Time to put on my old teaching hat and grade the Cleveland Browns and John Dorsey for their efforts in the second and third round of the 2019 NFL Draft. The Browns selected LSU CB Greedy Williams with the No. 46 overall pick (after a trade up) and BYU LB Sione Takitaki at No. 88 overall in the third round.
Williams is a viable starter for Week 1. What’s nice for Cleveland is that he won’t necessarily have to start right away. He’ll have some time to work on adding needed bulk and improving his play strength. The biggest knock on him — playing soft against the run — is a legitimate one, and how defensive coordinator Steve Wilks works with that will be a big factor in Greedy’s initial fate.
Why he fell much farther than his projections is something worth exploring, but landing a guy who was widely discussed as the top CB in the draft class and a potential top-10 overall pick in the middle of the second round has to be considered a great value. That’s all we can really judge right now: draft value and apparent team/scheme fit. For that, the Browns and Dorsey get an A-minus for Williams.
Takitaki is a player I took a real shine to after seeing him up close and personal at the Shrine Game practices. He was arguably the best player there and showed more versatility and power than expected.
His fit with the Browns is interesting. Takitaki is more like ex-Browns starter Jamie Collins than he is Joe Schobert or Christian Kirksey, the man who announced the draft selection. That appeared to be a diminishing role in the new-look defense. He’s not someone useful in coverage situations, but could become an instant standout on special teams. There were other players I rated higher and believe would be better fits at other spots, but if the team believed in him, Takitaki wasn’t going to last much longer, based on pre-draft projections.
Grade: B
It’s been a few years since I was a teacher, but back in the day an A-minus and a B equaled a B-plus.
