3 Cleveland Browns who will break out after the bye week

3. Austin Hooper, Tight End

Austin Hooper has had a fairly mediocre start to his tenure for the Cleveland Browns. He has had at least two receptions in every game he has participated in so far this season. And has caught somewhere between 20 and 50 yards in most games up to this point.

Normally, this amount of production would be serviceable coming from a tight end. However, his production has not quite been up to par with the contract Hooper received from the Browns this offseason.

Hooper was given a large amount of money to come to Cleveland. According to spotrac.com, Austin Hooper’s $42 million contract is currently the fifth most valuable of all NFL tight ends. That’s too much money to allocate towards someone who can tend to disappear on the field for long stretches of games.

The Cleveland tight end is also recently recovering from appendicitis. This caused him to miss the last two games. However, he should be back on the field after the bye week.

Hooper should see an immediate uptick in targets upon his return. Hooper has not seen the field since Odell Beckham Jr. suffered his season-ending ACL tear. Head coach Kevin Stefanski should look to return to the drawing board on offense and part of that will most likely be getting the ball to a well-rested Austin Hooper. Look for Hooper to live up to his large contract in the second half of the season by becoming one of Baker Mayfield’s favorite targets.