketball knowing when to attack, when to dish, when to pop a jumper with a full grasp of all moving parts. “When something happened,” Busch says, “he could react to it in a faster time than anybody I had ever coached before.” For reference, Busch spent 34 years coaching at Nebraska, Wisconsin, Utah and Rutgers, in addition to those title-winning Tigers.
Adds Busch: “Grant could see 21 people in front of him moving and process all that at a ridiculous rate.”
Football IQ fueled those instincts. Ahead of each play — based on research all week — the Thorpe Award winner ran probabilities through his mind. Based on the down and distance, quarterback tendencies, etc., he’d make a calculated guess at what was coming next. He earned the right to play a blink faster than the other 21.
Each Friday, Busch had his DBs complete a test on the gameplan.
Delpit finished his test, Busch says, “in a nanosecond.”
“Spirit animal.” This is how Busch describes Depit’s effect on the entire Tigers team, pointing first to the 2019 SEC title game. Right when Georgia was showing life — getting a stop vs. Burrow — Delpit supplied the KO blow. On second and 8, leading 14-3, he timed up a blitz perfectly from the safety position to sack Jake Fromm. The QB’s ankle was twisted badly and he needed help off the field. LSU romped, 37-10.
These days, Busch watches the Browns religiously. He doesn’t want to besmirch NFL coaches but he’d also like to politely offer one suggestion to Jim Schwartz’s staff: Unleash Delpit near the line of scrimmage. Too often, he sees the Browns deploying Delpit far away from the ball.
Yes, he’s talented in coverage. But Delpit blew up SEC offenses in the muck.
“You have a Troy Polamalu,” Busch says. “His game was where? Forward. His game was toward the LOS. That’s Grant’s game. He also has the ability to do it on the other end, which just honestly freaked me out. But if he had his choice? He wanted to be up in it because he would put his face on anybody. That’s where Grant became Grant.”
Take another Coach O special: his 1-on-1 drill to start each practice.
Six inches apart, players blasted into each other. If your hands are an inch off? You’re toast. You fall backward. But this also revealed which players had the best quick-twitch explosion. Busch can see Delpit vs. an LSU starter right now. “His explosion?” he says. “He put the guy on his back. I’ve never seen anyone have that type of explosion with that type of range.” In the AFC North — a bareknuckle brawl — the Browns would be wise to let Delpit roam and blitz.
Leader. On a squad loaded with future NFL stars, Delpit carried the most gravitas. When he spoke, everyone shut up because everyone saw what he endured. At the end of that Auburn game in ’19, Delpit suffered a high ankle sprain. A bye week helped, but LSU was also staring down the barrel of Tua Tagovailoa, Jerry Jeudy, DeVonta Smith, Henry Ruggs III and Najee Harris the following Saturday.
Delpit didn’t practice. Didn’t do anything except for a walkthrough up to gameday. Busch recalls LSU’s training dabbling in stem-cell treatment — Delpit was not missing this game.
He played every snap.
In the national title game, vs. Clemson, he suffered a strained hamstring and sucked it up. His forced fumble with four minutes left iced the title.
“That’s the kind of courage he had,” says Busch.
With Delpit, Busch felt displaced in a “Bizarro World.” These plays weren’t normal. His entire career, he’s seen too many DBs bail on that Auburn chase-down.
This heart is exactly what Delpit was trying to convey to his Browns teammates ahead of their final game last season.
Cleveland seeks hardened minds, you say? After going No. 44 overall in the 2020 draft, Delpit’s pro career got off to a nightmare start when he tore his Achilles in training camp. That’s why one Browns source pinpoints Delpit as the “epitome” of what they’re seeking team-wide. “That whole overcoming adversity thing?” this source says. “If anybody knows about coming back from something that’s tough and still being able to perform, it’s him.” Last season, too many Browns players quit mid-stride during those Auburn-like plays. This season, it won’t be acceptable.
Ephraim Banda, the safeties coach, goes way back with Delpit. He actually tried to recruit him to the University of Miami. When he got this Browns job in 2023, the assistant coach sent Delpit a picture of themselves back in those recruiting days eating milkshakes at a ‘Canes baseball game. That early, he had a suspicion this kid from New Orleans wasn’t just good. Rather, a potential NFL great.
Now, he’s witnessing it daily.
“The mentality,” Banda says, “to attack everything. An everyday attitude of getting after it. An everyday attitude of loving to compete. If there’s a football on the field — and there’s a play going on — Grant Delpit wants to win it and he wants to compete in it. He’s not the guy that enjoys standing on the sideline and not being in the mix.”
