The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Top pick Tillman signs rookie contract
Cedric Tillman, the Browns’ top pick in the draft last month, signed his rookie contract May 16, leaving only Dawand Jones unsigned from the team’s 2023 draft class.
Tillman, the 6-foot-3 wide receiver from Tennessee taken with the 74th overall pick, signed a fouryear, $5,625,314 contract, including a $1,091,136 signing bonus, two days after the conclusion of rookie minicamp in Berea.
Defensive tackle Siaki Ika (third round, Baylor, 98 overall), defensive end Isaiah McGuire (fourth round, Missouri, 126), quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson (fifth round, UCLA, 140), cornerback Cameron Mitchell (fifth round, Northwestern, 142) and center Luke Wypler from Ohio State (sixth round, 156) signed their contracts last week.
Tillman played in 44 games with 21 starts and caught 109 passes for 1,622 yards and 17 touchdowns over five seasons with the Volunteers. He owns the Tennessee record for consecutive games (seven) with at least one touchdown catch set from Oct. 16 to Dec. 30, 2021.
“His size, his strength, he’s a very good athlete, despite his dimensions, and has really strong hands,”
General Manager Andrew Berry said after drafting Tillman. “That being said, while he’s not necessarily your vertical stretch player, his speed is just fine, so we thought it was a nice holistic package more than anything. Certainly, the hands were a big part of it.”
The challenge for Coach Kevin Stefanski will be to
find ways to use his stable of wide receivers. Starters Amari Cooper and Donovan Peoples-Jones are back from last year.
The Browns traded their second-round pick (42nd overall) in last month’s draft to the Jets for wide receiver Elijah Moore and pick 74 overall. The Jets used the pick acquired from the Browns as partial payment in the trade with the Packers to acquire Aaron Rodgers. The Browns used the 74th pick on Tillman.
In addition to trading for Moore, the Browns signed free-agent wide receiver Marquise Goodwin from Seattle before drafting Tillman.
Despite appearances, Stefanski said the Browns did not go into the offseason with a mission to upgrade their receivers.
“Every season, you go in knowing that you lose players to free agency, to whatever it may be,” Stefanski said. “You trade players, you add players. That’s just the normal life of the NFL season, where you’re adding more to it. For us, we’re looking at good players wherever they come. In this case, talking about some pass catchers. We were able to add guys that we feel really strongly about.”
The additions of Moore, Goodwin and Tillman could put Anthony Schwartz in danger of losing his job. David Bell will have to fight for crumbs to see much action.
In other news, the Browns announced signing cornerback Chris Westry. Westry entered the NFL as an undrafted rookie with the Cowboys in 2019. He has played in eight NFL games, six of them with the Ravens in 2021 when he made 15 tackles and broke up three passes.