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Few expect the 2025 Cleveland Browns to have a good offense, but there can still be solid fantasy production from their wide receiver room. Dan Fornek explores whether Cedric Tillman or Jerry Jeudy is Cleveland's WR1 in 2025.
The 2025 NFL preseason is officially over. The next game that we watch for football will count. Teams are now busy trying to figure out the roster moves needed to maximize their team while cutting down to 53 players.
Not every team in the NFL can be good, but plenty of bad teams can still have players who are fantasy relevant. One example of that is the 2025 Cleveland Browns. Nobody knows whether their quarterback room will be good enough to win, but if they can achieve consistent passing production, there can be players who emerge as viable fantasy options.
Identifying the pass catcher on the Browns who can benefit from a team that will likely be forced into negative game scripts could unlock a strong contributor for your fantasy lineup at a discount. The question is, who is more likely to be the WR1 for the Cleveland Browns in 2025: Cedric Tillman or Jerry Jeudy? Read below to find out.
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Cleveland’s Offensive Environment
The Browns enter 2025 with an offense that is in flux. They return four of five offensive line starters from a unit that underwhelmed in 2024. Swing tackle Dawand Jones is set to replace left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr., a position that he has played sparingly since his first two collegiate seasons at Notre Dame.
Cleveland will also face some uncertainty at quarterback. Veteran Joe Flacco is set to start Week 1, but he is not the answer for the future of the position. However, despite that, he is the most dependable passer on the team. Younger players like Kenny Pickett and rookies Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders could also see time as the team assesses their future. That could make the effectiveness of this passing attack a nightmare throughout the regular season.
Finally, Cleveland did not make any major additions to the passing attack outside of drafting tight end Harold Fannin Jr. Fannin was the most productive tight end in college during his final season at Bowling Green, catching 117 passes for 1,555 yards and 10 touchdowns. He should have a role on offense, but will likely struggle to earn targets and routes over veteran David Njoku.
There isn’t a lot of excitement surrounding Cleveland’s passing attack, but even bad offenses score fantasy points. That leaves fantasy managers trying to decide whether Jerry Jeudy or Cedric Tillman is the better player to roster in fantasy for 2025.
The Case for Cedric Tillman
On the surface, Tillman’s 2024 season was unremarkable. Tillman caught just 29 of 49 passes for 339 yards and three touchdowns in 11 games, missing the final six games of the season due to a concussion. Tillman finished as the WR78 in PPR points per game (7.3).
Over the first six weeks of the season, Tillman was buried on the depth chart behind Amari Cooper. During that time, the veteran receiver caught just three of five targets for nine yards while averaging a 31.6% snap share. However, Cooper’s trade allowed Tillman to get an opportunity, and he made the most of it.
From Weeks 7 to 12, Tillman caught 26 of 44 passes for 330 yards and three touchdowns while seeing his snap share jump to 84.8%. During that time, Tillman was the WR12 in PPR points per game and led Cleveland’s wide receiver group in passing. Even more impressive, he had a three-game stretch where he was the WR1 in all of fantasy football, averaging 22.2 PPR points per game.
Cedric Tillman is going as WR62 despite being the fantasy WR1 weeks 7-9 last season.
Is he one of the best values in drafts right now? 👀
— PlayerProfiler (@rotounderworld) July 4, 2025
Tillman has the size (6-foot-3, 213 pounds) and speed (4.54 40-yard dash) to function as a classic outside receiver for Cleveland, which is the kind of player that Joe Flacco can lean on in the passing attack. More importantly, Tillman flashed his ability to earn routes in the red zone during his hot six-game stretch, catching two of six red zone passes.
The Case for Jerry Jeudy
Like Tillman, Jerry Jeudy struggled with consistency until Amari Cooper was traded away. The key difference was that Jeudy was actually on the field and earning targets. From Weeks 1 to 6, Jeudy caught 20 of 36 targets for 248 yards and a touchdown, finishing as the WR63 while averaging 8.8 PPR points per game.
However, the Browns started to figure out how to best utilize Jeudy’s skill set starting in Week 8. At that point, he became very dependable in fantasy football. From Weeks 8 to 18, Jeudy was the WR6 in PPR points per game (18.5) thanks to a massive increase in his target volume as well as his efficiency catching the ball. The veteran receiver averaged 10.3 targets, 6.9 receptions, and 96.3 receiving yards per game while scoring three touchdowns.
JERRY JEUDY 15.9 FANTASY POINT TOUCHDOWN 🤯 pic.twitter.com/F0CBYcjPm7
— NFL Fantasy Football (@NFLFantasy) November 17, 2024
During that time, Jeudy turned into a volume-based receiver, frequently winning in the short to intermediate areas (10.4 average depth of target, WR90) and generating yards after the catch (349, WR13). Unfortunately, Jeudy (and the Browns as a whole) struggled to convert in the red zone throughout the season, which severely limited his upside in fantasy.
It is hard to imagine a scenario where the Cleveland passing attack is significantly better than 2024’s version, but we have also seen that Jeudy can provide high-level fantasy production in negative game scripts, especially in PPR formats. Over the final 11 games of the 2024 season, Jeudy had fewer than 14.0 points just three times.
Final Verdict
On the one hand, we have an extremely small sample size in 2024 that showed Tillman, when healthy, was able to outproduce Jeudy for the Browns. On the other hand, Jeudy put together a much longer stretch in 2024 of top-10 wide receiver production, turning himself into a fantasy viable receiver in both PPR and half-PPR formats thanks to his high-volume pass-catching role.
When it comes to 2025, identifying which player will be better on the Browns is difficult, especially if you operate under the belief that the team will use three or four different quarterbacks as they position themselves for the future. The best choice for consistent fantasy production is the wide receiver who will be able to earn targets regardless of who is getting them the football.
The player who can weather that storm the best in 2025 is Jeudy. The Browns will continue to scheme Jeudy the easy targets, especially if they continue to utilize him in the slot (34.4% slot rate in 2024). Not only is Flacco equipped to get the ball out on time underneath for a player who can win off the line of scrimmage, but all three of Cleveland’s other quarterback options are timing-based passers who are effective getting the ball out quickly.
If Tillman can stay healthy (no guarantee since he already had a minor lower-body injury this summer), he will have the ability to produce boom-or-bust production on deep targets and a consistent red zone role. That makes him especially intriguing in half-point PPR settings. However, Jeudy will have a higher floor due to his ability to earn targets.
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