Off-season thoughts (Vol. VII)

Is there any question the greatest need for the Browns during this offseason is replenishing and reimaging the wide receivers roster?

Defensive tackle also ranks right up there, but there is a much greater requirement on the offensive side of the football in the passing game, which lies in shambles following the club's lamentable showing last season. 

One quick glance at the six wides on the current 77-man off-season roster reveals the Browns' biggest weakness when in possession of the football: Jarvis Landry, Rashard Higgins, Donovan Peoples-Jones, Anthony Schwartz, Ja'Marcus Bradley and Ryan Switzer. Read 'em and weep.

There isn't one scary name there unless you believe Landry, if the Brown choose to keep him and rework his contract, can successfully come back from an injury-riddled, disappointing 2021. He says he wants to. The question is whether the Browns feel the same way. 

The rest of this group are the cross-your-fingers-and-pray type.

Peoples-Jones has been inconsistent and unreliable in his first two National Fotball League seasons. Higgins used to be one of Baker Mayfield's favorite -- and yet infrequent -- targets, but fell into disfavor last season for some unknown reason and probably won't be back.

Schwartz is a world-class sprinter masquerading as a football player. He should be remembered as the target of the pass in week two against Houston when he quit on a route that led to a Mayfield interception and a serious left shoulder injury when the quarterback attempted a tackle on the return.

That was that play that started Mayfield on the downward spiral of numerous other injuries that seriously hindered his ability to play winning football. It ultimately resulted in the Cleveland offense dying slowly on a weekly basis until he finally packed it in due to the extreme pain he had incurred.

Looks like it will take a second season for the Browns to discover Schwartz has unquestionable speed, but  extremely questionable hands and football acumen. The kind of speed he can deliver doesn't kill on a football field.

Bradley and Switzer are practice-squad material. rounding out a wide receivers room that easily qualifies as one of the worst in the league and is deserving of serious attention from General Manager Andrew Berry. Whether it's the college draft, free agency or the trade route, it's time for a makeover.

He needs at least two or three new faces in that room. He should be able to find two while plumbing the quality depth of the collegiate wide receiver draft class this year. While Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave are terrific and the favorites of Ohio State fans, my favorite -- and he should be there at 13th when the Browns are called -- is Southern Cal's Drake London.

I love tall, lanky wide receivers with big hands who can catch the football. At 6-5 and 210 pounds, London is a disciplined route runner who specializes in winning 50/50 throws and piling up yards after catch. He is the kind of target Mayfield needs.

After that, just to emphasize the importance of loading up on young productive wideouts, it would behoove Berry to consider trading back up into the latter stages of the first round and picking off someone like Olave, who might not be there, or big (6-3, 225) Treylon Burks of Arkansas, who most likely will.

Mayfield needs help and this is the year the draft can provide it.