Browns: 3 players with the most to prove pre-training camp
By Chad Porto
These are three Browns players that have something to prove pre-training camp.
No team goes from season to season the same. There are always fluctuations that teams have to anticipate and adapt to. Players get better and want bigger contracts, players with big contracts struggle, new players, come, older players leave, injuries make former stars into lingering issues, coaches retire, people get arrested, they have babies. You never know what change in someone’s life is going to complicate a team. The Browns are no different than every other team in the history of football.
2021 will feature its own set of complications that will be wholly unique to the Browns, unlike any other year, after all, no two years are the same. So with the change in years comes the changes of expectations. Some people get bigger expectations, while others get lesser expectations. The three players on this list aren’t on here for the same reasons but they’re three of the players with the most to prove heading into training camp.
Austin Hooper
Austin Hooper signed a massive contract for a tight end in 2020. Agreeing to join Cleveland on a four-year, $42 million deal, Hooper had massive expectations. He was, after all, coming off of two straight Pro Bowl seasons in Atlanta. He averaged 723 yards per year in each of his two Pro Bowl seasons while averaging five touchdowns in the same span. So anything around 700 yards, five touchdowns would be a nice get for the Browns.
He came close to that average, with four touchdowns in 2020, and he actually had a higher YPC in 2020 than he did in his 2018 Pro Bowl season (9.5 to 9.3). He even played the same number of games in 2020 as he did in 2019. So what was the issue? Hooper didn’t get as many passes thrown to him. That’s not his fault, but for $10 million a year, he has got to find more ways to get open.
Part of the problem as some have speculated was that the Browns had a crowded passing game, with too many players running too similar of routes, causing guys like Hooper and Jarvis Landry to suffer because there wasn’t anyone to go over the top. Neither man is especially fast, so a crowding issue with defensive backs or linebackers is absolutely possible.
The Browns got faster on offense through the draft but that’s only going to help so much. Hooper may not get many more than the 70 targets that he got in 2020. So if he’s going to make a splash, he has to do better converting passes thrown his way to receptions. He’s one of the highest-paid players and if he doesn’t find a way to step up, he may find himself on the way out of town sooner rather than later.