Cleveland Browns Film Room: Meet Elijah Lee, the New Backup MIKE
The Cleveland Browns linebacker depth has taken a hit, but the answer is likely already on the roster in Elijah Lee.
Contrary to popular belief, the Cleveland Browns had a decent linebacker corps in 2020. The unit should be significantly improved in 2021, but its depth took a hit with the loss of Jacob Phillips. Whether he ends up on injured reserve for the entire season, or just most of it, Phillips will be out for quite a while. That means a roster spot has opened up, and it should go to Elijah Lee.
Lee was initially drafted in the seventh round back in 2017 by the Minnesota Vikings, and spent his first three seasons with the San Francisco 49ers. He started five games for the Niners in 2018, and got significant playing time in three others. Sharing the field with pre-breakout Fred Warner and current Brown Malcolm Smith, Lee typically aligned as the SAM.
He was signed by the Detroit Lions ahead of the 2020 season, but was waived midseason and picked up by Cleveland. He was one of seven LBs typically on the roster that year.
Having played only four defensive snaps for the Browns in 2020, it was hard to gauge how the team viewed him as a linebacker. Based on the preseason depth charts this year (which don’t mean a whole lot), the Browns see Lee as a SAM first and foremost. There’s currently no one besides Anthony Walker and Phillips listed as MIKEs, but that’s the role Lee played against the Jacksonville Jaguars, wearing the green dot and calling plays.
With Phillips out, Smith started at MIKE against the New York Giants before giving way to Lee. So, in a sense, perhaps Smith is technically the new backup MIKE, but someone has to take Phillips’ spot on the depth chart and on the roster. That battle is between Lee, Mack Wilson, and Willie Harvey Jr., and the should-be winner is clear.
Lee is a solid athlete, and fits the type the Browns seem to want at MIKE; perhaps not super fast sideline-to-sideline, but explosive short areas and reliable tacklers. That’s exactly what Jacob Phillips was coming out of LSU, and it’s what Lee is now.
In his lone season with starter-level snaps, Lee earned a 58.2 overall grade from Pro Football Focus, with a solid 66.2 mark in run defense. He also ranked 15th among qualifying LBs in tackling efficiency, and holds an 86.3 tackling grade through two preseason games this month.
When watching Lee, he doesn’t jump off the tape as a great athlete, or even an impact playmaker, but he’s solid. In run defense he knows his responsibility and fills his gaps properly. That reliability is important, but Lee’s true value comes from his work on special teams. He is Cleveland’s most important returning special teamer, and it isn’t really close.
So not only does Lee provide quality depth at LB, but he’s a core special teams player for a unit that lost a lot of talent over the offseason.
If the Browns are to keep only five LBs, then Lee should be the fifth, behind Anthony Walker, Sione Takitaki, Malcolm Smith, and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah. The team ranked seventh in the NFL in nickel usage in 2020, and that was with a secondary lacking talent and ravaged by injuries. The goal is to eventually run a dime base, so in a perfect world, only two, maybe three LBs would get meaningful snaps.
Fan-favorite Mack Wilson is Lee’s primary competition, and Wilson has reportedly been having an excellent camp (and is listed as the starting WILL on the depth chart), but that has not manifested it on the field. He failed to make an impact against New York despite playing essentially the entire second half, and while he had just four snaps against Jacksonville, one of them was a blown assignment where, instead of filling his gap, he chased the ball into Phillips’ gap, walling both of them away from the run, giving up a nice gain.
That is unfortunately not a rare occurrence for Wilson, a middling athlete whose reputation far exceeds his performance. It’s borderline impossible to see Wilson playing ahead of Smith, who was the team’s starting WILL in 2020, arguably the best season of his career, or JOK, an elite athlete with excellent instincts and coverage ability.
Wilson doesn’t play on special teams, and is a WILL only. So there doesn’t appear to be much of a reason to keep him on the team, let alone play him over Smith and JOK or cutting Lee for him.
Perhaps the Browns will opt to carry six LBs, but regardless of the final number, there is zero reason to keep Wilson instead of Lee. Cleveland will be able to keep Willie Harvey Jr. on the practice squad, calling him up as needed. He has MIKE and WILL versatility and is a smart and instinctive player. As an emergency option, he'd do just fine.
The biggest threat to Lee is the status of rookie fifth-round pick Tony Fields II, who recently returned to practice after missing all of training camp due to a foot injury. Does he have enough time to earn a roster spot? Maybe, maybe not, but the timing of his return is interesting considering he was thought to be an IR stash candidate this year.
What happens to Lee when and if Phillips returns is unknown, but that’s a bridge the Browns will cross when they arrive at it. For now, Lee is a quality player with an important role.
READ MORE: Tony Fields Practices in Training Camp for First Time
