At some stage along the way, Cleveland Browns legend Jim Brown hopped off the Trent Richardson bandwagon. (Or, more accurately, he never climbed aboard to begin with.)
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Brown, 76, said he doesn't see anything "outstanding" in the draft's third overall pick, but the Browns strength and conditioning coach has pinpointed a quality unique to Richardson.
"You know that old term, 'country-boy strong'? He is country-boy strong," Kent Johnston told The Canton Repository. "Trent's the type of guy who, if he never touched a weight, he'd be a strong man. But he has really enhanced that by the work he put in at Alabama.
"And what we want to do ... he has a strength and power ratio right now that can allow him to be elite, physically. I want him to maintain that, and I would like to work on things that can help him stay durable."
We're far from the golden age of the running back in this league. Teams are reluctant to center an offense around a featured back -- choosing specialization by committee -- but Cleveland believes Richardson is different. A throwback of sorts. Jim Brown doesn't buy into it, but Richardson has more than enough time to prove the franchise's most revered runner wrong.