WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — Andrew Berry is not excited about what the eyes of others outdoors of the Browns’ group should say about quarterback Deshaun Watson. The one ones that matter to the staff’s basic supervisor are his personal.

Berry’s admittedly biased in some regards there, having been the overall supervisor who swung the 2022 commerce with the Houston Texans to convey Watson to Cleveland. Nevertheless, whereas many outdoors of the Browns’ facility are questioning the validity of the quarterback practically 4 years faraway from his final full season, he totally believes the 28-year-old stays among the finest quarterbacks within the league.

And why is that, one could ask Berry?

“Yeah, I feel it’s simply seeing him on daily basis,” Berry stated throughout his coaching camp availability Monday at The Greenbrier. “Seeing how he prepares, seeing how he works in observe. Seeing how he pertains to his coaches. I feel our largest focus with Deshaun is simply ensuring that he’s accessible. I feel the remaining will deal with itself.”

The entire thing about being accessible has been one thing of a hang-up for Watson since he bought to the Browns. The 2 earlier seasons have led to 12 whole begins in Cleveland for the previous 2017 first-round choose and three-time Professional Bowler.

The Browns hoped final season — after Watson got here again from his 11-game personal-conduct coverage suspension as a result of greater than two dozen lawsuits by girls alleging sexual misconduct and sexual assault throughout therapeutic massage appointments — can be the one which confirmed what Berry was seeing. As a substitute, a damaged glenoid on Nov. 12 led to season-ending shoulder surgical procedure 9 days later.

That is led to a different offseason of inquiries to anybody related to the Browns about Watson. These questions encompass how he can present them with a whole season in order that, lastly, an trustworthy evaluation about his efficiency might be handed down.

Till then, each offseason throw, each coaching camp rep, will tackle a lifetime of their very own for Watson. And result in inquiries to Berry about the place issues stand along with his QB.

“We’ve been more than happy with Deshaun,” Berry stated. “I feel you’ve all seen that he’s actually labored his tail off when it comes to his shoulder rehab over actually just like the previous yr, had a very robust spring. You already know, he’s carried out a very nice job right here early at camp, so we really feel like he’s in an incredible place each bodily and mentally and stay up for an enormous yr.”

Watson’s ramp-up has gone to a distinct stage since coaching camp started. He is gone from simply beginning to throw on March 18 to throwing each different day in particular person drills throughout OTAs to throwing each different day to including 7-on-7 drills to his repertoire in minicamp in June.

Coaching camp has seen Watson on the sector and throwing on daily basis over the primary 4 practices. That is included some restricted 11-on-11 drills towards the protection, most of which occurred on Friday and Saturday.

Requested if Watson was totally cleared to be a day by day participant in camp, Berry stopped in need of answering sure, however hardly put up a agency roadblock both.

“Yeah, so with out going too particularly into his plan,” Berry stated, “there might be some stage of cadence. However he’s in a very great place. He’s bought greater than sufficient quantity.”

Watson’s passes, for probably the most half in the course of the 7-on-7 or 11-on-11 drills, haven’t been of the deep selection. Most have gone inside 10 yards of the road of scrimmage.

What Berry bristled at was the suggestion that the Browns have been taking their time permitting Watson uncork many deep photographs. Watson made a few of these sorts of throws, in a restricted capability, throughout each OTAs and, particularly minicamp.

“It simply, I imply, I would disagree with that assertion, to be trustworthy,” Berry stated. “I feel, , sure throws within the NFL that require a whole lot of arm power, they’re not all the time vertical and down the sector. I feel maybe what, , possibly you’ve seen within the restricted quantity of 7-on-7 or teamwork we’ve carried out simply occurs to be that’s the place the progressions have gone.”

Chris Easterling might be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Learn extra concerning the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports activities/browns. Comply with him on X at @ceasterlingABJ

As Deshaun Watson enters the third yr of a five-year, $46 million-per-year, totally assured contract, the Browns are nonetheless ready for a return on their funding. G.M. Andrew Berry believes it will possibly occur.

If Watson stays capable of play.

Requested by reporters on Monday to elucidate what offers him confidence relating to Watson’s skill to play at an elite degree, Berry stated he’s counting on the messages despatched from his eyeballs to his mind.

“I feel it’s simply seeing him on daily basis,” Berry stated. “Seeing how he prepares, seeing how he works in follow. Seeing how he pertains to his coaches. I feel our greatest focus with Deshaun is simply ensuring that he’s accessible. I feel the remainder will maintain itself.”

