5 Cleveland Browns WR prospects from out of nowhere

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EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ – DECEMBER 27: Ja’Marcus Bradley #84 of the Cleveland Browns completes a catch during a game against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium on December 27, 2020 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Photo by Benjamin Solomon/Getty Images) /

Cleveland Browns WR prospect No. 2: Ja’Marcus Bradley, under-the-radar veteran

Who? Ja’Marcus Bradley has been flying under the radar for two seasons. It’s time to find out if he can play. Let’s not have a bad attitude about our guy just because he shares a similar first name with JaMarcus Russell, who was one of the greatest draft busts of all time. Ja’Marcus of the Browns is in his third year and has never had significant playing time, but has never screwed anything up, either.

He was clocked at 4.48 for the 40-yard dash at his Pro Day while at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where he spent five seasons, including a redshirt year, as a Ragin’ Cajun (Sun Belt Conference, which is FBS).

In college, he improved each year. His highlight videos show that he was too fast for his quarterback to keep up with him. Hence he maxed out the range of his quarterback, and we have no college video of him at full throttle. That’s not his fault

With the Browns, he was a practice squad player. Covid caused him to become an emergency starter versus the Jets in 2020 and he did well until the Jets figured out his route tree consisted only of a few plays and shut him down in the second half.

He received some additional playing time in 2021. Last season, he quite literally caught everything thrown his way. He was targeted four times and had four catches. For his career, he has nine catches for 124 yards.

It is a small sample size, true, but Bradley was graded higher by Pro Football Focus than Jakeem Grant, JoJo Natson, Rashard Higgins and Anthony Schwartz. It doesn’t prove anything, but neither is there a proven reason to not let him play.

If Schwartz gets to play just because he is fast, Bradley should at least get a temporary practice squad promotion and get a chance to play on the grounds that he makes catches. If he starts to screw up, okay. But in two years we haven’t seen him do anything but run routes and make catches. At age 25, he is due for his shot. Maybe it’s his time now.

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