Who Should I Start? Jaelon Darden or Treylon Burks

Saturday, September 7, 1:12 PM

The Cleveland Browns signed wide receiver Jaelon Darden to their active 53-man roster on Saturday and also elevated cornerback Mike Ford Jr. and offensive tackle Germain Ifedi to the active roster ahead of their Week 1 showdown in Cleveland against the Dallas Cowboys. The Browns released former third-rounder David Bell earlier this week, so the 25-year-old Darden will essentially replace him on Cleveland's roster as additional receiver depth behind Amari Cooper, Jerry Jeudy and Elijah Moore. Darden will be competing for playing time with Cedric Tillman and rookie Jamari Thrash and is off the fantasy radar everywhere for now. Darden was originally drafted in the fourth round in 2021 out of North Texas by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Last year in 16 games with the Browns, he only served as a kick returner on special teams and wasn't involved in the offense.

Saturday, February 22, 1:23 PM

The move to trade wide receiver A.J. Brown and replace him with Treylon Burks (knee) was one of the worst personnel moves in Tennessee Titans franchise history, and one of the worst in recent NFL memory, and The Athletic's Joe Rexrode thinks the Titans need to stop waiting for Burks to be a factor. Rexrode points out that Burks' 2025 salary cap hit and dead-money number are both $4.6 million if the Titans cut him, and he thinks it's totally worth doing to move on and give Burks a fresh start. The 24-year-old former first-rounder in 2022 has played in only 27 of a possible 51 games due to injuries and also had surgery in 2024 to address damage to his ACL. When Burks has been on the field, he's done very little, catching 53 passes for 699 yards and one touchdown. There's no guarantee that Burks can turn it around with Tennessee or another organization, though, especially coming off his knee injury.