{"id":25897,"date":"2025-05-05T14:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T14:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/25897\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T14:44:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T14:44:11","slug":"browns-officially-announce-signing-of-controversial-playmaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/25897\/","title":{"rendered":"Browns Officially Announce Signing of Controversial Playmaker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Cleveland Browns have made some interesting moves already during the NFL offseason. During the 2025 NFL draft, they made a couple more with the selections of quarterbacks Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders.<\/p>\n<p>While Andrew Berry and the front office have added a lot of competition and talent at the quarterback position, the Browns failed to address the wide receiver position in the draft.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Fans were perplexed by that decision, but a new move has made it make more sense.<\/p>\n<p>According to a report from NFL insider Ian Rapoport, Cleveland officially signed veteran free agent wide receiver Diontae Johnson on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Rapoport <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RapSheet\/status\/1919379091460870156\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:quoted a post from the Browns&#039;;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">quoted a post from the Browns&#8217;<\/a> official account on Monday about the move being officially official.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson had a rollercoaster 2024 NFL season. After beginning the year with the Carolina Panthers, he was traded to the the Baltimore Ravens ahead of the deadline. Things didn&#8217;t work out with the Ravens, which led to him being released, and he played one game with the Houston Texans after signing as a free agent.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Cleveland Browns new wide receiver Diontae Johnson.\u00a9 Troy Taormina-Imagn Images\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/70477cddd66bb4cc785d09cc040522ec.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Cleveland Browns new wide receiver Diontae Johnson.\u00a9 Troy Taormina-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>When all was said and done in 2024, Johnson caught 33 passes for 375 yards and three touchdowns in 12 games.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Those numbers may not look impactful, but Johnson had a good run with the AFC North rival Pittsburgh Steelers in past years. Back in 2021, he racked up 107 receptions for 1,161 yarsd and eight touchdowns in 16 games. He&#8217;s more than capable of making an impact when given a big role.<\/p>\n<p>Now in Cleveland, Johnson will team up with Jerry Jeudy to give whoever the starting quarterback ends up being a talented one-two punch at wide receiver. This is a low-risk, potentially very high reward type of signing for the Browns.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/travis-kelce-2025-chiefs-outlook-235047663.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:Related: Travis Kelce 2025 Chiefs&#039; Outlook Turns Heads After ESPN Reveal;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Related: Travis Kelce 2025 Chiefs&#8217; Outlook Turns Heads After ESPN Reveal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Browns have made some interesting moves already during the NFL offseason. During the 2025 NFL draft,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2054],"tags":[2007,117,86,260,85,54,2337,1033,4847,7,253,5328,2827,6,57,17,582,1473],"class_list":{"0":"post-25897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-andrew-berry","9":"tag-baltimore-ravens","10":"tag-browns","11":"tag-carolina-panthers","12":"tag-cleveland","13":"tag-cleveland-browns","14":"tag-clevelandbrowns","15":"tag-dillon-gabriel","16":"tag-diontae-johnson","17":"tag-football","18":"tag-houston-texans","19":"tag-ian-rapoport","20":"tag-jerry-jeudy","21":"tag-nfl","22":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","23":"tag-shedeur-sanders","24":"tag-the-browns","25":"tag-wide-receiver"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114455764565232994","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}