Ensuring he’s accessible is a large issue. Watson missed 11 video games in 2022 attributable to a suspension that the Browns knew was coming once they traded for him. He missed 11 video games in 2023 attributable to harm. And the Browns are on the hook for $138 million by 2026.

It feels prefer it’s now or by no means for Watson to justify his contract. And if it doesn’t occur this yr, the Browns should determine whether or not to offer it a fourth attempt — or take away a $92 million Band-Help and transfer on.

The cash has all the time been a serious focus of the choice to make Deshaun Watson the group’s quarterback. That obscures the larger funding made. Three first-round picks, a third-round choose, and two fourth-round picks have been surrendered, for Watson and a sixth-round choose. In the event that they hadn’t achieved the deal, the Browns would have had a gaggle of younger gamers with low-cost contracts who might have developed into the nucleus of a group that has turn out to be fairly rattling good with out these picks — and with out a lot from Deshaun.

So can Watson flip the clock again to 2020? He’s performed in 12 complete video games since then. Berry believes that, if Watson can play in 17 regular-season video games, he’ll return to the quick checklist of true franchise quarterbacks.

If he does, the Browns can be on the quick checklist of Tremendous Bowl contenders.

Prime-seeded Novak Djokovic beat the 14-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal in a blockbuster second spherical matchup at Roland-Garros.

Novak Djokovic defeated Rafael Nadal on the Olympic Video games, claiming a 6-1, 6-4 victory within the pair’s sixtieth and doubtlessly final assembly.

It was 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic’s thirty first win in a rivalry that started on the identical Roland-Garros clay courts in 2006.

Nadal was largely outclassed within the much-anticipated encounter on Monday, solely coming briefly to life when he gained 4 video games in a row within the second set.

“I’m very relieved,” mentioned Djokovic. “Every little thing was going my means, I used to be 6-1, 4-0 up however I performed a sloppy service sport and gave him probabilities.”

He added: “I by no means thought again in 2006 that we’d nonetheless be enjoying one another nearly 20 years later.”

In an indication of the damage and tear the pair have endured in latest months, Djokovic wore a protecting strapping round his proper knee whereas Nadal’s proper thigh was closely strapped.

However Djokovic performed freely, forcing Nadal to scamper round Courtroom Philippe Chatrier, the place the Spaniard had collected 14 of his 22 Grand Slam titles.

The 37-year-old Serb raced to a 4-0 lead, on the again of a double break, and held for 5-0 earlier than Nadal stopped the rot a lot to the reduction of a packed, sweltering crowd.

Djokovic pocketed the one-sided opener when 2008 Olympic gold medallist Nadal ballooned a forehand large of the mark.

The statistics made grim studying for the 38-year-old Spaniard, who managed to eke out simply 4 factors off the Djokovic serve within the first set.

There was no respite for Nadal, enjoying simply his seventh event of an injury-plagued season, as Djokovic once more carved out a double break for a 4-0 lead within the second set.

Djokovic, looking for a primary Olympic gold medal so as to add to his 24 Grand Slam triumphs, surprisingly handed Nadal a lifeline when he served up a double fault to be damaged for the primary time.

Nadal retrieved the second break to claw his means again from 0-4 to 4-4 as the highest seed went immediately off the boil.

Djokovic responded in fashion, a drop shot leaving Nadal flat-footed because the Serb broke for 5-4 on a fourth break level and clinched victory in fashion with an ace.

Regardless of his defeat on Monday, Nadal nonetheless has hopes of a gold medal within the males’s doubles the place he’s enjoying alongside Carlos Alcaraz.

American rugby star Ilona Maher could not but have gained a gold medal for her efficiency on the sphere, however she is already getting one from her rising variety of followers on social media.

The Vermont native has amassed greater than one million followers on Instagram and TikTok as a result of her movies showcasing life as a ladies’s rugby Olympian and has develop into one of the vital talked athletes on-line through the 2024 Olympics.

Right here is every little thing you’ll want to learn about Olympian Ilona Maher:

Why is Ilona Maher so fashionable?

Maher first grew to become a viral sensation forward of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, when she posted hilarious movies detailing life within the Olympic Village amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Maher continued her on-line fame after the Tokyo Video games, when she continued to put up about her each day life as a member of USA Rugby.

Her movies are sometimes humorous and promote ladies’s sports activities, notably rugby, in addition to physique positivity and acceptance.

Maher has addressed individuals who say she is simply too “masculine” for a lady in a few of her movies.

