Why The Cleveland Browns Need To Claim Adrian Amos
This week the New York Jets waived safety Adrian Amos, the Cleveland Browns need to put a waiver claim in to get him.
Sometimes you see things on Twitter that you don’t consider real so you ignore them and that is exactly what happened to me when I saw Adrian Amos had been waived last night. He spent four years with the Bears after being drafted in the 5th round in 2015. Then he went north to the Packers in free agency and signed a $36m deal for four years. Then this past offseason he signed a deal worth $1.75m with the Jets after they lost Chuck Clark to a season-ending knee injury.
Adrian Amos
Amos is still a very productive player, the Jets moved him down the depth chart so they could focus on developing the young safeties on their roster which isn’t a surprise as their season is over after the Rodgers injury and would need to run the table to be back in contention. He then asked for his release so he could go somewhere that would allow him to play and hopefully compete for the postseason.
He has played 264 snaps so far on the season and is playing to a good level. He is PFF’s 21st best safety on the year and has a forced incompletion rate of 20% which is tied for 11th in the league. For comparison Rodney McLeod was at 10%, Grant Delpit was at 8%, and Juan Thornhill 0%.
Contract
If claimed Amos would come with a fully guaranteed $347,222 for the remainder of the season which is only slightly above the league average so he would easily be someone you can add to the team.
Browns Need
Let us start by looking at the Cleveland Browns current safety depth chart and how many snaps they have played this season:
When they lost Rodney McLeod they effectively lost the ability to play three safeties as they didn’t have the confidence in Hickman or Bell to play that much. They have signed Harmon to the practice squad who is a great addition but he hasn’t made it to the active roster yet.
Conclusion
For me this move is a no-brainer, you might have to waive someone else on the roster or even Ronnie Hickman in a worst-case scenario with roster spots required for Flacco, Wills, and Mitchell soon and only Walker and Diabate as obvious candidates to depart. Giving defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz the option to use six defensive backs again when Ward returns would allow for them to keep their defense as flexible as possible rather than adding 0.5 linebackers per snap as we saw against the Broncos.
My guess would be someone else gets to him before us on waivers but that shouldn’t stop them from attempting to claim him, he was a player I was happy to go after in free agency if Thornhill was more expensive so getting him as an in-season backup is ideal after losing McLeod.
The Browns are out on their second two-game road trip of the 2023 season. After a tough loss in Denver, Cleveland visits Los Angeles this week. The Browns have been training at UCLA all week staying on the West Coast, an interesting wrinkle ahead of this game.
Each week, the writers of the OBR will submit their predictions about the score of the Browns’ game for that week and a key matchup to keep an eye on. As always, we encourage you to join in and post your predictions in the forum or reach out on social media and let us know how you see this one playing out.
This is the Browns’ sixth road game and fourth game against the NFC West. They are 2-1 against the division in 2023. The Browns come into this game at 7-4, while the Rams sit at 5-6. Los Angeles is in third place in their division and has been playing well recently. The Rams are 4-point favorites at home. The total currently sits at 40.5 points.
The game will be televised on FOX and kicks off at 4:25 p.m. from SoFi Stadium. The Browns lost their last matchup with the Rams in Cleveland in 2019, 20-13. When Cleveland visited the Rams last, they were in St. Louis. The Browns lost that game, in 2015, 24-6. The last time the Browns visited the Rams in Los Angeles was December 26, 1993, and the Browns were victorious, 42-14.
All-time, the Browns trail the series with the Cleveland/Los Angeles/St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams, 13-11.
Despite the Cleveland Browns 29-12 loss to the Denver Broncos last Sunday, the Browns had at least one very positive bright spot on the defensive side of the ball.
Browns third-year linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah had a strong performance, filling up the stat sheet. JOK finished leading the team in tackles with 12, was credited with two tackles for loss, a quarterback hit a forced a fumble and the Browns only sack.
Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz was impressed by Owusu-Koramoah’s play last week against the Broncos.
“Well, he played 7-4, you know, we’ll keep it at that, but you generally don’t want to point to individual performances when you lose a game, but I think that might be an exception right there,” Schwartz said on Thursday. “Twelve tackles, two tackles for a loss, a sack, a forced fumble, really, all over the field for us, and we need him to play that way down the stretch
