Top 10 all-time best Cleveland Browns players since ’99
By John Suchan
No. 5 all-time Cleveland Browns player since 1999- Kevin Johnson, WR
Johnson was drafted in the 1999 NFL Draft in the second round after Tim Couch was drafted at No. 1 overall. He was the first wide receiver taken by the team and he proved to be a very good addition. Johnson was a product of Syracuse and established himself as a reliable No. 1 receiver.
He was with Cleveland into the 2003 season until he was traded surprisingly midway through the campaign to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
He finished his career in Cleveland with 315 receptions for 3,836 yards and tallied 23 touchdowns. His 2001 season was his best as he went for 1,097 yards on 84 catches and caught nine touchdowns. He had several big games over his time as a Brown. That first season, he made the NFL All-Rookie team. He had two games that season where he went over 100 yards receiving.
By 2001, he collected another two games of going over 100 yards. He also had nine games of catching five passes or more. In 2002, he added another eight games with four or more catches. Before he was traded midway through that 2003 season, he had one of his best games as a Brown when he caught 11 receptions for 109 yards in an early season win 13-12 over the San Francisco 49ers.
The teams Johnson played on weren’t very good, but he helped those young teams post-1999 get off the ground. There have been wide receivers who have come and gone from Cleveland such as Josh Gordan who was spectacular for a season like he was in 2013 when he recorded an amazing 1,646 yards in reception yards but ultimately, a player like Johnson was a symbolic and talented member of those early teams that helped define their grit despite a team that was less than overly talented.