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Browns position coach expects Anthony Schwartz to contribute as rookie
By SDS Staff
Published:
Former Auburn wide receiver heads into an interesting situation as a rookie. The Cleveland Browns, who drafted Schwartz in the third round of 2021 NFL Draft, return their four top pass-catchers from last season: Jarvis Landry, Rashard Higgins, Austin Hooper and Odell Beckham Jr. Still, Browns wide receivers coach Chad O’Shea sees Schwartz getting touches this fall.
“Anytime you have a player that has this attribute of elite speed, there’s so many things that you think, as a coach, that you can do with them, and one of the things is just get the ball in his hands,” O’Shea recently said on the “Best Podcast Available.” “… I do think when you have a player that has the speed and some of the other traits that we like in him and the ability maybe to move around the formation because of the strong mental that we see in him that really he’s going to have a lot of opportunities to have the ball in his hands and do some things to make big plays for us.”
O’Shea was highly complimentary of Schwartz, saying the former Tiger impressed them with more than just his on-field speed.
“One of the things that we try to do is we really try to interview these guys and get a feel for where they are mentally,” O’Shea said. “And we go through that with the majority of all the guys in the draft, and he definitely was somebody who was very impressive in that process. He’s somebody we feel like can come in here mentally and we can move around to different spots to maximize his speed and what he does best. But he was very impressive as far as mentally in the process that we had in place for the draft.”
“He was definitely very impressive on the testing and very impressive in his ability to discuss his offense and to be very detailed in what he was doing,” the position coach added.
It will be interesting to see how Schwartz is used when Baker Mayfield has plenty of targets in the passing game. Schwartz is coming off of a junior season where he caught 54 passes for 636 yards and 3 touchdowns, the most productive of his three years on The Plains.
Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.
