Cleveland Browns long shot WR Alexander Hollins may be a value proposition

The numbers say Alexander Hollins has no shot to make the Cleveland Browns roster, but maybe he can play. 

Little-known Cleveland Browns wide receiver Alexander Hollins is a long shot to make the 53-player roster this season, but he is in his third year, has had time to figure out his position, and there is a case to be made that he has upside.

In college, he played in the FCS Subdivision for the Eastern Illinois Panthers, where he had 1,090 receiving yards and 16 receiving touchdowns in 2018. After attending a junior college, Hollins was a two-year member of the Panthers, earning First-Team All-Ohio Valley Conference honors and All-America honors during his 2018 senior season.

Oftentimes, playing for a small school earns a player a stereotype that he cannot really play and is not athletic enough to compete with the big boys in the NFL. In the case of Hollins, however, that might not be true.

At his Pro Day, he turned on the jets for 4.49 seconds on the 40-yard dash and also hit 2.53 at the 20-yard point and 1.59 at the 10-yard point. His vertical jump was 37 inches, and his broad jump was 128 inches. His 20 Yard Shuttle time was 4.18 seconds, and his 3-Cone Drill time was 6.89 seconds.

These are all really good numbers, which are normally consistent with a second-day draft pick. His size might be a knock against him, at 6 feet even and 166 pounds. However, guys his size have made it and have been good pass catchers, though we usually don’t think of them as fantastic blockers for the running game.

The most intriguing part of his story, however, is that the Browns signed Hollins from the Minnesota Vikings practice squad, which means that Kevin Stefanski was his offensive coordinator for the 2019 season. That means he knows the basic offense that Stefanski and Alex Van Pelt want to run, and Stefanski has a pretty good idea what kind of player and what kind of person the Browns have.

So why didn’t Hollins make the Vikings regular roster in 2020? To make a long story short, the Vikes had a crowded roster, a bit like the Browns in that they played a lot of two-tight-end formations and made liberal use of a fullback and could not justify six or seven wide receivers.

They had two star receivers in Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen. But they also drafted K.J. Osborn in the fifth round, and they used Chad Beebe, Tajae Sharpe, and Olabisi Johnson, giving them six wide receivers. They also had three good tight ends, a fullback, and four running backs. They simply didn’t have room for another wide receiver and so Hollins was banished to the practice squad.

Fan-to-fan, I have too much respect for the readership to try to kid you into believing that I watch a ton of Eastern Illinois football, or have time study film of Vikings pre-season games to accumulate scouting reports on bottom-of-the roster wide receivers. I can’t possibly give you assurances that this guy is going to make it and become a good NFL receiver.

The best I can offer is that in 2019 the Vikes threw four balls to him in the pre-season and he caught three of them for 26 yards. He managed to start one game in the regular season and had two grabs out of four targets for 46 yards.

Of course, in 2020 there were no pre-season games. However, the press buzz was that Hollins was an emerging talent and it came as a surprise that the Vikings cut him.

However, though I cannot offer a firsthand scouting report on Hollins, I have spent a lot of time trying to understand the methodology of Andrew Berry, and this guy may be a value proposition. That is, he may add value without adding much cost. Players like Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham, Jr. are great players, but they are also major expenses.

To win the Super Bowl, the general manager has to get more than he pays for rather than less. If you have too many players with top 10 contracts and play outside the level of the top 20, they are not actually assets even if they are good players. That’s not to say that is the case for Landry and OBJ, but that is the danger.

The best value proposition on the team is probably Rashard Higgins. Landry and OBJ cost six times as much money, but probably don’t add six times as much production. Like Hollins, Higgins comes from a university off the beaten path, though Colorado State is Division I FBS rather than FCS like Hollins.

Higgins, at a $2.1 million cap hit this season, is about the 70th highest-paid receiver according to overthecap.com. But if you believe he plays at the level of a number two wide receiver (somewhere between 33rd and 64th best in the NFL), he is an obvious value.

Numerically, the oddsmakers could state this as follows — how much does the player help the team score points (or, in the case of a defensive player, lower the opponent’s point total) versus how much does it cost the team in cap charges for him to do it?

You can only win if your roster is filled with players who have a high ability to affect the score with minimal impact on the salary cap. You are not going to win if you fixate on certain players and decide that you have to have a certain player *regardless of cost.* That is a death wish for cap management.

We know that John Dorsey was willing to pay $15 million a year and a first-round draft pick and a former first-round draft pick (Jabrill Peppers) to obtain the services of Odell Beckham, Jr. Dorsey was motivated by the intention of mounting a serious Super Bowl run in 2019. Now stop laughing. I’m serious.

That was the entire point of overpaying for OBJ. Dorsey realized this was a poor proposition in the long run, but in the near term–namely the 2019 season–this was intended to be a clear win even if the future cost was huge.

Andrew Berry has not established a track record in this department, but guessing here is that he will not overspend on wide receivers as long as he has a quarterback like Baker Mayfield who can accurately throw a football into a small window to receivers like Rashard Higgins.

If Hollins can be a younger and faster version of Higgins — and for all we know, he might be — he would be the kind of player Berry would like to accumulate. Hollins’ pay rate is only $780000, or about one-third of Higgins’ pay, or one-20th of what OBJ and Landry are getting.

But how do you find a roster spot for him? The Browns have Landry, OBJ, Higgins, third-round draft pick Anthony Schwartz, Donovan Peoples-Jones, Khadarel Hodge, and Ryan Switzer ahead of him. Hodge and his agent foolishly parlayed his restricted free agency into a non-guaranteed contract for $2.1 million dollars, meaning he will certainly be cut. Hollins would have to convince the Browns to carry six receivers or that he can outplay Higgins.

Landry and OBJ are under contract for this season, but Berry may be of the mindset to phase out mega contracts at this position. We will have to wait and see, one season at a time.