Browns Had Banked on Taking Corner in Draft

In a story released by Bob Hammond of the Laramie Boomerang, the Cleveland Browns had planned on drafting cornerback Julius Stinson out of the University of Wyoming back in April:

The NFL Draft was set to begin on Saturday and he had four teams calling him. Just the day before, the Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs and New York Jets had let the Cowboy corner know that he was on their respective draft boards.

And just before he headed for his workout on that fateful Thursday [before the draft], he had talked to the Cleveland Browns and he was told that they were planning on taking him somewhere between the fifth and seventh rounds.

"I was feeling pretty good about myself at this point," a wistful Stinson recalled earlier this week. "It was a good day that was soon to turn bad."

Unfortunately, at that individual workout, Stinson suffered a complete tear of his Achilles' tendon. There's no guaranteeing that another team wouldn't have taken Stinson before us, but if we had taken him in the fifth round (via a trade up) or the sixth round, then there's a possibility that we wouldn't have had Athyba Rubin or Paul Hubbard on our roster.