Cleveland Browns: 20 Worst free agents signings in franchise history

Cleveland Browns worst free agents signings No. 11: Ben Tate, Running Back

Back in 2010, the Houston Texans added Ben Tate out of Auburn with the 58th overall pick in the NFL Draft. Tate’s career, unfortunately, got off to a rough start though as he broke his ankle in his first-ever preseason game and missed his rookie campaign.

With him on IR, Arian Foster took off and led the NFL in rushing. That meant when he came back in 2011, he was going to be coming off the bench and had to beat out Derrick Ward and Steve Slaton to get snaps.

Tate had no problem doing that and had 942 yards rushing and four touchdowns. His next season was quiet but then his final year in Houston was another solid campaign. That was in 2013 when he had 771 yards and four touchdowns as well as 34 receptions.

He then joined the Cleveland Browns in 2014 but never established himself as the starter there. He did have a 123 yard game against the Titans in a narrow win but was still struggling with consistency. In eight games, he had 106 rushes for just 333 yards with a mere 3.1 yards per carry average.

Cleveland continued to split carries and this frustrated Tate who was eventually released. He had just 13 more regular-season carries the rest of his career, all of which came in 2014 with the Vikings. He did, however, get into the playoffs that same year when the Steelers added him to the roster after an injury to Le’Veon Bell.