Cameron Erving

Cameron Erving's rookie season has taught him about blocking out the outside noise.

(Joshua Gunter, Cleveland.com)

BEREA, Ohio -- Twitter is no place for an offensive lineman. That's one thing that Cameron Erving has learned during his rookie season.

"I don't even know my Twitter password," Erving said on Wednesday following practice.

It's entirely possible that's true. No tweets have been sent from Erving's account, @BigErv_75, since August.

"When I was in college I kind of looked at things and I looked at all those message boards and all the stuff, all the negativity that was coming towards me," Erving said. "I looked at that and used it as motivation, but I'm not going to do that in the NFL because this is a different game. People who have never touched a football comment, and they criticize your game as if they could do it any better. I just go out and I listen to my peers and I listen to my coaches and I try to go out and I minimize mistakes. It's a learning curve every day and I just try to go out and get better."

"My first training camp I got rid of my Twitter," Browns right tackle Mitchell Schwartz said. "If you're not playing well or you're giving up some bad plays, you know that you're not playing well. You don't need to hear other people who are sitting at home going on Twitter and talking crap to you and all that stuff. Especially in this day and age, there are so many venues for people to attack you and do stuff like that."

Erving's rocky rookie season has been well-documented, especially on social media. The 19th pick in last April's draft was unable to secure a starting spot on the offensive line out of training camp and didn't receive significant playing time until left guard Joel Bitonio left the team's Thursday night game against Cincinnati in early November with an ankle injury.

Cameron Erving celebrates with Marlon Moore and Duke Johnson after Moore's touchdown against the Ravens on Monday Night Football.

"It definitely had an effect on me," Erving said of not playing early in the season. "I'd be lying if I said it didn't. The difference between a professional and an amateur is just the fact that you know how to distinguish between the two situations and you don't look at it in a negative way, even though you may be a little frustrated sometimes. You just go out and you just try to, when my time comes, I'm going to be ready. That's the mindset you have to have, especially if you're not starting as a rookie. Be ready when your name is called."

Unfortunately for Erving, he didn't appear ready. He started two games in place of Bitonio, including the team's first meeting with Pittsburgh. A Vine of Erving getting bull rushed by Steelers defensive lineman Cameron Heyward and ending up on his back went viral. After starting against Baltimore on Monday Night Football, Erving went back to the bench against Cincinnati only to get thrown back to the wolves following a second injury to Bitonio.

This stint didn't last long. Erving was benched in favor of Austin Pasztor during the fourth quarter of the blowout loss and was demoted behind Pasztor the following week. Erving said it was tough initially getting over the demotion.

"I was sitting there for a week after losing the starting job and, as a rookie, you don't really know what to think of it," he said. "You don't really know how to put it in perspective. I'm lucky and blessed enough to have guys like (left tackle) Joe (Thomas) and (center) Alex (Mack) and (Schwartz) and (right guard) John (Greco) and (Bitonio) and (Pasztor). All those guys rallied around me. They helped me, man."

"I remember I struggled my first few games," Schwartz said. "It takes five to six games or so to kind of let everything slow down, just everything's going so fast. You're trying to do so much. It takes a little bit of time just to kind of get settled in and kind of go with the flow of stuff and figure it out. It's pretty much natural for any rookie. It's nothing too bad but, like Coach said, he's doing better. Just got to keep doing that week in and week out."

Cameron Erving struggled at left guard, but seems to be more comfortable playing right guard.

"Everything that happened to me this year has been with reason and with no struggle there's no success," Erving said. "That's one thing that I've always lived by and that's one thing that I firmly believe. Everything that you go through -- Joe Thomas wasn't perfect when he came in. Of course, he's a great player, he has been since he stepped foot in here, but he wasn't perfect when he got here and he's not perfect now. But the goal of being a player, in my opinion, is just to continue to get better every game that you go out and play."

Erving was thrust back in the spotlight in Seattle when the man who beat him out at right guard during training camp, Greco, left the game with a knee injury that ended his season. Erving started at right guard against Kansas City and earned praise, albeit hedged, from head coach Mike Pettine.

"He did some good things," Pettine said on Monday. "I thought, as usual, he played with good effort, good energy. He made some mistakes, but I think overall, that was a good experience for him. He did give up some pressures in the pass game, which (quarterback) Johnny (Manziel) bailed him out on one or two of them, but I think overall, it was a step forward for Cam. He made mistakes, but I think some of the mistakes he had made in previous games you would have considered critical ones, where it was giving up a sack or a penalty at a bad time. Most of his mistakes were technical. They were small things. We grade our guys hard. I think Cam definitely took a step forward yesterday."

Erving, who previously has said that position doesn't matter and that he's a football player, said Wednesday it helped to play right guard, the position at which he's taken "a lot of reps." Erving also said he learned lessons during his time on the bench.

Cameron Erving and Duke Johnson celebrate a touchdown against the Bengals earlier this season.

"I went and looked at the film and the things that I was getting beat on when I was getting bull rushed, it was technical," he said. "I was trying to stop a bull rush as a tackle, because that's all I had ever done and you have to do it different as a guard. You can't hop, because then you're going to be right in the quarterback's lap. I've learned a lot in the game experience that I've gotten and I'm just looking to continue to build off of it."

Erving added that he's a tough grader on himself.

"I can look at something and somebody can give me a plus on a play and I give myself a minus," he said, "because I may have made a block, but it wasn't the correct way to make the block. And I'm not saying that you're not happy about the blocks and the plays that you make but it's just about longevity. I'm thinking I don't want to be making these same mistakes in year two, year three, year four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I try to be precise."

"I think linemen in general are pretty critical of ourselves," Schwartz said. "There's a lot of stuff where you can get the job done, but the way you get it done doesn't really look right or you know it won't work against a guy who has a different technique or something else is different. It's pretty rare for us to be totally satisfied with too many things. I think that's the way you keep improving. You try for perfection."

"I was really tough on myself," Erving said of his struggles. "I always knew you just got to get back out there and continue to play because this is what you do. I always just had to keep reminding myself how much I loved it. Every time you go out there you just get a feeling when you go on the field. I want to do the best that I can possibly do. I want to be perfect, but we all know that that's not going to happen, so I just go out and just tried to minimize mistakes."

Erving acknowledged that he was happy to hear Pettine has had high praise for his potential to the media this season. His response, though, once again, turned inward.

"I'm not really into the clippings. I don't read any kind of newspapers, so, thanks Coach, but I just try to go out and minimize all the outside factors and focus on me and, at the end of the day, that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to focus on yourself and then you can affect the people beside you. Then you can become a leader. That's where I'm at right now."

The one place you won't find him at right now: Twitter.