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Most Important Questions

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Most Important Questions: No. 5 - How will Jedrick Wills Jr. handle switch to LT?

Training camp can't get here soon enough. By then, we'll have plenty of answers to all of the loose ends surrounding the 2020 Browns.

For now, we simply have some questions.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be discussing those queries and analyzing the variables that accompany them. We've narrowed our list to 10, but there are certainly many more that will need to be answered by the time Cleveland opens the season against the Ravens in Baltimore.

We're continuing today with a look at the biggest challenge facing the Browns' first-round rookie.

The question: How will Jedrick Wills Jr. handle his switch to left tackle?

Jedrick Wills Jr. knew this was where he'd likely wind up. Not Cleveland — he can't predict the future that well — but left tackle, a position he never played in college.

Just a couple of months before the Browns selected him with the No. 10 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, Wills fielded question after question about the impending switch at the league's annual combine. It was a similar line of questioning he faced Inside the meeting rooms with a number of teams.

The Browns, of course, were one of them. They loved everything they heard from the former Alabama star, who impressed the team's coaches and scouts with the smarts he showed while breaking down clips from his decorated college career.

The Browns have selected Jedrick Wills Jr. in the 2020 NFL Draft.

It's a big reason why the Browns are confident Wills can not only find success in his transition from right tackle to left tackle, but also do it at a high level.

"When you watch a player on film, I think in a couple of ways your takeaways are 'Well, this guy is a player. He is solid. He has athletic ability.' With Jedrick, it was a little bit different in that you can feel him on film," offensive line coach Bill Callahan said. "He came alive on tape, and you got excited about what he was doing throughout the course of the game. A lot of times, people talk about make-up and they talk about characters and all these other things, which are great – which he does have – but he has these intangibles that show up in tangible ways on film.

"You watch him finish. You watch the detail, the technique. You watch his consistent effort and his stamina throughout the course of the game from start to finish."

Still, this kind of switch isn't something a player can accomplish overnight. As he mentioned at the Combine, Wills has been working on his footwork and technique since he began his pre-draft workouts. He promptly took up future Hall of Famer Joe Thomas on his offer to discuss the nuances of the position. Based on everything that's been said by Wills, Callahan and coach Kevin Stefanski, he's doing everything necessary to be ready to go for his rookie season.

There just hasn't been any on-field time with his teammates. That'll be the challenge Wills faces at training camp, where he'll look to hit the ground running whenever he gets the opportunity to line up next to Joel Bitonio and square off with Myles Garrett.

Wills, though, used every opportunity to get better without experiencing the real thing. That puts him and the Browns in a good place not only for 2020, but well into the future.

"He's out drilling and sending tape back. We can go back and look at it together and slow it down. It has been really positive and I've had a lot of fun with it," Callahan said. "I've done it in the past with players, so it's really no big deal, but it's great that he has the desire to go out every day and work his craft. He wants to get better, wants to learn from some of the best in the game that have done it.

"His want-to is really high ... and he's got the intrinsic makeup to really want to be good."

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