Michael Bowie claimed by Browns

The Browns have been rewarded Seahawks tackle Michael Bowie on waivers.

There was always a chance that he could be claimed by another team after the Seahawks waived him with a designation of injured, but apparently they were willing to take that chance. There's an unwritten etiquette in the NFL that says that teams don't claim players waived with major injuries, but that etiquette has been broken of late, namely by Bill Belichick with TE Jake Ballard a few years ago and RB Tyler Gaffney this year. Apparently the Browns are not strong subscribers to it either.

[UPDATE: Neither are the Cowboys and Saints]

Per source, Saints, Cowboys, Patriots also made waivers claim for Seahawks RT Michael Bowie, who was waived/injured. Browns had priority.

— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) August 4, 2014

If Bowie had cleared waivers and had no other teams place a claim on him, he would have been placed on the injured reserve.

The Seahawks had waived/injured OT Michael Bowie on Saturday after it was discovered he needed surgery on an injured shoulder. Pete Carroll had mentioned that the recovery period would be four to six months.

This made for the third major injury for the Seahawks during their 2014 training camp: TE Anthony McCoy tore his Achilles tendon and Jesse Williams hurt his (good) knee, and Williams successfully passed through waivers and onto the Seahawks' injured reserve. McCoy was a vested veteran so he was not subject to waivers.

Seahawks coach Tom Cable had expressed disappointment in Bowie earlier in the spring when he and fellow sophomore tackle Alvin Bailey showed up out of shape to offseason activities. Cable said at the time:

"It's something that every young linemen goes through that first year. They are used to Thanksgiving and then kind of being at the end of their college season and workings towards a bowl game and that's all they really have left. And that's when we are just kicking it into gear. And I think they really get fatigued, those big kids.

And we told them that ‘hey, your biggest issue is going to be going home and keeping your fit and keeping your body and all that.' And sure enough, not good listeners. But I think they got the point now because they are finding out that ‘hey, now I've had to kind of get back up and go back to work all the way.' They came in a little behind it. But they are working towards it."

When asked whether that was disappointing, Cable responded frankly -- "well, I think [we] are."

Apparently more so than we even figured. I had noted on our Google Hangout on Wednesday that it seemed to me like the team was annoyed at Bowie for showing up out of shape -- just based on their public statements about his conditioning and the competition that Justin Britt was giving him -- and evidently they didn't value him enough to wait the injury out.

The Hawks' depth at tackle, though, is a little tight. Britt also left the team's practice scrimmage yesterday with an injured shoulder [he tweeted today that he'll be fine], so suddenly recently-signed veteran Eric Winston becomes the favorite to start at right tackle just because of the experience factor. Britt will likely give him a run at it though.

After Winston, who has started 119 straight NFL games, the Seahawks have a few options. Alvin Bailey is slated at left tackle for the time being but there's a chance that Russell Okung's return before the season could mean Bailey could move to the right. Additionally, rookie UDFA Garry Gilliam has drawn some nice reviews in camp, and Caylin Hauptmann, Steven Schilling, and rookie Nate Isles are other options.

The Seahawks also claimed veteran tackle Cory Brandon from the Cardinals. The 6'7, 324 pounder was a UDFA out of Oklahoma in 2011 and has been with the Buccaneers, Bears, and Cards.