As with any first-round draft pick, the Cleveland Browns’ new defensive tackle Mason Graham is garnering a lot of attention at the team’s rookie minicamp this weekend.
After all, the Browns passed up the opportunity to get one of the prospects regarded as a generational talent in Travis Hunter by trading back from No. 2 to No. 5 to select Graham.
No pressure, right?
For Graham, a lot of the spotlight has been shaded by fifth-round pick Shedeur Sanders, but he’s ok with that.
“That doesn’t really matter to me,“ Graham said via Ashley Bastock of cleveland.com. ”I come to play football. If the media’s on me, then they’re on me. If the media’s not, then it’s not. I’m just going to do my job at the end of the day.
Graham said his first time meeting Sanders went well, which is good since they’re now teammates.
“He was cool,” Graham said. “Seems like a good dude and it was all about ball. So I want to play with guys that are like-minded.”
Sanders had a very famous slide in the NFL Draft earlier this month. While it was thought that the former Colorado quarterback would end up in Cleveland, no one predicted that it would happen in the fifth round.
Some additional pressure might be off Graham, too, as he may not need to be a Day 1 starter, even as the No. 5 overall pick.
The Browns signed Maliek Collins this offseason and return Shelby Harris. Last year’s second-round pick, Mike Hall, is returning from a knee injury and could start ahead of Graham.
But the former Michigan Wolverine will almost certainly be part of the early-season defensive line rotation. General manager Andrew Berry has been public about his wishes for the defensive line rotation in Cleveland to be six or eight players deep.
Berry was very high on Graham at the NFL Scouting Combine. “He is a DNA match for our defense, a disruptive interior penetrator … we thought he was one of the more dominant trench prospects in this year’s class,” Berry said.
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