Cleveland Browns need to continue to evolve their wide receiver room and the draft will be another opportunity to do that.

The 2024 NFL Draft is going to be rich at wide receiver, which bodes well for a team like the Browns who do not have a first-round pick.

It is let that the Browns take the right wide receiver in this draft, there will be many that can be a fit. But if anything rings true about their past drafting, it has been a tough job for the Browns to hit on a wideout that is worth keeping past their first contract.

Recent wide receivers drafted by the Cleveland Browns

2023 Round 3 – Cedric Tillman

2022 Round 3 – David Bell

2021 Round 3 – Anthony Schwartz

2020 Round 6 – Donovan Peoples-Jones

2018 Round 4 – Antonio Callaway

2018 Round 6 – Damion Ratley

2016 Round 1 – Corey Coleman

2016 Round 4 – Ricardo Louis

2016 Round 5 – Jordan Payton

2016 Round 5 – Rashard Higgins

It is a pretty bad list overall, actually it is really bad. The bounty is still out on what Bell and Tillman can be for the Browns. Tillman has just one year in and Bell has only two seasons with the team, but neither player has shown they’ll be around for another contract. Bell came on late in the season and went over 50 yards in each of the last two games.

Out of this list, the best hit for the Browns is Peoples-Jones. A player who outplayed his draft stock and improved each season with the team until his production took a hit and he was eventually traded to the Detroit Lions after seven weeks in 2023.

Coleman was the only first-round selection and he was a bust. The Browns have a second-round pick this draft, unlike last go around when they traded it for Elijah Moore from the New York Jets. In recent memory, the Browns have not taken a wideout in the second round.

That is going to be an option for the Browns and maybe it’ll end up being the best wideout they’ve selected in a very long time. With multiple game-changing wide receivers being projected to go in the first round, the Browns could end up having a player slide down to them in the second round.

Something that GM Andrew Berry has often done in Cleveland is double dip when filling needs. Only Amari Cooper, Moore, Tillman, and Bell are set to be on the team next season — watch for the Browns to add at least two players at the position this offseason. The draft can be one and if all works out they’ll end a poor trend, then expect them to look around in free agency before that.

Draft busts have been very common in Cleveland over the last couple of decades. One place the Browns need to finally hit at is wide receiver, maybe even in a big way. 

Browns should look to sign former first-round pick in free agency that just played in the Super Bowl

A move that could make sense for the Browns.