Recently-acquired wide receiver Jarvis Landry is only the third man with that last name to have a big role in Browns history.
First, there was Tom Landry – yes, Tom Landry. He was a defensive back in 1949 with the New York Yankees, who were one of the Browns’ big rivals in the All-America Football Conference, and then from 1950-55 played with the New York Giants, who were the Browns’ big rivals through the 1950s as they entered the NFL. After retiring as a player, he was the defensive coordinator of the Giants from 1956-59.
From 1960, when they were born, through ’88, he was the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, who were the Browns’ big rivals in the last half of the 1960s.
Another Landry — Greg, a former Detroit Lions quarterback — served as offensive coordinator of the Browns in 1985, a season in which they had two 1,000-yard rushers in Kevin Mack and Earnest Byner.
Now there’s Jarvis Landry. In the modern era, he can have a tremendous impact on the Browns, especially now that the club has just signed him to a five-year contract extension.
He’s a great possession receiver, and new quarterback Tyrod Taylor is a possession-receiver quarterback, a guy who will throw a lot of short to intermediate passes. Thus, as the Taylor-to-Landry connection goes, so, too, will go the Cleveland offense. And since offense is such a huge part of the NFL now, how well those two guys perform together will have a whole lot to say about how well the team performs as a whole.
But there’s more – much more, in fact – to say about Landry, and it is this: It was absolutely necessary that, after getting him in a trade with the Miami Dolphins five weeks ago, that they hammer out a long-term agreement with him. If they were unable to do that, then getting him would have been a total waste of time.
The Browns knew it was going to be costly to do that, and they ponied up and got it done it with the bounty of salary-cap money they have, giving him a contract worth a whopping $75.5 million, $47 million of which is guaranteed. Good for new General Manager John Dorsey. His predecessor, Sashi Brown, would never have been able to do it.
The Browns are far from done in re-tooling their offense, let alone their team. But what they’ve done with Landry, first dealing for him and then, more importantly, making sure he’s with them for the long haul, is nothing short of a quantum leap forward in that effort.
