Denzel Boston

The most talked-about player of Cleveland's spring is the sixty-second receiver off the board. Denzel Boston costs pick one sixty-six, and the gap between the buzz and the price is the bet.

The record: second round, pick thirty-nine, from Washington, per NFL.com. Six-four, two-twelve, per the team site — a contested-catch, red-zone profile in every club description. The spring escalated fast: The Athletic's Zac Jackson wrote in late June that Boston might have been the most impressive offensive player of Cleveland's spring, with beat coverage logging first-team snaps.

The situation: the same wide-open room his rookie teammate enters, plus one verified fact in his favor — the returning outside receivers barely produced. Jerry Jeudy managed fifty catches on a hundred six targets; Cedric Tillman, twenty-one catches in twelve games. Cleveland's leading receiver was tight end Harold Fannin, a rookie, at seventy-two catches. The quarterback is a three-man question — Gabriel, Sanders, Watson — per the team site, and the offense is Todd Monken's now, per the January announcements. Outside receiver targets are genuinely available for the first time in years.

But available is not awarded, and spring heroes are a June tradition in every building — camp buzz doesn't predict rookie production at a standard we'd put our name on. He's six rounds cheaper than his teammate; the evidence on both is zero. September starts the count.

Watch: whether the first-team snaps hold when pads come on, and his red-zone usage in the preseason — the profile says that's where the first real value shows. He's one of your guys? This show covers your whole roster — every player, every week, all season.