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Do the Cleveland Browns know what they have in Rashard Higgins?

By Elliot Kennel

CLEVELAND, OH - SEPTEMBER 18: Wide receiver Rashard Higgins #81 of the Cleveland Browns runs onto the field during the player introductions prior to the game against the Baltimore Ravens at FirstEnergy Stadium on September 18, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - SEPTEMBER 18: Wide receiver Rashard Higgins #81 of the Cleveland Browns runs onto the field during the player introductions prior to the game against the Baltimore Ravens at FirstEnergy Stadium on September 18, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images) /
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Cleveland Browns
PITTSBURGH, PA – DECEMBER 31: Rashard Higgins #81 of the Cleveland Browns reacts after a 5 yard touchdown reception in the third quarter during the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Heinz Field on December 31, 2017 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images) /

Higgins gets cut in 2017, re-signed but unimpressive.

The next year saw the Browns draft yet another guaranteed franchise quarterback in DeShone Kizer. Higgins was not a good match to Kizer. Higgins’ specialty is making a move and a cut to get open just a little bit and having the quarterback hit him within a very small window.

Kizer, on the other hand, preferred to use a grenade launcher to find wide-open targets from far away bases. Unfortunately, there was no such thing as a seven-step drop in the Cleveland playbook for quarterbacks. The pocket would collapse before that was possible. Even a five-step drop was rarely possible without getting the quarterback killed.

Overall, the Browns had 5,251 total yards from scrimmage and a total of 5,340 total snaps for the five position players, or 0.983 yards/snap, or a shade under 1.0,  for the team average. There was Hollywood Higgins turning in 0.477 yards/snap, or right about half the team average. To be blunt, that was horrible. Duke Johnson actually led the team in receiving yards as the outlet receiver. Former first-round pick Corey Coleman was involved in minor non-football incidents while doing nothing major on the field either.

Higgins did not survive the cutdown after summer camp 2017, but was added to the practice squad and elevated back to the active roster a few weeks later when roster space opened up.

The only rationale for not completely giving up on Higgins was that the DeShone Kizer quarterback experiment was so bad that none of the wide receivers could really be judged properly. With 20-20 hindsight, it might have gone differently if the kid could have had two more years of major college ball (he came out of college not just one year early, but two years early, and his career was not outstanding at the college level). Spending a year behind Josh McCown or Brock Osweiler would have helped him also.

The team went 0-16 and it was hard to know whether there was any talent on the roster at all. We really do not know whether Ricardo Louis would have developed into an NFL receiver, either.  Injuries cut short his career.

It is fair to say, however, that the numbers were not impressive for any wide receiver on the Browns roster in 2017. That would change in 2018 when Sashi Brown’s reign of terror was ended, and John Dorsey took over. Gone was DeShone Kizer, in came an All-Pro receiver in Jarvis Landry and a playoff-hardened veteran quarterback in Tyrod Taylor, as well as the first overall draft pick in Baker Mayfield.

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