The Cleveland Browns opened rookie minicamp on Friday, fresh off signing eight of their 10 draft picks
and 12 of their reported 15 undrafted free agents.That number hit 13 on Saturday morning with the news that the team has signed cornerback Michael Coats Jr., an undrafted free agent out of West Virginia.
In a related transaction, the Browns waived tight end Sal Cannella.
The 5-foot-9 and 184-pound Coats played in 56 games, making 41 starts, across a college career that took him from East Central Community
College (2020 to 2022), Nevada (2023 and 2024), before finishing in 2025 with the Mountaineers.
He started all 12 games last season for West Virginia, finishing with 30 tackles, a fumble recovery, and seven passes defended.
Michael Coats Jr. is the definition of a menace at the cornerback position. He’s not the most technically sound player, but he’s consistently around the ball, breaking up passes and throwing his body around against the run. Coats Jr. showed off his top-notch athleticism at his pro day, running a 4.39 40-yard dash, had a 36-inch vertical, and had a crazy 6.83 3-cone drill time at 5-foot-9 and 184 pounds.
His processing skills are pretty good as well, often times reading routes correctly and anticipating where passing lanes are going to be in the short-to-intermediate levels of the field. Coats Jr. projects as a slot corner at the NFL level, and it just so happens to be the exact spot that Cleveland needs to find more depth at.
One of the main reasons, if not the only reason, why he wasn’t drafted is due to his age. He’ll be turning 25 this summer, but the Browns could use his feistiness at nickel in 2026.
With the Browns signing Coats, that leaves wide receivers Aaron Anderson and Ja’Naylon Dupree as the remaining unsigned players from the initial list of undrafted free agents that the Browns were reportedly interested in signing.