That’s what made last season so unbearable. Three wins? Banda assures it all “killed” Delpit. Memories of last season alone visibly disgust the 26-year-old. A humiliating experience to this degree — being outscored by 177 points — demands a total psychological reboot. Banda cites Delpit as the ultimate “foundation guy” for a team that must turn games into street fights.
Says Banda: “Everyone’s going to wear the t-shirt that says ‘We’re tough.’ But is it real? And do you have to deal with it every day like you have to do in Cleveland?”
After a while, Banda quit counting the losses. The final scores were grisly. Still, he implores us all to isolate on Delpit as the games became utterly meaningless. Delpit finished with 111 tackles (seven for loss). “Put the Ravens game on,” he says, “put the Dolphins game on the last two games of the year and this dude is just getting after it. That speaks to who he is.” The idea of replaying a quarterback duel between Tyler Huntley and Dorian Thompson-Robinson sounds appealing as competing in a face-slapping competition. But look closely. There are flickers of hope in Delpit chopping down turbo-fast DeVon Achane on a quick screen for one yard and dinging Huntley on a blitz for an errant incompletion and stoning Achane for minus-1 yard all in the first seven minutes of the Dolphins loss.
The next week, he rattled Lamar Jackson into a fourth-and-1 overthrow and strutted to the sideline in jubilation.
Let’s all remember. Perpetual losers have awoken from the dead the last half-decade alone. The Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions and Cincinnati Bengals have all experienced total revivals. Supreme quarterback is obviously a major reason why but all three teams can also pinpoint Big Bang moments before their QBs took flight. The Bills ended their 17-year playoff drought before drafting Josh Allen. A pack of misfits went 9-7. At one point, Dan Campbell was 4-19-1 as the Lions’ head coach. But all along, he was identifying a new DNA for his team. Heartbreaking losses flipped to wins. The 2022 finale at Lambeau Field that proved to be Aaron Rodgers’ final game as a Packer served as this group’s breakthrough. Even the Bengals’ rise can be traced back to their 2-10-1 edition in 2020 hosting the 11-2 Steelers on Monday Night Football.
Burrow, a rookie, was on IR. There was nothing at stake.
The sight of JuJu Smith-Schuster TikTok’ing on the team’s logo at midfield pissed players off and — kaboom! — Vonn Bell sent the Steelers receiver into tomorrow.
The Browns are wandering in the quarterback wilderness, albeit with a compass. If Joe Flacco’s magic carpet ride picks up where it left off… or if Kenny Pickett enjoys a Darnold-like resurgence… or if either Dillon Gabriel/Shedeur Sanders flash promise, hey, that’s swell. If all miss, they’ll be in position to pursue an arm in 2026. The Browns also own Jacksonville’s first-round pick next spring. Kevin Stefanski doesn’t need to instruct his players to smash into each other at a Coach O level, but these Browns should do everything in their power to turn Berea into an homage to the sport’s past.
This doesn’t have to be a lost season. One play in one game could serve as Cleveland’s tipping point.
The tanking was shameless. Through the 4-44 stretch to end his NFL career, Joe Thomas looked around and didn’t see much talent. At all. Vets on the roster understood the deal and, yeah, it’s hard to hear your alarm blare at 5 a.m. knowing damn well your bosses in the front office prefer you stink at your profession. Cleveland drafted 36 players those three miserable years. Apparently, the analytic geeks running the show assumed more lever pulls at the slot machine meant more opportunities at hitting the jackpot.
Thomas did his job as only Thomas could.
But when the best player these Browns have known since their rebirth in ‘99 thinks back to the front office truly not giving a damn about winning games, all he can do is laugh.
On the phone, there’s an audible chuckle.
Those naïve rookies thought Cleveland actually had a chance to contend.
“They have no idea,” Thomas says. “We had a couple quarterbacks that were good college quarterbacks. Perspective is everything in life. So you’ve got these rookies like, ‘Hey! DeShone Kizer! He was a great quarterback. I remember playing against him. He was amazing. We’re going to be great!’ And, ‘Kevin Hogan! Oh man, he was great at Stanford. I remember playing against him. We’re loaded. Look at all these All-Americans.’ It’s good to be helplessly oblivious when you’re a young player like that because you don’t understand the business.”
Nobody in Cleveland ever wants to see a regime disembowel its roster to this degree again. As one exec in the Philadelphia Eagles’ front office explained to Go Long, too many young GMs assume tearing it all down and playing a wave of 22- and 23-year-olds is smart because those young players have a chance to learn on the job. In truth, those young players too often develop terrible habits. The carcass of so much losing still reeks through your building, too.
Through his 10,363 consecutive snaps, Thomas saw firsthand how everything goes wrong.
Then, in retirement, he saw these Browns flush $230 million down the toilet.
