Browns to sign veteran tight end on two-year pact
Jordan Akins visited with the Browns on Friday, and the veteran tight end will not leave Cleveland without a contract. The Browns are signing Deshaun Watson‘s former Texans teammate, according to his agency (on Twitter).
The five-year veteran played with Watson for three seasons and has spent his entire regular-season career in Houston. The Texans reacquired Akins after the New York Giants cut him last year. Now, he will head to the Browns.
Cleveland is giving Akins a two-year deal worth up to $5.2M, Aaron Wilson of KPRC2 tweets. Even if that is the max value, it still tops the league-minimum accord the Giants gave him during the 2022 offseason. It represents decent money for a tight end who, despite only being a second-time UFA, is entering his age-31 season.
Akins’ failure to make the Giants’ 53-man roster still led to a career-high receiving yardage total upon his Texans return. The sixth-year tight end is coming off a 495-yard, five-touchdown season. Touchdown No. 5 ended up reshaping multiple franchises’ futures. Akins caught a game-winning touchdown on fourth-and-20, giving Lovie Smith a victory over the Indianapolis Colts in his final game as head coach of the Texans. That result gave the Chicago Bears the No. 1 overall pick, and it allowed them to receive a monster trade haul from the Carolina Panthers for the selection.
Role in a seminal play for draft purposes notwithstanding, Akins has three 400-plus-yard seasons on his resumé and has been the most productive Texans tight end over the past several seasons. The Browns, of course, have already paid a tight end near-top-market money, and Akins will fill in behind David Njoku. Harrison Bryant is also going into the final season of his rookie contract; Bryant totaled 239 receiving yards and one touchdown last season.
The Browns also added defensive tackle Maurice Hurst, Mike Garafolo of NFL Network tweets. Hurst is coming off a missed 2022 season; he went down with a torn bicep in July. Hurst, who played two seasons with the Las Vegas Raiders and one apiece with the Los Angeles Chargers and San Francisco 49ers, has mostly worked as a rotational defensive lineman. The second-generation NFLer did start 10 games for a rebuilding Raiders team as a rookie in 2018. Hurst registered 7.5 of his eight career sacks during his first two seasons.
