The Cleveland Browns are treating Friday's Orange and Brown scrimmage like it's an away game.
The team will leave Berea on Thursday afternoon for Columbus. This evening, meetings will take place in the team hotel. The coaching staff wants the players fully rested because the club will be assessing the results more than they would a day of training camp practice.
"It's definitely more weighted," wide receiver Brian Hartline said. "Going to Ohio Stadium and calling it a scrimmage puts a little more pressure on guys – (they) understand it's highly evaluated."
Televised on NFL Network, the Orange and Brown scrimmage will be conducted similarly to how it was a year ago at InfoCision Stadium in Akron. The first-team offense will go against the first-team defense, the second-team offense against the second-team defense, and so-on and so forth. Also expect a kicking competition at halftime and various other drills.
"We'll do some 7-on-7 work and some crossover work with the line," coach Mike Pettine said. "Some one-on-one blocking and maybe some group protection stuff to get them some reps there. All of the coaches submitted their plan for their guys and it's up to coordinators to put that together. I think that's tentatively, now, what the plan is."
Pettine surprised reporters Thursday when he said the tentative plan is to have quarterback Johnny Manziel take some repetitions with the starting unit. Manziel has not received such snaps through seven days of training camp. Pettine also made it clear quarterback Josh McCown will not be taking snaps with the second-string and is "firmly" the Browns' No. 1 quarterback.
In Pettine's eyes, Manziel has taken a big mental leap during this training camp.
"The one play he made where defense was a heavy blitz look, he walked up, changed the protection, stepped up in the pocket and threw a touchdown pass," Pettine said. "That was probably, start to finish, his best play of camp … It was more preparation than anything else. I just think he has so much more of an intimate knowledge of what we're doing."
