Why new linebacker Elijah Lee will help the Browns

Elijah Lee has played in the Joe Woods defense and went to the Super Bowl .

Welcome to the Cleveland Browns, Elijah Lee! As for the Browns fans, many of you are no doubt disappointed the Browns have not traded for J.J. Watt from the Houston Texans, or at least signed one of Jerry Jones’ famous but underperforming players such as Dontari Poe or Daryl Worley.

Instead, you have been given Elijah Lee, someone you may not have heard of, who was not even playing regularly for the Detroit Lions and embattled coach Matt Patricia. Heck, Patricia may be coaching in the XFL next year. But there are a few things you might be interested to know about Lee.

First, he played in the Joe Woods defense in San Francisco as a backup and had 20 special teams snaps in the Super Bowl LIV. Super Bowl experience in the locker room is kind of like a cold, but in a good way. It’s contagious and other players in the locker room might catch it. Kevin Stefanski also knows him because he was a Vikings number seven draft pick back in 2017.

Even though Lee has been a backup for most of his career he has started in the NFL six times and has recorded 535 snaps on defense, plus 834 on special teams.  The Browns need help in both areas.

Because Lee knows the Woods defense, he is going to be months ahead of some other player that might be brought in without that experience. Linebacker is too complex of a position to try to bluff your way through. If you put a very good athlete out there but he blows his assignment, the result is usually disastrous. Let’s go with the guy that has the football smarts built-in for the defense that the team is actually playing.

We may joke about the Detroit Lions, but the fact of the matter is that they play some good defense for Matt Patricia at times. Thus, not being a starter there, or in San Francisco, is not necessarily an indictment of his ability.

Lee’s contract is $835,000, which is 40 percent higher than what they would pay for bringing up a rookie from the practice squad at the NFL minimum of $610,000. The concept of value compares how good the player is compared to the cost of his services. So, by signing the four-year veteran, the Browns are saying that they can get 140 percent of the performance from the best practice squad kid. This is very, very likely to be true.

Lee will not make the Pro Bowl, sorry. But he can help the team this year as a situational linebacker and on special teams, and hopefully, fans will be satisfied with that.

It’s still possible that the Browns could invest millions of salary cap or draft picks worth millions of dollars to bring over the right player by Tuesday. However, the Browns are not losing sight of the goal of building a team that is better than the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers, while staying ahead of the Cincinnati Bengals.

They do not want to damage their ability to improve in future years unless they really get value in return.