BEREA — The message that Browns second-round pick Emmanuel McNeil-Warren received from his coaches after he was drafted was crystal clear.
“Be able to come in and impact the team right away,” McNeil-Warren said after the second day of rookie minicamp. “To me, just be in that playbook, learn the playbook as fast as I can so I can be on the field and they can trust me on the field.”
The Browns would love for McNeil-Warren, the former University of Toledo standout, to have been ready to go yesterday, figuratively, as he adjusts from Mid-American Conference college football to AFC North NFL football. That’s not necessarily a reality for any player, regardless of what level of college they played at, to make that jump.
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The sooner McNeil-Warren can earn that level of trust from his coaches, the sooner he can factor into what the Browns do with their safety deployment. He could start off by sliding in alongside Grant Delpit and Ronnie Hickman when they go to various three-safety looks.
Both Delpit and Hickman are familiar players to McNeil-Warren, who admits he’s watched a lot of both for various reasons through his development.
“I’ve been on them since they was in college,” McNeil-Warren said. “Grant Delpit, I’ve been watching him since his LSU days when he had No. 7, No. 9. I’ve been watching Hickman when he was at Ohio State because one of our corners coaches that came to Toledo, he used to coach him and he’s always putting on a game and telling me to watch him, and see how he sees the game and stuff and just to make me a better person, too.”
Delpit is coming off one of his most productive seasons, as he’s found more play-making opportunities within the box. Hickman’s taken over the deep safety spot over the last two seasons, although the Browns have tagged him with the right of first refusal tender this year as a restricted free agent.
McNeil-Warren, meanwhile, believes his past allows him to come in and play wherever the coaches believe he fits best in the scheme.
“Coming into college, I started as a strong, then I switched to free,” McNeil-Warren said. “So be able to play both sides. They tried me in nickel during practices too. So being versatile helped me a lot to be on the field faster.”
That kind of versatility at safety is something Browns coach Todd Monken saw up close during his three seasons as the Baltimore Ravens’ offensive coordinator. On the other side of the ball was All-Pro Kyle Hamilton, a safety by name, but more Swiss Army knife in the way he’s deployed.
Hamilton can play anywhere from line of scrimmage to deep, and from the middle to the extremes of the formation. He also brings a size at 6-foot-4, 218 pounds that makes him part linebacker, part defensive back and all kinds of problems for opposing offenses.
“Well, I wouldn’t say Kyle started that because there’s been a number of guys his size that enables you to be able to play dime and kind of have the size of a linebacker but have the ability to cover,” Monken said. “Kyle could gain 10 or 20 pounds and play Will linebacker if he wanted to. … I think the more versatility you have in your position groups; I think you can keep those guys on the field and move them around as chess pieces. I think it’s something we’re looking forward to try and figure out where we can utilize him.”
McNeil-Warren brings the requisite size to be a poor man’s Kyle Hamilton. He’s 6-3 and 210 pounds, with room to put even more weight on as he adjusts to an NFL strength program.
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Hamilton is one of the safeties that McNeil-Warren has studied a lot, along with the Los Angeles Chargers’ Derwin James. Both Monken and McNeil-Warren also mentioned Seattle Seahawks safety Nick Emmanwori, who was runner-up to the Browns’ Carson Schwesinger for Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2025, as the mold of the kind of safety they’re looking at with him.
Those safeties mentioned have been part of a renaissance the position has undergone recently after seeing it devalued since the primes of Hall of Famers like Ed Reed or Troy Polamalu. McNeil-Warren wants to be part of that continued rise.
“I feel like being the safety, it’s like the quarterback,” McNeil-Warren said. “So be able to communicate, know everything, be able to get the guys in the right spot and just be able to learn faster, be able to just trigger faster too. So it’s like being a quarterback back there. You’ve got to make sure everybody doing their right job, everybody’s on point.”
Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ. Sign up for Browns Insider newsletter at https://profile.beaconjournal.com/newsletters/browns-insider/
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Browns rookie Emmanuel McNeil-Warren ready to make rapid impact
Reporting by Chris Easterling, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
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