Cleveland Browns Team Preview: NFL Fantasy Football Sleepers, Picks & Rankings (FREE)

With ESPN and Yahoo NFL Fantasy Football leagues starting shortly, and Best Ball leagues already going, our goal is to get you prepped early for your upcoming NFL fantasy drafts with our team previews that feature a look into key positional additions and departures, breakdowns, and possible sleepers.

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We’ll be releasing four team previews per week, starting June 25 and going through August 16, beginning with the AFC East.


Ben Rasa and Nolan Kelly break down the NFC North for your Season Long Fantasy Football Drafts


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Last day’s preview:

Cincinnati Bengals

AFC East Team Previews

  1. Overview
  2. Key Fantasy Departures: Targets
  3. Offensive additions
  4. Best Ball ADP
  5. Positional breakdowns: QB, WR, RB, TE, O-line
  6. Preseason players to watch
  7. Betting guide
  8. NFL Fantasy players to target
  9. Biggest question mark
  10. Fantasy football sleepers
  11. Awesemo’s fantasy football rankings
  12. News and updates: check back throughout the next two months
  13. Final thoughts

Overview

After previewing four of the worst fantasy football teams in the NFL thus far, we finally get an exciting team to analyze. The Cleveland Browns are the sexy pick for the most improved fantasy team in the NFL this season and are expected to finally challenge for a playoff spot.

The Browns improved to 7-8-1 last season, after posting an 0-16 record the year before. But they didn’t rest on its laurels. GM John Dorsey went out and acquired Odell Beckham Jr., DE Olivier Vernon, and DT Sheldon Richardson, while stealing projected first round pick Greedy Williams in the second round of the draft.

Word out of OTAs is that newly promoted head coach Freddie Kitchens and new offensive coordinator Todd Monken are clashing, though that report may be over-blown. On paper anyways, it seems like these two will be a great fit together.

Monken ran a high-paced, up-tempo offence in Tampa last year that led the entire NFL in passing yards, and that was with Ryan Fitzpatrick and Jameis Winston under centre. After firing Todd Haley at the mid-point, the Browns improved their offence by 50 yards per game (395), a total that would have ranked fourth in the NFL over a full season.

Run percentage: 40% (18th)

Pass percentage: 60% (15th)

Offensive pace: 5th

Key Fantasy Departures: Targets

Total: 54

  • Breshad Perriman: 25
  • Darren Fells: 12
  • Other: 17

Offensive Additions

  • Odell Beckham Jr: If the 26-year-old can stay healthy, the Browns should have a top-five offence this season. A return to 100 receptions and 1,400 yards seems probable in Todd Monken’s air-raid offence.

Best Ball ADP

It’s fascinating that people are still drafting Kareem Hunt in Best Ball, despite the fact that he’ll miss the first nine weeks of the season. That’s 75% of the Best Ball regular season, for, at best, three weeks of a time-share back? Egregious. Let other people make that mistake. Don’t draft him in season long either, as there is ZERO chance you will want to hold onto him that long.

  • 15) Odell Beckham Jr.
  • 19) Nick Chubb
  • 71) Jarvis Landry
  • 82) Baker Mayfield (QB7)
  • 89) David Njoku
  • 100) Kareem Hunt
  • 158) Duke Johnson
  • 192) Antonio Callaway

Quarterback

No one is sleeping on Baker Mayfield this season after he posted an impressive 3,700 yards and 27 TDs in 2019, which was good enough to make him PFF’s 9th ranked QB. After Cleveland’s coaching change last season he registered a 70% completion percentage and 8.58 yards per attempt (3rd). With another year of experience and the additions of OBJ and pass-happy Todd Monken, there’s no reason to think Mayfield can’t work his way into the top-five.

Wide Receiver

It’s going to be fun to see what Odell Beckham Jr. looks like without a geriatric, glorified back-up quarterback throwing him the ball. Mayfield ranked third in the NFL last season with a 51.4% Accuracy Rate on deep balls, while Manning was 22nd with at 39%. With the uptick in pace, accuracy, and aDOT, all signs point to a OBJ competing to lead the NFL in receiving this season.

Jarvis Landry makes for a fine complement to OBJ. And down-tick in his role should be more than made up for with this offence’s increased efficiency and scoring ability. Landry got off to a scorching start last year with 92 targets (2nd in the NFL) and 578 receiving yards over the first nine weeks, only to cool in the second half of the season. It’s slightly concerning that his downturn coincided with Kitchens taking over play calling duties.

PFF ranks these OBJ and Landry as the second best receiving duo in the NFL.

Cleveland used 3WR sets at the second lowest rate of any team in the NFL last year, while Todd Monken used them at the seventh highest rate, so something’s got to give. That low usage rate may simply be a comment of the Browns lack of depth at the position last year.

Antonio Callaway is a talented, young WR who fell out of the first round in the 2018 draft all the way to the fourth, amid character concerns. He flashed at times last year, but finished 11th in the NFL in dropped balls, despite only receiving 78 targets. With Beckham Jr, Landry, David and David Njoku all fighting for targets, its difficult to envision depth receivers like Callaway or Rashad Higgins taking on much of a role in this offence, though Callaway has the highest upside and makes for a decent deep sleeper.

Running Back

Nick Chubb should have full workhorse duties this year, perhaps occasionally spelling off for Duke Johnson in passing downs, should the unhappy back not have his trade request granted. As mentioned, it’s foolish to worry about Chubb’s role in the wake of the Kareem Hunt suspension. By the time Hunt is back, Chubb will most likely already solidified his role as the starter in this offence and if he hasn’t, then you can simply grab Hunt on the wire in week seven.

