It's True, The Browns Have Had A Few Fun Wide Receivers Since 1999
Last week we talked about my list of the “best” (it was mostly a joke and made a ton of people mad on Twitter… shocking!) Browns quarterbacks since their return in 1999. I figured we should keep the train rolling as we inch closer to the season.
Now, logically, talking running backs would make the most sense to come after talking quarterbacks, but the Browns and wide receivers have been in the news so much that I must skip ahead to that position. I’ve decided to shift from “best” and give a list of my Top 10 Favorite Cleveland Browns Wide Receivers Since 1999.
This was actually a pretty tough list to make because I struggled to even pick a tenth player. I loved guys like Andrew Hawkins and Taylor Gabriel (who the Browns got rid of and then he immediately made the Super Bowl) but just couldn’t justify putting them on the list over the super serious pick I have at number ten. Let’s get into the list…
As I type this, I am listening to a commercial that involves Samuel L. Jackson doing an ad-read for Preparation H. Why am I telling you this? Because the lesson to take from that commercial, and Dwayne Bowe’s time as a Cleveland Brown, is that you should always secure the bag when the opportunity arises.
Does Samuel L. Jackson, one of the most famous actors in the world, really have to do commercials for a hemorrhoid cream brand? Of course not, he is basically the head coach of the Avengers. But he is getting paid the big bucks and you just can’t hate on the hustle to make a cash grab by doing ad-reads for a burning ass supplement.
Oh yeah, back to football. So, Dwayne Bowe probably deserved the money he got in Cleveland a lot less than Samuel L. Jackson deserves the money he is getting for his new commercials. In Cleveland, Bowe was signed to a two-year deal worth $13 million with $9 million being guaranteed. He played a total of seven games, before the Browns got rid of him, and only hauled in a total of five receptions.
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If you can do math, you’ve already figured out that the Browns paid Dwayne Bowe almost $2 million per reception in his time with the team. If new Cleveland Browns receiver Jarvis Landry had been paid $2 million per reception last year, he would have made $224 million dollars last season. The Dwayne Bowe situation is just a fantastic example of why the Browns have been a failure since their return.
With that said kids, remember to always secure the bag when you have the chance.
NOTE: If you came here from Twitter and reached the end of this without yelling at me for this pick, thank you.
I am already a massive Jarvis Landry fan. Despite Dolphins fans still tweeting me that he won’t live up to expectations, I am excited to see what he can do around some big-time stud wide receivers and tight ends.
There’s a big thing in Cleveland where fans, like myself, fall in love with a player who just “gets us” as sports people. J.R. Smith is a great example of this and, at one point, Joe Haden as well. Both guys showed up to Indians games and the other Cleveland sports team each one didn’t play for at the time. This was just awesome to see while everyone else nationally continued to take massive dumps on Cleveland sports and laughed about no one wanting to be there.
Landry is going to be on the Browns for a while and his early fire and emotion in ‘Hard Knocks’ has been exciting to see. I can’t wait to see him on the field in the regular season lining up alongside Josh Gordon.
If you have thought about Joe Jurevicius once in the last five years, then your name is probably Joe Jurevicius. I shouldn’t joke too much, because Jurevicius was a pretty reliable weapon for years in the NFL and won a Super Bowl with the Buccaneers.
His last two seasons in the NFL were with the Browns and, this may be a shock, but he retired after having won 10 games in one season with Cleveland. Jurevicius must have just been like “well, fuck, we are not going to win any more than 10 games and we didn’t even make the Playoffs this year. Time to hang up the cleats.”
Two moments stuck out to me during Jurevicius’ short time in Cleveland: him hauling in two touchdowns against the Bengals in Week 2 and his catch during the whiteout game against Buffalo. The first of the two happened in the second week of the season where the Browns beat Cincinnati 51-45 in a wild shootout that saw Jurevicius haul in two of three touchdowns on the season. Now the second of the two was the memorable moment of his Browns tenure because it came during an absurd snow game against the Bills.
The deflected catch in the driving snowstorm was such an awesome play and set up what would end up being the winning points in the football game. Jurevicius didn’t play in Cleveland for long, and you probably forgot he was even a Brown, but I did enjoy his time there.
Easily the most polarizing pick on the list, I really couldn’t leave Braylon Edwards off of it. The Browns took Edwards with the third overall pick in the 2005 NFL Draft and he struggled to really catch on right away. That all changed in 2007 when he tore up the NFL and hauled in 16 touchdowns on 1,289 yards receiving.
That diving catch and roll over into the end zone was so badass. He showed out for all of the 2007-2008 season and was a massive part of why the Browns won 10 games and nearly made the Playoffs. Edwards made the Pro Bowl, was a sure-fire star and made a bet with Michael Phelps that he would catch 18 touchdowns the following season. Well…
Yeah, that shit didn’t happen at all. The Browns were a fucking disaster in the 2008-2009 season and only had 11 passing touchdowns all year compared to 29 in the 2007-2008 campaign. Edwards was traded to the Jets in October 2009 and had a decent few years there. The former first-round pick also ran into some off the field issues, including a fight stemming from apparent “jealousy” of LeBron James only two days after the trade to New York.
We are starting to get a little inside baseball with my picks now. Kevin Johnson was really the first good wide receiver the Browns had after coming back into the league in 1999. He was taken with the Browns first pick in the second round of the 1999 NFL Draft and amassed 2,752 yards receiving and 17 touchdowns in his first three seasons. The 2002-2003 Playoff season is where I remember Kevin Johnson’s time with the Browns the most, but his Hail Mary touchdown catch to give the expansion Browns their first win was his most iconic momnet.
While he didn’t have a monster year statistically speaking, Johnson had some pivotal moments for the Browns that season. He grabbed a touchdown in the Browns’ pivotal playoff-clinching win over the Atlanta Falcons in Week 17 and racked up 140 yards receiving on only 4 receptions in the Browns’ devastating Playoffs collapse to the Steelers. I’ll always be a big fan of Kevin Johnson, who is now a very successful real estate developer. Good for him!
Quincy Morgan, like Kevin Johnson, was also a wide receiver drafted by the Browns with their first pick in the second round. He came into the league in 2001 and was pretty decent in his three and a half seasons, but he has probably the single best Cleveland Browns moment since their return in 1999.
I didn’t even get to see that shit live, either. I had to follow it on ESPN Gamecast. We built a new house in Connecticut that year and the property we lived on had tall ass trees and the DirecTV dish couldn’t get a signal, so we had to live with dumpy ass cable. Without Sunday Ticket, I had to live that moment through a movie bar across a digital football screen. Regardless, the Tim Couch to Quincy Morgan Hail Mary was still one hell of an awesome moment for me as a Browns fan.
Look what we have here, another Browns wide receiver drafted in the second round who had pivotal moments in the 2002-2003 season. Andre Davis had some big touchdowns that season, including two against the Titans in a huge comeback on the road (more on this game later) and then in the Playoffs against the Steelers. But I like him for two different reasons. The first reason? This 99-yard touchdown against the Bengals.
Jeff Garcia! Catch the fever! The second reason being that he had a ridiculous jersey nameplate.
The story behind this is that the Browns had a linebacker named Andra Davis, so the only way to put their names on their jerseys was to literally use their entire names. I might have to get a vintage Andre Davis jersey one day.
Back to a player that more non-Browns fans might recognize. Josh Cribbs, a quarterback in college, is another Cleveland athlete who had a ton of “gets us” moments. The most memorable moment being his attendance at the NBA Draft Lottery in which the Cavs got the number one overall pick that would become Kyrie Irving.
When it comes to Josh Cribbs, though, the big thing, despite some nice moments at receiver and in the wildcat, will forever be his kick and punt returns.
The kick return against the Steelers is the single greatest regular season kick return in NFL history (as I stated in my ‘Hard Knocks’ Episode 2 recap) and I won’t hear any arguments against it.
I will die on the Josh Gordon hill. There’s nothing I want more as a Cleveland Browns fan (besides a Super Bowl) than to have Gordon figure it out and be the unreal player that we know he can be.
The videos of Gordon working out, looking shredded, in Gainesville have me pumped for his return and I hope everything is going well for the guy. When he is playing and locked in, Josh Gordon is easily one of the top three best wide receivers in the NFL.
Just thinking about Gordon alongside Jarvis Landry, Antonio Callaway, David Njoku and maybe Dez Bryant (as a fourth option!) makes me want to run through a wall.
The fourth second-round pick wide receiver for the Browns on this list, Dennis Northcutt was just straight up electric. Like half of this list, the 2002-2003 season cemented Northcutt’s legacy as a Cleveland Brown. He caught five touchdowns, rushed for one and returned two on punts during the season as the Browns’ true jack-of-all-trades. His Playoffs performance against Pittsburgh, catching two touchdown passes, was pretty great (he also did drop a pivotal catch that allowed the Steelers to complete the crazy comeback, but whatever), but his game against Tennessee in Week 3 was where the real magic happened.
That was the definition of being the jack-of-all-trades. Northcutt caught a touchdown pass, ran a punt back to the house and then had an incredible onside kick recovery. His touchdown reception came with only 12 seconds to go after the Browns were down 14 points with under three minutes remaining. This was one of the few games I got to watch live that season and I will never forget it.
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Ah, well, that was a pretty sad look back on the Cleveland Browns! While I do love the 2002-2003 and 2007-2008 seasons a lot, it’d be great for the Browns to win sometime soon so I can enjoy something that isn’t over a decade old. All kidding aside, I loved watching a lot of these guys and most of them supplied the majority of the best Browns moments since 1999.
This year though, look out, because RECEIVEland is going to be a much different place as the Browns hunt for the goal of not losing every single game.
I’ll be recapping the Browns’ preseason game either Friday night or Saturday morning, taking a look at ‘Hard Knocks’ Episode 3 next week and then probably taking a look at past Browns running backs at the end of next week. Also, please subscribe to my movie podcast Lights, Camera, Barstool.