5 defensive prospects Cleveland Browns are scouting at Senior Bowl

The Cleveland Browns will be watching the Senior Bowl closely looking for help on defense

The Reese’s Senior Bowl game is happening Saturday, Feb. 4 in Mobile Alabama. It’s one of the first big events for many college prospects hoping to get drafted in April. The Cleveland Browns, like the other 31 teams in the NFL, will have members of their organization down in Mobile trying to determine who will be the future stars in the league.

Cleveland has several areas that they still need to fix on their roster, including some areas on the defense. Over the past two seasons, the performance of the defensive tackles has been very poor so look for attempts to upgrade that position. You can never have enough cornerbacks, so that will be monitored as well. We also don’t know what’s going to happen at the safety position as a veteran like John Johnson could be released or traded at some point.

With that backdrop, let’s take a look at five defensive players that the Browns may have their eye on this Saturday at the Senior Bowl.

Cleveland Browns scouting No. 5: JL Skinner, DB/Safety, Boise State

Cleveland has some potential issues at the safety position going into the next season. While Grant Delpit won’t be going anywhere, John Johnson III could be gone via release or trade to save the Browns some cap money. With that as a possibility, they need to find some help in the back end of the defense that was often burned too many times this past season.

One of the best safety’s coming out of college is JL Skinner, from Boise State and he’ll be watched closely by the Browns in this game. He’s an imposing 6-foot-4 safety that has excellent vision and anticipation. He moves well and can close out in zone coverage quickly to help shut down the run.

Skinner had an outstanding career at Boise State as he finished 208 tackles, seven interceptions, and 12 pass breakups. In a game this past year against Wyoming he had two interceptions, a pass deflection, and five tackles in a win.

At the start of their season, he was a tackling machine as he recorded 12 tackles against Oregon State in the season opener and 13 tackles against Texas El-Paso a couple of weeks later.

Skinner definitely jumps off the page when you start watching film on this kid. Imagining him and Delpit teaming up on the backside of the defense is really exciting to consider.