Chubb led the NFL last season with 103.3 PFF elusive rating, 14 points clear of Derrick Henry, the next closest back. He finished as the seventh highest scoring RB in standard fantasy football scoring last season after taking over lead duties in week seven, but is currently going off the board around RB 11-13.

Tight End

David Njoku is currently being drafted as the TE9 in Best Ball, which is perhaps a little surprising, given that players ahead of him like Jared Cook, Hunter Henry and Eric Ebron all enter the season with some uncertainty regarding their roles. Njoku finished last season as the TE9, with a 56-639-4, but is just 22-years-old and, as an elite athlete, offers some serious upside in this high paced offence. He was the second ranked pSPARQ athlete in the 2017 draft class behind George Kittle. If you miss out on one of the big boys, Njoku is worth targeting in the mid-rounds.

Offensive Line

Trending: Down

Run blocking rank: 16th

Pass blocking rank: 3rd

Quite possibly the only position unit on the Browns that suffered a downgrade this offseason. With the loss of Pro-Bowl guard Kevin Zeitler (PFF’s top ranked pass-blocking guard, 12th in run blocking) in the trade for DE Olivier Vernon, the Browns have tapped 2018 2nd round pick Austin Corbett to replace him. Corbett only saw 15 snaps last season, all at tackle, basically red-shirting as he transitioned from college LT to NFL guard. Fittingly, Corbett actually took over for Browns LG Joel Bitonio at the University of Nevada in college.

Greg Robinson is expected to take over as the Browns full-time starting LT after splitting duties with Desmond Harrison last season. More is expected of him.

This unit has some definite question marks.

Preseason Players to Watch

  • Duke Johnson: The Browns pass-catching back wants out, but if he’s still in Cleveland and holding down 3rd down duties, he’s a decent high-floor, low-ceiling flier in later rounds.
  • Antonio Callaway/Rashad Higgins: There likely aren’t enough targets to keep everyone happy in this offence, but whoever gets the 3WR role should be viable in weekly DFS or as a super deep sleeper, especially if it’s Callaway.
  • Offensive line play: if Corbett’s transition is seamless and Robinson is adequate, that bodes well for Nick Chubb.

Ben Rasa’s NFL Fantasy Football and Betting Preview

2019 O/U Win Total – 9 (Over -140 , Under +110)

It may have taken some of the most inept seasons in NFL History during the rebuild , but the future is now in Cleveland with the Browns set to kick off a season where they are a serious threat to make some noise. They have their franchise QB locked up, brought in a bunch of new weapons and now have the coaching ranks settled in with Kitchens and Monken (OC) leading the charge. With all this comes higher expectations and anything short of a playoff birth has to be considered a sub-par effort with how Vegas and the league is viewing this new look Browns team.

Ben’s Favorite Player to Target

Baker Mayfield – QB

Hard to not say that Baker is the guy you want from this offense as obviously his volume isn’t an issue and he showed flashes of brilliance in his rookie campaign. Add in the fact that now he has OBJ , a stable of RB’s and not Hue Jackson as a head coach and its easy to envision him making some major strides in his second year in the league. In terms of where he may end up in the fantasy football rankings this year he’s certainly in the conversation to be a top 5 QB given what we’ve highlighted and the overall optimism surrounding this Browns team.

Biggest Question

How does Kareem Hunt impact the RB situation?

OBJ was a huge pickup, but the Browns also got deeper at the RB position with the acquisition of Kareem Hunt. Hunt is suspended until at least Week 10 so he is at best a late round flyer in leagues with lots of bench spots, in the hopes he could make the difference late in the season or during playoff time in your league. Nick Chubb is going to have a major role regardless and has the first half of the season to establish himself as a worthy RB1 and top tier talent in Fantasy.

When both available they will make a nice 1-2 punch with Hunt catching balls out of the backfield and Chubb probably getting the majority of the work on the ground. I wouldn’t reach for either of these guys, but see no reason to hesitate to draft either given the upside and overall optimism that surrounds this offense.

Sleeper

Browns Defense

Truth be told I didn’t see anyone on this offense who seems like they are under the radar or being overlooked , but the Browns defense is quietly coming together without nearly as much hype surrounding it. During the miserable stretches of rebuilding the D actually kept them in games , but it was too much to overcome DeShone Kizer and the rest of that turnover prone offense. Myles Garrett is a problem for any line and Denzel Ward leads a secondary that should take strides once again this year.

Obviously the improved offense is going to set the table nicely and for Fantasy Football purposes we should see this Browns D have plenty of  opportunities to rush the passer and force turnovers which is the name of the game. Add in that their division isn’t exactly murderers row on the offensive side and you have a situation where I think the Browns D is a nice pickup late in drafts and could end up a Top-10 unit when we look back on 2019.

Awesemo’s NFL Fantasy Football Rankings

Awesemo’s Season Long NFL Fantasy Football projections and rankings are OUT! And they are customizable and can be used as ESPN Fantasy Football Rankings or Yahoo Fantasy Football Rankings for whichever host site you use for your league.

You can find them right HERE.

Updates

  • Duke Johnson has been traded to the Houston Texans. Dontrell Hilliard is a nice deep sleeper in Best Balls.

Final Thoughts

Like everyone I have to admit the Browns are headed in the right direction and have all the talent in the world to make themselves a competitor for many years to come. However I do think Vegas is a little too high on them setting the O/U at 9 (-140) and making them a serious threat to win the AFC North. I will be looking to short the Browns in the betting market, but I still believe they have plenty of Fantasy Relevance on both sides of the ball and there is no doubt some of their weapons will be effective. Like a lot of teams finding a coaching staff that can utilize and prioritize all these new additions is going to be key and we will have to see how the season unfolds for a team that is trying to learn on the fly while handling these new expectations.

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