All offseason, Cleveland Browns fans begged the team to add to the wide receiver room. Outside of Jerry Jeudy returning after a career year, the Browns didn’t have any consistently reliable receivers. Still, Cleveland didn’t do much for the room but sign Diontae Johnson, who played for three different teams last season. Now, just three days into camp, the thin wide receiver room is already being exposed, and things just got worse.
On Friday, Cedric Tillman, who’s considered Cleveland’s WR2, went up for a pass in practice and fell to the ground with an apparent leg injury. The receiver left the field with a trainer, and the team has confirmed he’s dealing with a lower leg injury. There weren’t any details about the specific injury or the severity, so Tillman could return to practice on Saturday or be out for a extended period of time.
This comes after David Bell was placed on the NFI list, and after Johnson and Michael Woods missed practice with injuries. Ultimately, it’s still early, and everyone could be ready to go by Week 1, but the Browns clearly are taking a gamble with their wide receiver room.
Everything we said all offseason about Cedric Tillman developing into a good WR2 was predicated on “if he stays healthy.”
— The Dawgs - A Cleveland Browns Podcast (@thedawgspodcast) July 25, 2025
Hopefully the injury is nothing serious.
But these 3 days of camp have reaffirmed how thin our receiver room is:
- David Bell was placed on NFI
- Diontae… https://t.co/fLgABSjTWs
Cedric Tillman sustains lower-body injury in Browns practice
Cleveland’s rationale for not aggressively building the wide receiver room is probably that it plans to be a run-first offense. The Browns haven’t been shy about sharing their intentions to build the offense around the run. That’s why the team drafted two running backs and a tight end; everything in the offense will be built off the run.
Even if things go according to plan, it’s still best to have good wideouts, and depth in the receiver room. The Browns will have to pass eventually, and when they do, it’d be great if the quarterbacks had more than just Jerry Jeudy to target. It’s still early, but it remains to be seen if that’ll be the case or not.