David Bell 'pushes through' rookie season with Browns, eyes more consistent second year

BEREA — David Bell wasn't the Browns' first draft pick last April. The receiver, though, may have been one of the most notable.

A big reason for that is just the position Bell plays. A receiver, especially one who put up the kind of stats in college as he did at Purdue, is going to generate a lot of buzz.

As Bell reflected on his first season, the thing he couldn't help but notice most wasn't the speed of the game or the quickness of the opposing players. Instead, it was the marathon-like grind going from training camp in July to the regular-season finale in January that he acknowledged he wasn't prepared for coming into the league.

"It's a very long season," Bell told the Beacon Journal as he cleaned out his locker last Monday. "You have to be mentally and physically prepared for it. College, for three straight years, I would be done after 12 games."

That wasn't the case for Bell's first season with the Browns. Instead of being done after 12 games, there remained five more games to play.

Bell played only four of those final five games, as he was inactive for a Week 15 win over the Baltimore Ravens due to a foot injury. In the other four games, he was limited to just four catches for 45 yards.

Bell finished the season with 24 catches for 241 yards. The stats may not have been exactly what he was looking for but, considering the acclimation process he went through as a rookie, it was a satisfactory start.

"I think once I hit that point of having to finally push through it, it was good," Bell said. "It was good to finally get out there and get the first season under my wings so I can look back and reflect on the things I did well and the things I need to improve on."

One of the things Bell knows will be critical going forward is staying on the field. His first training camp started off with him on the physically unable to perform list because of a foot injury he suffered late in the June minicamp.

Bell finally got on the field in early August and even started the season opener at Carolina. From there, the learning process accelerated for him.

That process has left Bell with a lengthy list of things he knows he has to improve on in order to become a more consistent contributor in the Browns offense.

"I mean, it's kind of hard to say, because it's really a week-by-week thing," Bell said. "So I haven't really had a chance to sit down and to look over all 17 games of things I need to really improve on. I'd probably say, just off the top of my head, I'd probably just have to say being able to understand defenses a little bit more. There's a lot of disguises that were different from last year coming into the NFL. It's a lot more of that."

That's just part of the learning process, though. If there's anything a young receiver isn't fully prepared for when he gets to the NFL, it's the defenses he's going to go up against.

It's not just the complexities of those defenses, though, that make it a challenge. Bell's veteran teammate Amari Cooper said in an interview with the Beacon Journal in early October the jump in the caliber of defensive backs a receiver sees on a play-by-play basis is something a rookie has to adjust to more than anything else.

"The corners are just a lot better," Cooper said. "That's the biggest transition. Sometimes it takes guys by surprise because the separation isn't as much as you will get playing on the collegiate level. So when the ball is coming to you at the catch point, it's an easier ball to catch [in college].

"That's why a lot of times that you will see a guys throughout his whole college career, you know, he had great hands, phenomenal hands, then when he gets in the league, he starts dropping more balls, not because his hands are worse, just because the coverage is better. It's just harder to catch those balls."

What also can make catching passes more difficult for a rookie receiver — or any receiver, really — is having to work with multiple quarterbacks in the course of the season. That's what every Browns receiver had to deal with this past season as the team dealt with Deshaun Watson's 11-game suspension.

Watson took all of the first-unit reps throughout the offseason program, as well as the early part of the training camp. However, after the preseason opener in Jacksonville, the offense was turned over to Jacoby Brissett, who started throughout Watson's suspension.

Bell caught 20 passes on 27 targets for 169 yards with Brissett at quarterback. He was targeted eight times in five games with Watson, catching four passes for 45 yards.

"You can obviously tell that they're two different styles of quarterbacks," Bell said. "They're both great quarterbacks, and each one of them have some different talents. Definitely some adjustment that we had to adjust to from playing with Jacoby the first amount of weeks and then when Deshaun came to it.

"You can obviously see towards the end of the season that we all as an offense, and as a receiving corps, started to get more comfortable with Deshaun, too. That's why we're really looking forward to next season already."

A season Bell will have a much better understanding of, starting with its marathon-like length.

Contact Chris at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com.

On Twitter: @ceasterlingABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Receiver David Bell 'pushes through' rookie year with Browns