First look: Wide Receivers

There are 10 wide receivers on the Browns’ training camp roster. No more than six, probably more like five, will suit up for the regular season should there be one.

Under normal circumstances, that number might reach as high as seven. Not this season with Kevin Stefanski’s mad love for tight ends. As many as four of the six on the TC roster will make the final cut.

That means something’s got to give and that translates adversely to the wide receivers corps. Outside of Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham Jr., that is. In the grand scheme of things, that portends a potential problem.

Landry and Beckham love to roll up targets on the stats sheet. Beckham, in particular, grumbles when the number of targets does not meet his goal, which is usually double digits. Landry not so much. All he wants to do is win no matter how many times he sees the football.

With Stefanski’s extreme fondness of utilizing the tight end in his relative button-down offense, which features a 50-50 mix of run and pass, some area is going to get short shrift. Yep, the wideouts.

Last season, Landry and Beckham combined for 217 targets, or about 17 a game. In his first three seasons with the New York Giants, OBJ averaged 10.6 targets a game on his way to becoming a National Football League superstar.

That will change this season as Stefanski and offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt will be challenged in distributing the football to arguably the best overall set of receivers the Browns have had in a very long time.

The new head coach’s toughest job just might entail mollifying Beckham and his frail ego and, at the same time, making certain everyone else is content with his role in the offense.

When the Browns are forced to go with more than two wides, look for Rashard Higgins, who flourished under Baker Mayfield in 2018 before disappearing into Freddie Kitchens’ enormous dog house last season, to resurrect his 2018 magic.

Battling for playing time will be rookie Donovan Peoples-Jones and returnees Damion Ratley, D. J. Montgomery, KhaDarel Hodge and Taywan Taylor. JoJo Natson, who played his college ball at Akron, is listed as a wide receiver, but the 5-7, 153-pounder was brought in to do just one thing – return kicks.

Look for Stefanski to feature a lot of two wide receiver, two (maybe three) tight end looks in early downs before opening up should drives stall. It worked nicely for him in Minnesota last season and the personnel he inherited in Cleveland should, at least on paper, produce similar, if not better, results.

The biggest hurdle is ball distribution and keeping everybody happy.

Next: Tight ends