Mangini expects Harrison to "seize the opportunity"
Hindsight is 20-20.
Browns general manager Tom Heckert asserts that the Browns still would have traded into the second round to draft Tennessee running back Montario Hardesty, who will miss the 2010 season with a torn ACL, even though Hardesty had a laundry list of injuries in his past.
"Was it riskier than a guy that had never been injured?" Heckert said Sunday on a conference call, per Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. "Yeah, but we felt comfortable when we took him that he was going to be OK. We obviously brought him in for physicals and we spent a lot of time with our doctors, and we felt comfortable doing that."
Heckert is confident in Hardesty's ability to come back next season.
With Hardesty out for the year though, Jerome Harrison, his main competition for carries, should receive the bulk of work within the Browns' ground game although both James Davis and Peyton Hillis will be involved.
Cabot tweeted this morning that coach Eric Mangini "expects Jerome Harrison to 'seize the opportunity' to be the No. 1 man and 'run with it.' "
Looking back at the 2009 season, Harrison essentially did all of his damage in four games (Week 4 and Weeks 15-17). During those four games, he received 29+ carries in each of them and rushed for 682 of his 862 yards in the season.
From Week 5 to 14, however, Harrison never went over ten carries in any game.
So, in other words, what Mangini expects (and what we expect Mangini) to do in September can quickly change in October (or at any time).
