Soon as Cleveland got that contract out, Jerry Jeudy made a point not to drop that pen, did he?
Oh, we kid here in the Grading The Week offices. We kid. With love.
Mostly. Often. Usually. OK, sometimes.
Jarrett Stidham or no Stidham, the Broncos will no doubt have their own soap operas to navigate coming down the pike. With Russell Wilson gone, Sean Payton’s going to have to take his sideline rages out on somebody, right?
(Still kidding! Still love! Mostly. Sometimes. OK, maybe not so much.)
But if you need a distraction this summer and fall from the travails of the AFC West, may we present, as a sure-glad-it’s-not-us palate cleanser, the silliness that’s about to break out in the ol’ AFC North?
Because let’s be real here: A couple of potential (alleged) prima donnas who just got the boot from Dove Valley are already — and we’re talking just weeks after arriving in their new locales — looking as if they’ll bring as much drama as gridiron goods.
Jeudy and his old, but not always beloved, quarterback Russell Wilson will tell you they’re in better places than the 5,280. Really? You sure about that? Because the peanut gallery here at GTW, full disclosure, has more than our fair share of doubts (Paging Justin Fields!). Especially with Jeudy, where the term “online petulant” keeps coming to mind.
Jeudy’s contract extension — F
The Broncos’ old No. 10 loves to remind you that, like 7-Eleven, he’s always open. But we think we’ve found something that Jeudy loves more than getting the ball.
And that’s having the last word in an argument. Like, any argument.
Especially if that argument is on the shoot-from-the-hip wild west of the social media that used to be called Twitter. Honestly, we here at GTW are starting to think that Jeudy cares more about winning X than he does about winning NFL games.
Given his relative — and slightly embarrassing — lack of statistical goods compared to peers such as Justin Jefferson and CeeDee Lamb, Elon-Musk-ville had a good chuckle out of the Browns inking No. 10 to a three-year contract extension worth a reported $58 million, $41 million of it guaranteed. Nice bag if you can get it, right?
Jeudy trying to defend his extension — D
Well, the wise apples on X, naturally, pointed out that the Brownies just gave a lot of coin to a cat who, despite being a first-round pick in 2020, and the earliest wideout ever selected in the history of Broncos drafting, still has yet to produce a single 1,000-yard season.
Jerry’s thumbs fired back.
“lol 972 missed 6 games there go ur 1,000 (followed by two ‘crying laughter’ emojis),” Jeudy X-ed.
Yeah, dude. About that. The “972” Jeudy referred to in his defense was his 2022 season, in which he did indeed rack up a career-best 972 receiving yards … but that was over 15 games, not 11, as he’d insisted.
Now in his defense, that figure averaged out to 64.8 receiving yards per game, so his argument was sound, even if the math wasn’t. If Jeudy had appeared in all 17 games, at that pace, he would’ve easily reached the 1,000 mark that’s infamously eluded him as a pro to this point. Still, memo to Jerry, and GTW says this with love: The scoreboard still gets the last word in any argument. And you’ve got some serious catching up to do on that front, my friend.
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