Newsletter: Diontae Johnson and the Wide Receiver Panic Room
The NFL Draft came and went as the Browns skipped wide receiver. Now we see the recovery plan.
Well, the NFL Draft can’t solve everything. While many of us feel strongly that the Browns came out of the 2025 version with improvements badly needed across the roster in several spots, it still left two glaring holes.
The first is at safety, and we know they will have to address this with some sort of veteran presence knowing they already had Rayshawn Jenkins in for a visit ahead of the draft a few weeks ago. The other is at wide receiver but it’s a little trickier than the safety presence.
You can find cheaper help at safety and get by for the most part. Role players are easier to carve and you can often find help on the market to keep the position passable. Not to mention the Browns put less zone stress on the position than many others so there have been answers in the UDFA market that have met the standard quickly.
With receiver you need the right player to fill the role and it demands more successful reps to keep the offense moving than a safety does a defense getting stops. While I do believe the Browns have two strong starters in Jerry Jeudy and Cedric Tillman, there is most certainly a void there for a name or two given the performance inconsistency and injury history of Jeudy and Tillman in their young careers.
Despite the uneven outcome of pick 94, the Browns are back on the clock three times today with picks 126, 166, and 192. Three spots with players that can find the 53-man roster.
Enter Diontae Johnson whose steep decline in 2024 is more unexpected than his rapid rise to a prominent role and contract extension was in Pittsburgh following his selection in the third round of the 2019 NFL Draft.
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