Dawgs By Nature
The wide receiver room has several open roster spots
The Cleveland Browns, under the current jurisdiction of head coach Kevin Stefanski and GM Andrew Berry, have traditionally kept six receivers each season after the final cuts have hit the fan. In this year’s training camp, expect Jerry Jeudy, Ced Tillman, and Jamari Thrash to count for three of these spots.
That leaves three remaining slots with 13 healthy bodies in the receiver room.
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Jaelen Gill did not sign a free agent contract with the Browns to come in and become a training camp body. He is in Berea to win a job. In fact, he expects to have his name inserted into one of the three available open positions in this year’s receiver group.
Gill (6’-0”, 185 pounds) is an Ohio kid. He was raised in Westerville, just a bit northeast of Columbus and went to Westerville South High School. He ran track, was a stud running back with the football team, and played baseball, his best sport. In fact, he came from a baseball family of cousins, uncles, plus his father all playing the game at some point. In his senior year, Gill had a .358 batting average as an outfielder and also pitched some.
And as good as he was in baseball, he was better at football.
Rivals.com rated him a four-star recruit and ranked him the #2 prospect in the State of Ohio and #37 in the nation. He had scholarship offers from just about every major college: Virginia Tech, Purdue, Pitt, Texas, Toledo, Michigan, LSU, Notre Dame, Oregon, Kentucky, Penn State, Tennessee, Duke, Oklahoma State, Cincinnati, Mississippi State, Arizona State, Michigan State, USC, Louisville, UCLA, Ohio State, Illinois, Nebraska, and Florida.
He received the offer from Kentucky during halftime of one of his high school games.
But baseball seemed to be his calling. Gill had been a member of a travel team called “The Ohio Elite Central,” which was the #2 U-14 team in the nation. He was an excellent base stealer and always the lead-off hitter. He was the MVP of the 2013 and 2014 Eastbay All-American games.
Gill raced in the 4x100 relays, where he was the anchor because of his closing speed. In his junior year, the team came inches from breaking the school record. In his senior campaign, they shattered it.
As good as he was in baseball, his first love was football. Gill was an amazing running back with great hands and was known for being shifty and elusive. In middle school alone, he rushed for over 2,500 yards and scored 42 TDs. Scouts started attending his high school games early and remained in the stands until his final game. He also played some safety, but it was his running skills that these major universities coveted. Gill rushed for 1,553 yards and 19 TDs as a sophomore, but was injured in his junior year.
Gill was considered one of the best all-around...
