AP

Browns head coach Mike Pettine quickly shut down the suggestion that the Browns were considering making a permanent change at starting quarterback earlier this week, leaving Josh McCown in place to face the Chargers in Week Four.

On Thursday, though, Browns offensive coordinator John DeFilippo hinted that he might not be the only quarterback to play against San Diego. While DeFilippo said that McCown is “our guy,” he also said that the team has a package of plays to use with Johnny Manziel this week.

“That’s always a possibility,” DeFilippo said, via Cleveland.com. “To say we don’t have plays ready for Johnny Manziel against the San Diego Chargers, I’d be lying to you. Okay? I’d be lying to you. So you never know. We may use them and we may not. That’s the competitive advantage of showing up and playing an opponent on Sunday. They don’t know what we’re going to do and we don’t know what they’re going to do.”

The Browns do know with almost total certainty that the Chargers aren’t going to pull Philip Rivers out of the game at some point to run a play or series with a quarterback they don’t think is worth playing for 60 minutes, which tends to be the case for most teams with confidence in their starting quarterback.

It’s not the first time that a coaching staff has tried to create deception about their plans at quarterback and the Chargers may spend some time thinking about the possibility, but, since you can count on no hands the amount of times successful NFL offenses have subbed quarterbacks in and out, opposing teams probably won’t spend much time preparing for Manziel until the Browns decide they actually want him to be their quarterback.