Jerry Jeudy was the 15th overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, a few spots behind his teammate, Henry Ruggs III, and two picks before four-time Pro Bowler and 2023 first-team All-Pro CeeDee Lamb from Oklahoma. Overshadowed by Ruggs’s off-the-field incident and Lamb’s on-field brilliance, Jeudy managed to go from a dominant force at the most important program in college football to underrated in the NFL.
However, in the NFL’s annual Top 100 players, Jeudy finally got his due.
NFL Top 100 Players of 2025:@Browns WR Jerry Jeudy takes the No. 82 spot! @NFLFilms pic.twitter.com/d6aAJsy03F
— NFL (@NFL) July 11, 2025
Jerry Jeudy’s Pro-Bowl season lands him at No. 82 on NFL’s Top 100 Players of 2025
After four seasons with Denver, the franchise that drafted him 15th overall back in 2020, Jeudy was traded to the Cleveland Browns for fifth and sixth-round selections in the 2024 NFL Draft. His value in the league, heading into the final season of his rookie contract, had hit an all-time low coming off a season with 54 catches for 758 yards with the Broncos.
10 days after the transaction, Jeudy agreed to a three-year $52.5 million contract with the Browns. The contract will kick in next season, but so far, the trade and subsequent extension look like good business from a historically downtrodden franchise.
Jeudy had a career year in 2024 with Cleveland, catching 90 of his 145 targets for 1,229 yards and four touchdowns. Once the Browns traded away Amari Cooper, another former Crimson Tide star, to the Buffalo Bills midseason, Jeudy emerged as the clear No. 1 for the Browns’ revolving door of quarterbacks; from Deshaun Watson, to Jameis Winston, to Dorian Thompson-Robinson, to Bailey Zappe.
Cleveland’s quarterback situation isn’t any clearer heading into 2025, having drafted both Dillon Gabriel from Oregon and Shedeur Sanders from Colorado after acquiring former Super Bowl champion Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett, who knelt out the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl victory over the Chiefs in February. What is clear is that Jeudy will be the No. 1 target for any and all QBs who take the field in orange and brown this year.
In Tuscaloosa, Jeudy's best season came as a sophomore in 2018, when he turned 68 catches into 1,315 yards, nearly 20 yards per reception, and 14 touchdowns. He was named an All-American and followed his breakout up with another stellar campaign in 2019. That will be the goal for him now with Cleveland.