- Trading opened Cedric Tillman‘s door: Tillman saw increased playing time during both the 2023 and 2024 seasons, as the Cleveland Browns traded away their starting wide receivers, leading to Tillman becoming a starter in both seasons.
- Quarterback and depth chart questions: Tillman's fantasy football value heavily depends on who the starting quarterback will be for the Browns and how he fits into the evolving receiving corps alongside Diontae Johnson and Jerry Jeudy.
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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
PFF’s Fantasy Football Player Profile series delivers the most in-depth fantasy football analysis available for the 2025 season.
Using PFF’s exclusive data, we evaluate player performance, competition for touches and how teammates and coaching staffs
Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Wednesday, June 18
Player performance
Cedric Tillman was the 74th overall pick of the 2023 NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns. He started his career as the top outside backup behind Amari Cooper and Donovan Peoples-Jones. He played a small role in his first four games, catching a pass for five yards. An ankle sprain cost him three games, but once he was ready to return, the Browns traded Peoples-Jones to the Detroit Lions after catching eight passes in seven games. Once Tillman was healthy again, he was the third wide receiver in three-receiver sets on the outside for the rest of the season.
Tillman played a mix of Z receiver and the slot, even though at 6-foot-3, he was likely better suited to play at the X receiver spot. His target rate wasn’t high, and his season high was 55 receiving yards. He also didn’t score a touchdown, offering minimal fantasy value despite playing at least 85% of the Browns' offensive snaps in five of his last nine games.
The Browns traded for Jerry Jeudy in the 2024 offseason, which moved Tillman back to fourth on the depth chart. Over the first six weeks of the season, he played between 20 and 26 snaps in most games, but only caught three passes for nine yards in that time. The Browns again traded away one of their starting wide receivers in October, which again pushed Tillman up the depth chart. This time, it was Cooper, opening up the X receiver role for Tillman.
Tillman had a full-time role for four games, playing at least 82% of the snaps in each game. He caught eight passes for 81 yards, seven receptions for 99 yards and two touchdowns, six receptions for 75 yards and a touchdown, and three receptions for 47 yards. This largely coincided with the time Jameis Winston was quarterback for the Browns. During those four weeks, Tillman, David Njoku, Elijah Moore and Jeudy all had 34-38 targets. While Tillman led the team in targets, Njoku led in receptions and Jeudy led in yards. Tillman was eighth in the league in fantasy points per game during this time, while Jeudy was 22nd and Njoku was fifth among tight ends.
Tillman remains best suited to play X receiver. His yards per route run have been the best against man coverage. In his career, he has a 68.6 receiving grade when lined up out wide and on the line of scrimmage compared to 50.6 out wide and off the line and 58.5 in the slot. However, typically it’s the Z or slot receivers who are elusive, but his 0.31 avoided tackles per reception, as well as his 1.5 avoided tackles on receptions per start, were sixth-best among wide receivers.
Tillman suffered a concussion in Week 12, which cost him the rest of the season. He had also suffered a concussion in Week 18 of 2023, so it was his second one in the calendar year.
Projected role
The Browns moved on from Elijah Moore at wide receiver and added free agent Diontae Johnson. They are the clear top three players on the depth chart, while the only other players on the roster are receivers who have averaged less than 14 receiving yards per game with a 14% target rate or less and undrafted free agents.
It will be a little awkward for the three receivers to co-exist. In an ideal world, Tillman and Johnson would both be X receivers, and Jeudy at Z. Jeudy has the most experience of the three in the slot, so Jeudy will probably play there, while Johnson was a Z receiver in 2023. Even though it was his worst season, that’s where he will end up.
It’s also entirely possible that Jeudy will be locked into the Z receiver spot, in which case Tillman and Johnson are competing for one spot in the starting lineup. That would leave either Jamari Thrash or DeAndre Carter as the primary slot receiver. On one hand, this puts Tillman at risk of not being a starter, but on the other hand, having Johnson out of the lineup would likely lead to more targets for Tillman.
Impact of teammates
Tillman will be playing under Kevin Stefanski, as he’s done throughout his career. The Browns became more pass-heavy last season, but running back Nick Chubb wasn’t playing at his usual level. That balance could shift back to a run-heavy offense after the Browns drafted Quinshon Judkins and Dylan Sampson.
Tillman's biggest concern is Cleveland's quarterback situation. We don’t know who the starting quarterback will be, but we know it won’t be Jameis Winston. All of Tillman’s noteworthy games have come with Winston playing quarterback at least part of the game. Prior to Winston starting, Tillman was among the worst wide receivers in yards per route run. However, Tillman played X receiver with Winston in addition to Z and slot with other quarterbacks, so it’s hard to know how much Tillman needed Winston compared to Tillman needing to play in the right spot. The team's quarterback options are all over the place. Tillman hasn’t had a lot of first-read targets, so he might be better off with a quarterback with a low first-read target rate. This would mean one of the rookies could be best suited for Tillman.
Bottom line
Tillman is simply a late-round gamble in case Tillman ends up becoming the favorite option of whoever wins the Cleveland Browns quarterback job. It’s entirely possible Tillman isn’t high on the priority list in the passing game, and it is also possible he returns to being a backup.
Footnotes
- Statistics in tables and charts were chosen based on their ability to predict future fantasy performance on a per-game or per-opportunity basis or to describe the player relative to others at the same position.
- “Opportunities” are defined as passing dropbacks, rushing attempts and routes run as a receiver.
- Numbers are provided either by season or based on the past three years. For rookies, only college statistics are included. For non-rookies, only NFL statistics are considered, regardless of whether they played in college within the previous three years.
- As college competition is easier than NFL competition, most rookies are likely to see a decline from their historical numbers.
- Only FBS data is considered for college players and comparisons.
- Kneel-downs are removed from rushing data to provide cleaner quarterback rushing rate statistics.
- The table colors in this article range from blue (indicating good/high) to red (indicating bad/low).
- All percentiles and color codings compare the given player to others with a high sample of opportunities. Generally, the cutoff is one-third of the possible opportunities in the sample. If a player does not meet the threshold, they are still included in the comparison, though their results may appear better or worse than expected due to the smaller, less predictive sample size.
- Information on utilization classifications and their importance can be found here for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.
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