Cleveland Browns: 20 best draft day steals of all-time

Cleveland Browns best NFL Draft steals of all time: 1. Leroy Kelly

If it feels like the NFL Draft lasts long now with seven rounds, think about how it would be if they still had 20 rounds as they did back in 1964 when the Browns took Leroy Kelly in the eight-round at No. 110 overall.

Of course, there were only 14 teams at the time, so the number of picks wasn’t too far from what we have now. Even so, the eighth round for a running back who ended up starting 111 games is quite the steal.

Coming out of Morgan State in Baltimore, Kelly joined a Browns team that already had the legendary Jim Brown on their roster. Due to his presence, Kelly was relegated to a backup role on offense and had just 43 carried and nine receptions in 1964 and 1965 combined.

That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a contributor, though. During those years, Kelly was the primary return man for Cleveland and scored a touchdown as a rookie and two more as a sophomore on punt returns. He averaged 15.5 yards per punt return during that span and 25 yards per kickoff return.

Then in 1966, he took over for Brown, who retired after the 1965 season. Kelly quickly became a star as he finished his first 14 games as a starter with 1,141 yards and 15 touchdowns. The next two seasons, he led the league with 1,205 yards and 1,239 yards respectively, while adding a total of 27 more scores as well.

Kelly ended up playing 10 seasons with the Browns and made the Pro Bowl six times — all consecutively from 1966 to 1971. He ended up No. 2 all-time in Cleveland history with 7,274 yards rushing and 74 touchdowns.

Those numbers were hardly expected when he was drafted by the Browns, making him their biggest steal of all-time.