Cleveland Browns 7-round 2020 NFL mock draft: Filling the gaps

Besides offensive tackle, the safety position stands out as the most immediate need on the Cleveland Browns roster. They should be looking to replace both starting safeties this offseason as Morgan Burnett will be coming back from a torn Achilles and Damarious Randall‘s play left plenty to be desired in 2019. If the right opportunity presents itself, one of these new starting safeties could come through the draft.

This isn’t the strongest safety class, but there could easily be some value at the position on day two. Here, the Browns aggressively attack this need by snagging Antoine Winfield Jr.

Winfield showed a ton of promise as a true freshman at Minnesota in 2016 but missed a ton of time in 2017 and 2018 due to injuries. He jumped back onto the radar this past season, shining at the safety position for Minnesota.

In 2019, Winfield was a playmaker all over the field for the Golden Gophers. He finished the year with 83 total tackles, three sacks and seven interceptions. He was voted a consensus All-American and was named the Defensive Back of the Year in the Big Ten, beating out Ohio State’s Jeffrey Okudah.

Winfield’s range and ball skills on the back-end immediately stand out on tape. He has tremendous natural instincts in zone coverage and a fantastic nose for the ball. Winfield reads the quarterback extremely well and always seems to be in position to take care of his responsibility.

Winfield will likely be best used as a deep safety at the next level. That being said, he shows nice man coverage skills as well and could be used as a weapon against slot receivers. He also shows some nice ability to close on the quarterback quickly when asked to make an impact in the blitz game.

With this pick, the Cleveland Browns swing for the fences and find themselves a player who could come in and make an immediate impact at an obvious position of need.