The Browns officially signed receiver Isaiah Bond this week after his sexual assault case was no-billed.
While he still may face league discipline, at this point, Cleveland is now working to integrate him into the team and the offense. Head coach Kevin Stefanski noted that the front office, led by G.M. Andrew Berry, did their due diligence.
“We don’t rush any of those types of things,” Stefanski said in his Tuesday press conference. “Then for me, he was a player that we did a lot of work on and off the field. Met with him at the combine, met with him here. So, somebody that we felt like we had a lot of information on.”
Now it’s the Browns’ responsibility to get Bond ready to play. And once they do, they plan on utilizing his speed.
"\[C\]ertainly, he’s got the right attitude, and we’ll know more over the next couple of days,” Stefanski said. “Been around guys with world-class speed before. You know, I can still remember coach \[Mike\] Zimmer talking about it with defensive backs. Defensive backs respond to speed. When they have a guy across them that can run by them, they respond to it. So, we as coaches want to utilize the speed of a player, whether he’s a receiver, tight end, you name it. We want to utilize that to our advantage and put that player in a position where he can run by defenders, give them the threat of running by defenders. So, that’s something that we have to do a really good job of utilizing in this offense.”
Bond also has familiarity with Browns offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, who coached the receiver at Alabama.
“I won’t get into too much specifics, but we, with any player, we want to make sure we talk to everybody we can and find out about the person as much as the football player,” Stefanski said.