“There’ll at all times be detrimental folks on the market and so they put ladies in a field, and so they assume ladies must be fragile and petite and quiet and meek, however that is not the case,” Maher mentioned by tears in a 2022 video, in keeping with NBC Information. “Girls could be robust, and so they can have broad shoulders and so they can take up house and they are often huge.”

U.S. gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik says he was comfortable to be the final gymnast to compete with a medal on the road. Hear from him and his teammates after the U.S. gained bronze within the workforce occasion.

In one other video, that has just lately gone viral, Maher hilariously takes down a social media hater who calls out her close to 30% BMI (body-mass index), which she acknowledged technically classifies her as “obese.”

The 27-year-old mentioned within the video that she has been thought-about obese since she was a child, however she has spoken with a dietician and has discovered that BMI means “nothing” for athletes.

Maher mentioned she is 5 foot 10 inches, 200 kilos, and has round 170 kilos of lean mass.

“BMI would not actually inform you what I can do,” Maher added. “It would not actually inform you what I can do on the sphere. How match I’m. It is simply a few numbers put collectively. It would not inform you how a lot muscle I’ve or something like that.”

“So, yeah, I do have a BMI of just about 30, and I’m thought-about obese,” Maher added. “However I’ll the Olympics, and you are not.”

How is Ilona Maher doing on the 2024 Olympics?

Maher, who didn’t medal within the ladies’s rugby sevens in Tokyo, has simply helped Staff USA ladies’s rugby advance to their first Olympic semi-finals in Paris.

The U.S. is slated to tackle New Zealand on Tuesday, July 31, at 9:30 a.m. EST.

If Maher and the remainder of the American squad have been to win, they might go on to the gold medal match, guaranteeing them a medal. In the event that they have been to lose, they might go to the bronze medal match.

What does Ilona Maher do for work outdoors of rugby?

Maher studied to be a nurse at Quinnipiac College, graduating in 2018.

Nonetheless, Maher joined USA Rugby after faculty and has been spending her time coaching and posting to her loyal followers ever since.

SAINT-DENIS, France (AP) — Rugby sevens star Ilona Maher has been an enormous hit on social media because the U.S. ladies’s group has progressed to the semifinals on the Paris Olympics.

She’s been busy making humorous TikTok and Instagram reels and likewise empowering posts about ladies and sports activities. She’s additionally producing some huge hits on opponents at Stade de France as an everyday starter for the U.S. ladies’s rugby sevens group.

Her video recruiting lately retired NFL middle Jason Kelce as a brilliant fan for the No. 4-ranked U.S. group after their first two video games on Monday magnified the eye.

The 27-year-old Maher isn’t new to this. Her hilarious takes on village life within the pandemic-era Tokyo Olympics three years in the past made her one of many breakout stars of these Video games.

How did Maher grow to be well-known on TikTok?

Spectators have been barred from Olympic venues in Tokyo, and there’s at all times strict guidelines anyway about who’s allowed into the athletes’ village. These weren’t obstacles for Maher. With followers locked out beneath harsh social-distancing guidelines, her social media followers obtained a humorous inside take a look at the Video games — beginning with the bedding.

Maher and her rugby sevens teammates examined out the cardboard beds in a TikTok video that gained thousands and thousands of views, displaying them performing CPR on the mattress, doing yoga and even throwing a mock tantrum.

What’s Maher doing through the Paris Olympics?

One other Olympic village, extra cardboard beds.

“Hey everybody, we’re again testing out the cardboard beds. My mattress goes to interrupt, sure, however I’m going to do it anyway,” Maher says by the use of introduction to the video that confirmed her and a few of her teammates wrestling on the beds, doing gymnastics strikes and Irish jigs, amongst different issues. Nothing to lose sleep over.

Her U.S. teammates, together with Nicole Heavirland, Naya Tapper and Sammy Sullivan, typically make it into Maher’s posts. Then there’s the individuals she runs throughout on the Olympics — like Snoop Dogg (“He’s an insanely cool dude”) and U.S. tennis star Coco Gauff (the subject turned to pickleball). To the man who requested if she was an Olympian after which wrongly guessed which sport: “All 5’10” of me, 200 kilos — a gymnast. Mistaken!”

What’s #beastbeautybrains?

Maher makes use of a #beastbeautybrains hashtag with the goal of spreading physique picture positivity and bringing extra consideration to rugby and girls’s sports activities generally.

From the U.S.-branded bikini, to the rugby uniform to the fashionable formal Ralph Lauren garments, Maher wears all of them with delight and seemingly equal consolation in an enormous vary of images and reels of her Olympic wardrobe.

