The idea of switching to wide receiver first came to Ohio State quarterback Braxton Miller in April, when he discussed it with strength coach Mickey Marotti. In May, he brought up the possibility to coach Urban Meyer and the two began watching film of star wide receivers together. Later that month, Miller began sneaking on the practice field at night to catch balls from quarterback J.T. Barrett. Miller kept the potential switch from quarterback to receiver secret, a fallback plan in case he couldn’t return fully healthy to playing quarterback after two shoulder surgeries, the latter which caused him to miss all of last season.
Miller’s fallback plan has become a reality, as he told SI.com on Thursday night that he plans to start the 2015 season playing H-Back—a hybrid receiver position—for the Buckeyes. Miller hasn’t completely closed the door on playing quarterback, as he estimates that he’ll spend 80% of the time during training camp at receiver and 20% with the quarterbacks. But Miller said with more than two months until he’ll be completely healthy at quarterback, he’s approaching this season as primarily a wide receiver.
“For the most part, it’s going to be H-Back and punt return,” Miller said in a phone interview on Thursday night. “It’s a long process to get back totally to throwing and throwing every day. This is the smarter thing for right now, God blessed me with a lot of talent and different opportunities. I’m going to have fun with that and still score a lot of touchdowns and help the team out and be dominant at that.”
And just like that the quarterback picture for Ohio State suddenly becomes a lot more clear. It’ll be JT Barrett v Cardale Jones for starting offense, place at the table.
If we’re being honest, the idea of Braxton Miller in the H-Back role kind of makes it move a little. Getting him in space with Jet Sweeps, quick passes… OH LAWD. Plus he said in the SI article he’ll also be returning punts. This Ohio State team is going to be absolutely LOADED with talent on the offensive side. Just think of a backfield of Cardale/JT, Ezekiel Elliott, and Braxton Miller. Who’s stopping that? #PrayForTheBigTen #PrayForTheSEC #PrayForBama
But wait. The Cardinals have had some success recently and apparently that was lost on whoever is running the Browns Twitter account because the Cardinals shot back with this:
A lot of the blogs and the pundits out there are going to be like “LOL Browns” and “Browns gonna Brown” but not me. Nope. Won’t do it. I love that the Browns took a shot at another team. If you’ve read anything on this website before, you might have noticed that we’re HUGE fans of false confidence. It doesn’t matter if you suck, always carry yourself like you’re the best. That’s how I want my sports teams to act and that’s how I want the fans of my sports team to act. Sure the stats and history of the team won’t back you up, but I want my team to go out swinging. Ruffle some feathers. Piss some people off on Twitter. It’s not like the Browns were tweeting at the ’85 Bears, it’s the fucking Arizona Cardinals.
If I ran the Browns social media accounts I would act like it’s my first day in the prison yard. What do you do on the first day of prison? You find the biggest baddest sonofabitch and you slug him across the face. You want to give off that “There’s a new sheriff in town, don’t fuck with me” vibe.
I’d start talking shit to the best teams in the NFL on Twitter:
@Patriots Hey congrats on those Super Bowls***** ps- We fired your head coach. Enjoy our sloppy seconds.
@Seahawks Way to pass on the 1 yard line you doofuses!
@Packers Brandon. Bostick.
@Broncos Enjoy losing in the Divisional round this year.
So I say good first step, Browns. Let’s build on this and start going after the big dogs in the NFL. Shoot for the moon and if you miss you’ll land among the stars.
Bottlegate 