Football often ends up in an arms race, and one area in which some teams in the AFC North have been looking to stock up is among pass catchers. The Cleveland Browns, limited on draft resources, for example, added wide receiver Elijah Moore via trade. Unhappy with his lot with the New York Jets, Cleveland was able to get him at an affordable price, giving another weapon to their $230 million quarterback, Deshaun Watson.
And his early impressions of his new quarterback have left him excited about the upcoming season and the part he will have to play in it. “I feel like it’s going to have a great impact for what he’s done years before and for what I’ve seen him do in practice time and time again”, he recently told reporters, via Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com, referring to his own production.
“Just the offseason work as far as the type of person he is, you can’t do nothing but be confident in what type of person and what he’s going to do out there”, he added of Watson, commending him for his dedication to the game. “When we’re chilling on the beach, we just got done working out, he’s still in the playbook. So seeing how he is with that only gives us more confidence like, ‘OK, let us go look at the playbook one more time’ so I can’t ask for nothing better”.
A former three-time Pro Bowler, Watson is coming off of an interesting two-year stretch. He sat out the entirety of the 2021 season as the situation with his former team, the Houston Texans, deteriorated, before being traded for three first-round picks and then some last year. He served an 11-game suspension following dozens of sexual misconduct accusations, a punishment handed down after the Browns gave him a five-year, fully-guaranteed $230 million deal.
But Moore is merely his teammate. It’s not his job to play judge, jury, and executioner. Whatever he might think of Watson personally, if he thinks anything at all, he’s got a job to do at the end of the day, and it’s something they share in common.
“He loves football”, he said of the quarterback. “That was the first thing, off the rip, I was probably most excited to see up and close because I heard all the stories growing up, watching him in college, seeing all those national games and watching him work and stuff like that. So seeing how much he loves football”.
Moore’s love of the game was under duress last year as his own situation with his former team deteriorated, having quarrels with his former offensive coordinator. A 2021 second-round pick, he caught just 37 passes last season on 65 targets for 446 yards and one touchdown. He had a more productive rookie year despite playing fewer snaps.
He hopes to find a home in Cleveland where they can get the most out of his skillset. Of course, if he were still in New York, he would be playing with Aaron Rodgers and working with a new offensive coordinator, so in the end, was it necessary?
