BEREA, Ohio — The Cleveland Browns have plenty of players on the roster who lead quietly by example. Guys like Nick Chubb, Amari Cooper, Donovan Peoples-Jones, Myles Garrett and Denzel Ward might not be the most vocal, but they aim to get their teammates to increase production through the work they put in on the field.
Those types of personalities can be found across the roster and even within the coaching staff and front office. The Browns are, no question, an even-keeled team for the most part.
However, two new additions to the roster are shaking things up a bit and bringing a bit of fire with their chippiness and back-and-forths during team drills—wide receiver Marquise Goodwin and safety Juan Thornhill.
"You got to find one person that's willing to talk back to you."
Last week the Browns wrapped up their mandatory minicamp in Berea, getting all of their players, new and returning, back in the building for some early offseason workouts. In any given practice session, stemming back even to voluntary OTAs, Goodwin and Thornhill could be heard chirping at each other from across the field.
No matter if it was the first or second team going through drills, the two egged each other on, bragging when their respective side made a play.
The energy from trash-talking, Thornhill said, is as good of a substitute as you can get to turning up the heat when practices are strictly in shorts, no pads and with no contact allowed.
"It's huge because you can't hit anybody, so you can't really bring anything to it, so the one thing you can do is just talk and cover each other. So that's just the main thing, just going out there, having fun and just bringing a lot of energy to practice and helping guys enjoy practice," Thornhill said.
The Browns' new safety, acquired in March, said he uses the trash talk to have fun and increase competition. But in order to effectively trash talk, you need someone opposite of you to keep it going. Thornhill easily found that person in Goodwin.
"You got to find one person that's willing to talk back to you. And Marquise is the guy that I'm going to talk to," Thornhill said. "When you're out there and you're talking trash back and forth, it just makes practice so much more better. It doesn't feel like you're working. It feels like you're just having fun and competing. That's what we have to do to make each other better."
"I'm definitely the initiator."
Goodwin, a seasoned vet who joined the Browns this spring, has been leading the charge for bringing come chippiness to the offense. Surrounded by the more quiet receivers like Cooper and Peoples-Jones, Goodwin has stood out with his outgoing, vocal leadership.
The push from Goodwin is an attempt to teach pressure even in practice sessions where there isn't much.
"I'm definitely the initiator. You got to get the energy right with the team. Sometimes if I feel like it's too light or it's too relaxed, we need to put the pressure on each other because in the games, it's not going to be easy," Goodwin said. "We've got to kind of practice that so when we get in the game, it's not fake. When we try to turn it on, we got the switch."
Goodwin's energy has pushed the offense to make big plays over the defense and gotten guys on the sideline fired up for even the most mundane 7-on-7 matchups.
It's all part of his goal to not only rev guys up on his side of the ball but to increase the competition and sharpen the irons of his teammates on the opposing side.
"They love it. It's really the defense—I'm trying to get the defense to make us respond. I want them to chirp at us and to see how my guys and myself will respond to adversity," Goodwin said. "It's not really negativity because it's coming from love, but just respond to whatever is being said that's unagreeable."
Deja vu for some, new spark for others
When it comes to the coaches on the Browns, they absolutely noticed the chirping between Goodwin and Thornhill. It's a different kind of energy than the team saw last year, for the most part. But some coaches, like safeties coach Ephraim Banda, are familiar with the two vocal players.
Banda, who is new to the team himself, worked with Goodwin at the University of Texas. This trash-talking, high-energy player is exactly the same as the one he knew in college.
"Not much has changed. He's always been fiery and competitive over his years as a Longhorn. So coming here and seeing him, it's a bit of a deja vu for me because it literally snapped me back to 10 years ago or whatever it's been," Banda said.
Coaching Thornhill directly and hearing the back-and-forth between him and Goodwin is something that Banda appreciates and enjoys seeing as they get to work preparing for the upcoming season.
"When they're going at it, it's been kind of fun. At the same time, I think it's just a highly competitive group, offense and defense," Banda said. "I think it's just fun, competitive nature and you want competitive people in this profession—you better have them."
Wide receivers coach Chad O'Shea shared similar sentiments.
O'Shea enjoys the contrast in Goodwin's personality in particular to the rest of the receivers room.
"We want them to have fun. We want them to have some energy. We like that and it's been good for our group because we do have a quiet group," O'Shea said. "We describe it as energy and a lot of times it's very positive energy and I think the main thing, as long as it doesn't take away from their job, is what's most important and it certainly hasn't. They've been very professional and are able to have fun at the same time."
"Definitely going to increase."
While minicamp is over and the players are off for the next few weeks before training camp begins, the trash-talk was just the start of the competition and friendly back-and-forth between the offense and defense.
If Thornhill has anything to say about it (and he's made it clear he's got plenty), the heat is only going to increase from here.
"It's definitely going to increase because I can put my hands on you, I can hit you and after I make a big hit on you, I'm going talk a little bit of trash talk," Thornhill promised.
Before they left the practice fields on the last day of minicamp, Thornhill shared a message to Goodwin:
"We won every day. Every day in OTAs, we won and he knows it," the safety said.
And when they get back on the field for training camp, Goodwin made a promise to Thornhill.
"If he loses to me in practice, I'm taking his Lamb truck and I'm going to own it, yeah," Goodwin said.
Whether Goodwin will be driving home in Thornhill's whip or if Thornhill will continue his winning streak will be determined when the trash talk between the two continues at training camp.
That kicks off on July 22 at The Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia.
Camryn Justice is a reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on Twitter @camijustice.
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