Finally, he believes they’re figuring out a way to compete in the present while plotting for the future.
“They did a good job setting themselves up if they do need to pick a quarterback next year, but also not just mortgaging everything you’ve got right now for the future,” Thomas says. “We’ve been down that road before. I lived it when they were just gutting the roster and completely playing for the future. But you obviously don’t want to do that when you’ve got the level of talent that they have across the board.”
That’s the plan. One Browns source brings up the Washington Commanders. Jayden Daniels was electric in Year 1 but a major reason why he threw for 3,568 yards, rushed for 891 and scored 31 touchdowns through a 12-5 season was that Adam Peters and Dan Quinn wasted zero time filling their roster with talent.
GM Andrew Berry and Stefanski still have the horses that powered the NFL’s No. 1 defense in ’23. They’re also making a concerted effort to seek a new core. Until they find a quarterback, there should be no talk of winning the division for the first time since 1989. But the Browns can establish a rugged identity. The Browns can turn their field into a scene from those LSU practices. The first shock of the offseason was Cleveland getting a long-term deal done with Garrett. As a rule of thumb, it’s smart to keep players who’ll wear a gold jacket — Garrett has prime years in the tank.
Given truth serum, however, even the Browns would admit their prized possession is not an A+ model of leadership.
That’s where Delpit factors in. He’s the one who must crack those proverbial eggs, chase those chickens, climb mountains in Russia, scream “Drago!” and eventually make opponents twitch in terror.
A day in his life? Delpit is guarded. Delpit only promises he’s doing everything in his power to maximize this opportunity by pouring money into body specialists and trainers and chefs. He isn’t pleased with producing zero turnovers last season. Wherever he’s lining up — at the line, deep — Delpit plans on taking the ball away in 2025. Facing two MVP candidates twice a year in Jackson and Burrow isn’t ideal. But in Garrett, the Browns have a weapon up front. In Denzel Ward, they’ve got the third-best cornerback in the sport. In Delpit, a roaming chess piece. Back at LSU, he relished their mental warfare during practice — trying to decipher when this ultra-, ultra-cerebral quarterback was trying to fool him into moving left or right with his eyes.
Thomas wouldn’t be surprised at all if ball control on offense helps the defense boomerang back to No. 1 form. To him, rotten QB play constantly put the defense in bad situations last season. He calls the Deshaun Watson situation “a dark cloud” over the team. Thus, a rebooted quarterback room presents an opportunity for a new identity team-wide. Delpit’s the one with the pen in-hand.
“He’s got the right attitude,” Thomas says. “He’s confident. He’s got swagger to him. And I think that’s what you want to be if you’re going to be a leader in the secondary.”
Of course, Thomas has also heard more “culture” spiels than anyone from his era. Changing everything we think about the Cleveland Browns boils down to your best players being game-changers.
If those players are the ones living at the facility, everyone else is bound to follow. To believe.
If Cleveland can manufacture even average QB play, he sees a winning season on the horizon.
“They could make some noise,” Thomas says. “I’m not sure they’re going to win the Super Bowl because they don’t have that guy at quarterback that can knock off a Patrick Mahomes or Lamar Jackson in the playoffs. But hey, if you’ve got a No. 1 defense and you can run the ball a little bit — which I think they will be able to do this year — and you don’t turn the ball over on offense? The Kevin Stefanski playbook is very, very friendly to find big plays no matter who’s out there. That’s going to be really, really key for them. Find some big plays. Ball control offense. Don’t turn it over. And then have that defense playing at the level they were a couple years ago.”
All that’s needed is a voice to follow.
Banda wants to see a little piece of Grant Delpit in every single player from Week 1-on. His toughness, his personality. He says it must all “shine through the defense.” Back at LSU — hell, back as a kid in Houston — Delpit never imagined losing 14 games in a season. Busch knows his prized pupil will figure out a way to get others on his level.
“They’re going to listen to him,” Busch says. “In football, it’s real easy. You know who all the real dudes are and you know who the imposters are. He’s the one guy that can pull ‘em out of it.”
Not that anyone outside of this pocket of Ohio expects a thing this season.
The Browns’ quarterback room is being ridiculed as the worst in the NFL.
The Browns play exactly zero primetime games this season.
Right now, they’re the homecoming opponent for teams. A sure victory.
Says Delpit: “We’ve never had any hype around our team. Ever. So, it’s nothing new.”
He’s not smiling but it sure appears that this is exactly how Grant Delpit wants everyone thinking. Cleveland wraps up its season with Pittsburgh in Week 17, then Cincinnati in Week 18. By then, there should be no need for Delpit to tell his teammates to play hard.
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