The Cleveland Browns did not have a lot of draft capital or a ton of room under the salary cap, but they’ve made their 2024 offseason count nonetheless.
In a refrain Browns fans are getting a little tired of, the team is entering a win-now season that’s maybe just a little short of Super Bowl or bust. They’re in Year Three of the five-year Deshaun Watson experiment, and so far, they have gotten little for their three first-round picks and a quarter billion dollars.
Cleveland Browns Likely to Target These Positions Before Camp
The Cleveland Browns roster is aging, and those deferred payments will come due soon enough. So, while the roster is as good as just about any in the league, general manager Andrew Berry and his team are no doubt burning the midnight oil in making all of the upgrades they can before the team heads to the Greenbrier for training camp this summer.
Linebacker
Linebacker is generally not a position the Cleveland Browns care a lot about. They don’t invest a lot of money or draft capital there. In addition, defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz prizes his pass rushers, cornerbacks, and safeties. But there are only 11 guys on the field at a time, and generally, that comes at the expense of the linebacker’s room.
The team has turned over its starting linebackers whose initials don’t include JOK. They brought in a new middle linebacker in Jordan Hicks, and Hicks is a tackling machine. He’s also known as a solid leader who has generally been healthy. But beyond Hicks and Owusu-Koramoah, the cupboard is pretty bare. The team took a low-cost flier on former first-round choice Devin Bush. But Bush had less impact in Seattle than in Pittsburgh.
Cleveland did draft Nathaniel Watson in the sixth round. Like Hicks, Watson makes a ton of tackles and led the SEC in the category last season. He could well be a steal at the spot. But he fell to the sixth round for a reason and likely is viewed as a developmental pick.
Tony Fields and Mohamoud Diabate round out the room. The team is likely counting on Fields to step up if Bush is a bust. But the team’s depth at the spot should be keeping Berry up at nights.
Deep Threat Wide Receiver
The wide receivers room gets a lot of attention from Berry and his staff pretty much every season. The Cleveland Browns made a big trade to bring in Jerry Jeudy from the Denver Broncos. He joined a room with a clear No. 1 in Amari Cooper, an athletic gadget guy in Elijah Moore, and developmental players Cedric Tillman and David Bell.
But Watson loves throwing deep. That’s one of the reasons he prefers to operate from the shotgun, which allows him to see deep faster than if he started from under center. That’s why the team inked Marquise Goodwin, a former track star, in 2023. But that experiment failed spectacularly, and Goodwin remains a free agent. While there’s a lot of athleticism in the room, of the aforementioned Browns has that deep threat capability Watson covets.
To that end, the Browns took yet another receiver in the draft, this time Jamari Thrash. Thrash is known as a speedster who has a knack for using his second gear to get open on deep routes. Thrash has trouble getting off the press and being physical, however, which will make him somewhat one-dimensional on the field in 2024. The Cleveland Browns would be wise to bring in a veteran comparable while they see what they have in the fifth-round pick.
Left Tackle
Jedrick Wills Jr. was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the first round in 2020. He was considered to be the team’s left tackle of the future. In fact, he was the first-ever draft choice for general manager Andrew Berry. Wills started off well in the passing game but has declined significantly since his first season. He had a solid 79.4 pass-block rating as a rookie. But that dropped to 60.1 before his season ended due to injury in 2023.
For a personnel team that fashions themselves as “offensive line snobs,” it’s somewhat surprising that they made little move to augment Wills. Especially since he will be a free agent after the season. Wills is also clearly the weak link on an otherwise solid offensive line. There are reserves in that room who grade out better than he does.
Cleveland has James Hudson and Hakeem Adeniji as its depth with less side experience. Hudson is in his fourth season with the Browns. He has played far more snaps on the right side (1033) than on the left (71). Adeniji came north from Cincinnati. He saw 165 snaps as a rookie in 2020 but was moved to guard the next year and didn’t play in 2023 at all.
Left tackle is a crucial position. If the Cleveland Browns are serious about making a run at the Super Bowl, they need better depth and perhaps a better starter as well.
Main Photo: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports
