Three Breakout Players For The Browns in 2022

The Cleveland Browns have upgraded their offense over the off-season at quarterback and at wide receiver bringing in Deshaun Watson and Amari Cooper. I still believe they need to add another veteran wide receiver threat if the Browns are going to challenge the Chiefs, Bills and Bengals for the AFC Championship. What if they don't add another quality wide receiver to their roster and run with who they have already, what will that mean to their chances of winning the AFC North and challenging for the AFC Championship? If this scenario plays out the Browns will need two players on offense to really step up and have a breakout season:

David Njoku

David Njoku was drafted in 2017 in Round 1 with pick 29. He's 6.4, 246lbs, and ran the 40 in 4.64. His best 3 seasons have been in 2018, 2020, and 2021 where he's played in the majority of the games. His stats are fairly consistent scoring 4 touchdowns in 2018 & 2021, with 631 receiving yards in 2018 and 475 receiving yards in 2021. His catch % has been between 65%-67% in all of these seasons and his yards per return have been between 11-13 each season. His PFF receiving grades were 65.3 in 2018, 64.1 in 2020, and 70.0 in 2021. David Njoku is a good player, but with Amari Cooper being the only great proven wide receiver talent on the team, and with the Browns often regarded as a tight end favored team, he's going to need to take a greater load of the team's yardage and red zone touchdowns. He was 12th in tight end touchdowns last season, but he needs to move into the top 5. Travis Kelce ranked 1st with 9 touchdowns and was second in receiving yards with 1,125 way ahead of Njoku's 475. The Browns need to do a better job at scheming for Njoku as his catch % was actually better than Kelce's last season so a lot is resting on this position and this player.

Donovan Peoples-Jones

There is arguably an even greater pressure on DPJ to step up. Currently, he is the Browns WR2 behind Amari Cooper so if the Browns Front Office don't bring in another wide receiver they must have a lot of faith in him. The stats are mixed. On the positive side, PFF graded him 73.1 in receiving in 2020 although this went down to 67.0 last season. In 2021 he had 597 receiving yards on 34 receptions with 58 targets and 17.6 yards per return. He had 3 touchdowns and a catch % of 58.6%. He's a Round 6 drafted wide receiver picked at 187, but he was badly trained and under-utilized at Michigan which is likely why he fell so far. He has a lot of potentials, but he's really going to need to step and improve drastically if he's going to have the production the Browns need out of their WR2 to be very successful in 2022.

The Browns have just re-signed their right defensive end, Jadeveon Clowney, on a 1 year $11 million deal. This is excellent news for the Browns as it means they just need to add a run stopper in their defensive tackle room to make their defense truly elite. PFF had Clowney with 11 sacks last season, a 62.8 run defense grade, and a 69.1 pass rush grade. He's a crucial player to the Browns defensive line and relieves the pressure on Chase Winovich to be that DE2 opposite, Garrett. Chase Winovich had his best form in 2020 with 5.5 sacks, 6 tackles for loss and 12 quarterback hits so if he can improve upon this their DE Room will be very impressive. The Browns need their Linebackers to take the next step up and there is one player in particular they will be hoping to see make great strides forward.

Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah

JOK fell to the Browns in the 2020 Draft in Round 2 at pick 52. He's 6.2, 215lbs, and fly's around the field stopping the run. Per PFF, his run defense grade was 78.7 last season with an overall grade of 76.5. In 14 games he made 3 sacks, had 2 forced fumbles (5th), 3 tackles for loss, 4 quarterback hits, and 49 solo tackles (50th). He achieved these stats as a rookie player, so if he gets better in year 2 the Browns will have an excellent second line of defense in front of their already outstanding defensive backs.

If Njoku, DPJ, and JOK all have big seasons in 2022 then the Browns could catapult themselves into the AFC Championship talk, especially if they add a run-stopping defensive tackle and a veteran wide receiver.