She’s robust — her stiff-arm shoving away tried tackles in opposition to Japan and France have been loads proof of that.

She’s quick — working nearly the size of the sphere to attain in opposition to Japan confirmed that.

She’s sensible — in addition to gaining a nursing diploma, following within the footsteps of her mother, she labored to graduate from rugby fanatic to skilled athlete. Subsequent step is to make its pay higher.

She summed it up in a fast put up to her million-plus Instagram followers earlier than the opening ceremony on Friday.

“Because the Olympics formally begin, I would like you all to try all of the totally different physique sorts on show. All physique sorts matter. All physique sorts are worthy from the smallest gymnast to the tallest volleyball participant, from a rugby participant to a shot-putter and a sprinter. All our bodies are lovely and might do superb issues. So actually see your self in these athletes and know you are able to do it, too.”

How is the US ladies’s rugby sevens group doing in Paris?

The U.S. superior to a semifinal match in opposition to defending champion New Zealand with a 17-7 quarterfinal win over Britain, avenging a loss to the British on the similar stage in Tokyo three years in the past.

Maher performed an instrumental position within the first attempt, utilizing her huge fend to brush off one tackler, attract a defender after which launch Tapper into the clear on the left wing to attain.

She made one other barging, long-range run simply earlier than halftime to make sure the U.S. saved momentum.

Sammy Sullivan and Kristi Kirshe scored second-half tries to seal the win.

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AP Summer time Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

British diver Tom Daley is aware of the trials of being an Olympian higher than many after making his first look as a 14-year-old in Beijing. Now balancing his sport along with his household life, for him the run to Paris silver has been his happiest time but.

Daley, who received gold in the identical males’s synchronized 10-meter platform occasion within the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, determined final yr to come back again from retirement on the request of his older son, Robbie.

His husband Lance Black, a U.S. screenwriter and director, and their two boys have been among the many crowd on the Aquatics Centre on Monday, cheering on Daley, 30, and teammate Noah Williams for every of their six dives.

“I’m so proud to have been capable of determine to come back again after two years of (retirement),” a beaming Daley mentioned after Monday’s occasion, even holding the door open to an extra look on the subsequent Video games in 4 years’ time.

“I believe most of that was having the ability to set an instance to my youngsters that you probably have a dream and you’re employed actually laborious, it doesn’t imply that you simply’re at all times going to have the ability to obtain precisely what you wish to however it’s about having fun with the method and doing what you possibly can to indicate up, to be the most effective particular person you can be,” Daley mentioned.

The pair fell in need of upsetting China’s Yang Hao and Lian Junjie, who completed almost 30 factors forward after the six rounds to take gold. However that didn’t take the shine off the expertise.

Los Angeles nonetheless attainable?

“For me, this yr … is the happiest I’ve been in diving in all of those years as a result of diving wasn’t essentially my prime precedence. After all, it was extraordinarily essential. However there’s nothing extra essential than my youngsters and having the ability to spend time with them,” Daley mentioned.

“So I adjusted my coaching schedule to coach as soon as per day, Monday by way of Friday, and was then capable of get pleasure from from principally practice seven until 10 a.m. every morning, after which spend the remainder of the day with my youngsters.”

Daley’s Olympic journey began in 2008 within the Beijing Video games, when he achieved seventh place within the males’s particular person 10-meter platform occasion.

He carried on to win a bronze medal within the occasion 4 years later on the dwelling Olympics in London after being one of many faces of the Video games. He additionally received bronze within the synchronized 10-meter occasion within the Rio Video games.

His reputation solely elevated after he got here out as homosexual in 2013. His private life in addition to interest of knitting have been featured in tabloids and his social media pages collected tens of millions of followers.

He lastly took gold on the Tokyo Video games three years in the past, with then diving associate Matty Lee, profitable the synchronized 10-meter platform occasion in enormous upset to China’s aim of taking all eight golds on supply.

Daley stored his choices open when requested by Reuters what his future plans have been. The following Olympic Video games might be held in Los Angeles in 2028.

“Oh, gosh, I don’t actually know but,” he mentioned. “I went from being the youngest on the staff in 2008 to now the oldest diver on the staff. I wish to form of get pleasure from this second and make choices about the way forward for diving for me afterward.”

“They may be including totally different occasions into the Olympic Video games in LA … I dwell in LA now. So it may very well be, you recognize, an opportunity to do a second dwelling Olympic Video games,” he mentioned. “However for proper now, I simply wish to be a part of this second and we’ll see the way it goes after that.”