4 Cleveland Browns worth scouting at mandatory minicamp

1. Odell Beckham, Jr., Wide Receiver

In Week 7, the Cleveland Browns lost their most explosive offensive player when Odell Beckham, Jr. suffered a torn ACL on their first drive against Cincinnati. As fate would have it, the offense started to look much better after OBJ was gone but that wasn’t because he was out of the lineup.

Instead, it just happened to be a strange coincidence as the offense started to click under Kevin Stefanski at that same time. Remember, they had no offseason workouts and much of their training camp time was interrupted with COVID cases shutting down practice.

That meant it took a little longer for things to gel and once they did, it was a thing of beauty. And it would have been even better if No. 13 was on the field stretching defenses.

The good news is, he’s been making major strides in his recovery as evidenced by the social media videos where he’s seen working out — and running on a treadmill faster than most of us who have never had knee surgery can. If that wasn’t enough reason to be excited, Beckham also took part in the practices in Austin with Baker Mayfield and then was playing softball in Jarvis Landry’s celebrity game. Landry spoke about his friend, saying he looked “amazing.”

Beckham is expected to take part in OTAs this Tuesday which is another big step for him. Sure, the team would be crazy to try and send him out there at full speed but he will likely be taking a lot of passes from Mayfield.

What will be important is seeing how the two look together. Hopefully, their time in Austin pays off and we start to see the connection we have been longing for since OBJ was traded from New York back in 2019.

There won’t be a whole lot learned from these practices for those of us on the outside, but watching these four players should provide us with a lot of entertainment and plenty to talk about.