The 2021 NFL regular season hasn't started yet, but after just one week of preseason play, several rookies didn't quite live up to the hype. Still, first-year players such as Travis Etienne and Alex Leatherwood can show they are better than their initial performance.
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Cleveland overhauled its secondary in the offseason, and a big part of that was the selection of Newsome from
Northwestern in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft. Given the sheer volume of new faces, it’s likely that the fix won’t be immediate, but the Browns would dearly love to see Newsome hit the ground running the way few rookie cornerbacks did a season ago.
The first glimpse of him won’t have done anything to make them more confident in that, though. He was shaken loose by
Marvin Jones Jr. for a big pass play courtesy of
Trevor Lawrence, though he did well to get back and at least contest at the catch point, forcing Jones to be strong. Newsome was also beaten later on a curl by Jones for a near-first down.
Newsome saw only 18 snaps, so those two plays had a disproportionate effect on his grade, but he was also blocked off the field trying to set the edge on a receiver screen. The Browns will hope these were just teething problems.