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Browns' Season On HBO's "Hard Knocks" Garners Positive Reviews

Cajuste's struggle gave viewers insight into what a player on the roster bubble goes throughGETTY IMAGES

This year's "Hard Knocks" featuring the Browns, which concluded last night, "might be the best season yet of the HBO reality show," according to Jim Reineking of USA TODAY. The four fringe players who have been followed closely throughout the series -- rookie QB Brogan Roback, TE Devon Cajuste, and DEs Carl Nassib and Nate Orchard -- all are "highlighted through the team's final preseason game" in episode 5 before each "gets released as the Browns trim their roster to 53 players." The "most devastating cut was Cajuste," whose story on "Hard Knocks" "pulled on the heartstrings of viewers when we were introduced to his father, Gregory, who has endured three heart attacks, a stroke and a tracheotomy." Cajuste's personal story was as "good as 'Hard Knocks' has ever had, and his struggle gave the viewer valuable insight into what a player on the roster bubble goes through to make an NFL roster." Players' lives and their hopes and dreams "play out each NFL preseason on 'Hard Knocks.'" It is that "month-long human drama that makes this show so profoundly compelling" (USA TODAY, 9/5).

THE REAL MVP: THE RINGER’s Danny Heifetz writes offensive coordinator Todd Haley's comic relief "cemented him as the show’s MVP" in last night's finale. Cameras saw Haley "point out that the Rick Ross music blaring during practice seems at odds with the Sunday morning church services happening adjacent to the Browns’ practice field." Haley’s "true MVP form was on display as he verbally sparred with defensive coordinator Gregg Williams all August." Last night, he "unleashed his masterpiece." Haley, wearing a “Respect the Process” T-shirt, "turned to Williams in a meeting." Haley said, "I'm beginning to find out you have no life outside of this" (THERINGER.com, 9/5). SI.com's Jenny Vrentas wrote another breakout star "will, thankfully, continue to be a fixture in Cleveland: Bob Wylie, the Browns' offensive line coach who loathes stretching, uses film of rhinoceroses and gorillas to teach proper offensive lineman posture and went viral for a clip of his stomach moving up and down in harmony with the snap count." The cameras "definitely found Wylie, and we are glad for it" (SI.com, 9/4). 

VERDICT IS IN: In Akron, Nate Ulrich writes the "Hard Knocks" finale showed everyone at Browns HQ "talking about" LB Mychal Kendricks after federal prosecutors "charged him with insider trading Aug. 29." Kendricks "admitted guilt in a prepared statement, and the Browns cut him the same day." Coach Hue Jackson, GM John Dorsey and VP/Player Health & Development Joe Sheehan "watched the news in Jackson’s office as U.S. Attorney William McSwain announced Kendricks had been charged." In the next scene, Haley "popped into Dorsey’s office and asked, 'Is he going to jail?'" Later, Jackson told the players in a team meeting the Browns "would cut Kendricks" (AKRON BEACON JOURNAL, 9/5).

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