If Josh McCown is healthy, he'll play.
Browns coach Mike Pettine confirmed Thursday that if the veteran quarterback is cleared from the league's concussion protocol on Friday morning and practices well, he'll be the starter Sunday at home against the Tennessee Titans, per NFL Media's Steve Wyche.
"I don't see any reason we wouldn't play him," Pettine said.
In McCown's absence, backup Johnny Manziel was limited in practice with the first-team offense Thursday, with the recently signed Austin Davis also seeing a handful of snaps.
Losing practice time might hurt a newbie passer, but Pettine pointed to the fact that McCown, 36, is already familiar with the basic game plan for Tennessee.
"When you over-install for the opener," Pettine said, "and you're playing similar defensive styles Week 1 to Week 2 ... there's a lot of plays up that are up for this plan that he's already gotten multiple reps on, whether it was last week or even toward the end of training camp. When we game plan for the first quarter of the season and started to work some of that stuff late in training camp, it carries over."
Cleveland's season started disastrously, with McCown suffering the head injury on an opening-drive helicopter spin into the end zone that saw the quarterback lose the ball -- and the Browns lose their starter.
While Manziel had his moments against Gang Green, Pettine and play-caller John DeFilippo would like to get this offense back on track with their hand-picked starter.
