Midseason review leads to unsurprising 2023 needs identified for Browns

We aren’t the only ones who took a chance to do midseason reviews. During the Cleveland Browns bye week, we looked at the team’s 2022 NFL draft and 2022 offseason moves and graded them.

While the 2022 NFL season still has nine games left, it is never too early to think ahead to what the offseason could bring. We’ve brought you some NFL draft prospects from specific games over the last few weeks. This week, Oregon versus Washington has three interesting players to take a look at.

We will infrequently also bring you looks at some mock drafts, at least ones that include Cleveland’s first available selection.

Pro Football Focus did a midseason review as a way to look ahead to the 2023 offseason as a whole. Their evaluation did not come with any surprises as they identified defensive tackle, safety and wide receiver as positions of need for the Browns:

No team in the NFL has gotten worse play out of its defensive tackles than the Browns. They’ve spent a ton of mid-round draft capital on the position, but none of Perrion Winfrey, Tommy Togiai or Jordan Elliott has a PFF grade above 50.0 through Week 9. Don’t be surprised if the Browns continue to rebuild their receiver corps this offseason, either, bringing in another player to pair with Amari Cooper.

While hitting the nail on the head at defensive tackle, the safety position will be very interesting as well. John Johnson III and Grant Delpit have disappointed while Ronnie Harrison is set for free agency again, after returning on a small one-year deal.

Receiver will be interesting as Cooper has played well and Donovan Peoples-Jones has filled his role nicely but David Bell has been slow to adjust and Anthony Schwartz has been nonexistent. Cleveland will watch intently to see how Deshaun Watson plays with the group to decide what moves they need to make.

If the Browns spent most of their offseason resources up the middle of the defense, many of their issues could be solved. It will be interesting to see if they do, in fact, follow that logic this offseason.