PHILADELPHIA — There was only one way for the Browns and Eagles offensive lines to end their second and final joint practice on Thursday: by throwing back a couple of cold ones.
Browns Pro Bowl left guard Joel Bitonio and the rest of the starting O-line were greeted by a couple of Eagles Pro Bowlers. right tackle Lane Johnson and injured left guard Landon Dickerson, between two of the practice fields at the NovaCare Complex.
Dickerson brought out a green soft cooler with Miller Lite emblazoned on the side. The group stood chatting, laughing and drinking, jerseys rolled up as the sun beat down.
“It looked like a Gatorade can to me,” Bitonio said with a laugh, keeping up some plausible deniability. “But no, it was a nice gesture.
“The O-linemen suffer together sometimes, so it’s always a bond. Even on other teams. We respect each other’s games and stuff, so it was a nice gesture.”
It’s peak O-line culture. And the respect and commiseration between the two units is understandable after the last two days.
During each practice, feels-like temps were hovering around 100 degrees. Both units also expended a ton of energy containing some of the top D-lines in the game.
For the Eagles, it was all about trying to limit star edge rusher Myles Garrett and rookie DT Mason Graham.
Garrett created the most havoc throughout the two days of practice, getting at least 2.5 sacks on Wednesday and another one on Thursday.
“Myles is a freak,” said Philadelphia left tackle Jordan Mailata (who quipped that he “didn’t get that invite” when asked about his teammates sharing some beers with the Browns). “But like I said, man, when you go up against the best … you’re able to learn from the next rep.”
The Browns, meanwhile, struggled against Eagles DTs Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis and Moro Ojomo in coordinator Vic Fangio’s five-down front.
On Wednesday, the group really got the best of the Browns in the run game in particular.
“All three of those guys are great players,“ Bitonio said. ”They play hard. I think Jalen Carter obviously was one of the best D-tackles in the game last year, and Jordan Davis has slimmed down and is playing hard, so it’s a good challenge.
“But it’s great to do it in a practice where you can try something if it doesn’t quite work right here, you know not to try that in the game.”
When the Browns went back and watched Wednesday film, Bitonio said some of the biggest issues in getting the run game going were due to missed assignments along the line.
It was something that became a priority to fix on Thursday morning ahead of the second session.
“I think we had 70 some plays (on Wednesday) and there was a lot of MAs and we were like, ‘Hey, if we’re not going to even give ourselves assignments correctly, we’re not going to have a chance here,’” Bitonio said. “So just playing a new defense, seeing a few looks that we hadn’t seen on film yet, and just understanding, hey, we can communicate up there and find a way to pick it up correctly.”
This kind of battle was to be expected considering both teams pride themselves on being built in the trenches, and find so much identity and star power there.
In fact, arguably the biggest star sighting on the field Thursday was Cleveland Heights native and former All-Pro Eagles center Jason Kelce — fresh off his wildly popular interview with brother Travis Kelce and his girlfriend Taylor Swift on the Kelce Brothers’ New Heights Podcast — who stood between fields chatting with Browns owner Jimmy Haslam prior to the beginning of practice.
The two teams also know one another well and have similar philosophies when it comes to winning up front.
Head coaches Kevin Stefanski and Nick Sirianni are friends and have worked well through two previous sets of joint practices in 2022 and 2023. Browns DC Jim Schwartz is a former Eagles defensive coordinator and won a Super Bowl in Philadelphia in 2017. Browns GM Andrew Berry had a previous stint in Philly working under GM Howie Roseman, and his twin brother, Adam Berry, is the Eagles VP of football operations and strategy. Browns assistant GM Catherine Hickman also had a previous stop working in the Eagles front office under Roseman.
So while neither unit was perfect in either day, in many ways it was to be expected.
Everyone knew what they were getting into in these joint practices because they’ve done them before and they knew the opponent well. These sessions are about trial and error, and picking the brains of some of the other best players in the league that you won’t have to see in the regular season.
The point is not to be perfect, but to learn from the struggles in a controlled environment.
It’s a lot of work to get done in a short amount of time, so unwinding with a couple of cold “Gatorades,” as Bitonio called them, was the perfect button.
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