Between now and game time, I’ll use this space to focus on each of the six former Browns on the 53-man roster who will return to Cleveland this Sunday.
Like Chad Mustard — the last entry in this blog mini-series — Michael Myers doesn’t hold the Browns any ill will. If anything, the disruptive defensive tackle owes the Browns a measure of gratitude for procuring him.
“They came in and gave me a chance when Dallas didn’t want me,” Myers recalled. “So I thank them for that.”
Specifically, he can thank Broncos defensive line/tackles coach Andre Patterson, who coached him with the Dallas Cowboys, then campaigned for the Broncos to bring him aboard after Dallas opted to cast him aside in 2003.
“Everybody kind of had their roster set, so he didn’t have a home,” Patterson said in 2005. “That was one of the times I was on the table, banging on my chest to try to get our guys in Cleveland to sign him. We just didn’t have any room. We had some injuries take place and we brought Mike in, and they all fell in love with Mike.”
It was Myers’ consistent play that sold Patterson on him.
“I can pick any game that I’ve coached of Mike for five years and throw it on. That’s a clinic tape. I can coach a clinic off the way he plays,” Patterson said when the Broncos traded for Myers. “Not to say that he didn’t ever get blocked or beat. But as far as what you do with your hands, what you do with your feet and how you play a block, it is perfect on how you coach it.
“That’s the part that’s refreshing for me, because you know it’s important to him. That’s the great thing to me about Mike. I only have to tell him one time and he’s going to learn it. He’s going to master it. He’s going to go out and do it in the game. What we work on during the week — when you turn the tape on Sunday, he’s going to go out and do it in the game.”
Patterson’s praise proved prophetic. While he didn’t have the first-round pedigree of fellow former Browns Ebenezer Ekuban, Courtney Brown, Kenard Lang and Gerard Warren, he brought tenacity and steadiness to the defensive front in Denver, and that was rewarded with a starting-lineup slot that he’s held since his arrival.
“It was a plus for me, coming in and getting a chance to start,” Myers said. “I knew the defense from playing in Dallas, so it was a great idea for me to come up here.”
He also was thrust onto a team that was a consistent winner, whose rebuilding phase was long since complete, a team that has spent its offseason focused on making tweaks on an engine to get more efficiency and output from an already smoothly-running machine.
“(The Browns) are in a rebuilding phase now, so I’m glad I’m not a part of the rebuilding,” Myers said. “I’m getting too old for rebuilding.”
Tags: Andre Patterson, Defense, Defensive linemen, Michael Myers