27-Year-Old Cleveland Browns Wide Receiver Causes New Locker Room Drama on Social Media
Streaming on TikTok Live early on Sunday, Cleveland Browns wide receiver Jerry Jeudy was asked by one of the viewers in his live chat about who the former Pro Bowler thinks should be his starting quarterback this season. Picking between Shedeur Sanders and Deshaun Watson, Jeudy answered without saying a word. Instead, he raised four fingers, all but signalling that he thinks the Clemson veteran should start over the second-year man out of Colorado. Hours went by, during which Browns social media chatrooms and message boards erupted, and Cleveland’s brain trust, if you can really call them that, likely sent him a scathing voice message; Jeudy addressed his live stream in multiple posts on X.
Not only that, but the former Alabama standout has come out and accused people on social media of editing the clip to perpetuate a narrative within the Cleveland locker room. Admittedly, that isn’t the full clip, and there’s no reason to call the 27-year-old receiver a liar, but regardless, once something’s on social media, it never leaves. The clip also begs a couple of different questions: if he wasn’t talking about Watson, then why was he holding up four digits in response to what someone said? Does Jeudy do this frequently? Is he known to hold up someone’s number, a very famous number that Watson has worn for over a decade, just out of habit?
There’s also another thing to address, and it’s that there’s a history of argumentative events between Jeudy and Sanders. The former first-round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft once barked at the then-rookie during a game against the San Francisco 49ers last November, in which the Browns started hot but eventually tapered off and lost 26-8 on their home turf. That brings us to the present, and even if that clip on TikTok was clipped and edited, it still has the potential to cause an issue. Obviously, anyone not in a professional locker room will never know what’s really going on- that’s what makes speculation so petty at times, especially when social media is involved. However, there’s a flip side to that; for every fake beef, there are very real, toxic spats between players every year. For a team like the Browns, who are trying to avoid another dreadful season and trying to elevate the ‘Young King’ into a star at quarterback, this is an issue that could have been avoided entirely.
Not all blame needs to be flung on Jeudy; he’s been the victim of a lot of attacks from the media throughout his career, even by former NFL greats like Steve Smith Sr., who once called the Browns receiver “just a guy”. If you were as talented as he was, coming out of the prodigious Nick Saban era of Alabama football, you’d be pretty frustrated as well if you were about to be in the seventh year of your career, and you had yet to make the postseason, and the best quarterback you ever played with was a couple of games of Jameis Winston. Unfortunately, Jeudy’s problem came long before his alleged answer-he should’ve never fielded the question in the first place. The questions will now turn to the 24-year-old quarterback, who’s been turning heads with his play so far this summer. You can bet all the money in the world that his first question Monday morning will be about Jeudy.
