Cleveland Browns WR Offers Brutal Honesty About Offseason Interest

“That was really the only team that hit me up," Johnson said after day 2 of Cleveland's mandatory minicamp. "NFL is the business. I don't have no control over that. The Brown's called and I'm happy to be here, and that's all I'm worried [about]."

The lack of calls speaks to how the league as a whole views the 28-year-old at this stage of his career. The fact that the Browns were the only team to call speaks to the current state of their wide receiver room.

Maybe it's a match made in heaven: controversial receiver teams up with franchise in desperate need of playmakers. It's a low risk, potentially high reward scenario for the Browns if Johnson can buck the narratives formed about him in recent years and get back to playing football at the level he did in Pittsburgh.

Johnson believes those narratives are misconstrued.

“I don't like to speak on a lot of stuff so I just, everybody going to have their opinions, you know what I'm saying?," Johnson said of being misunderstood. "So at the end of the day, I'm the only one in that room and really know what be going on.

"Everybody are entitled to their own opinion, so I can only go off of what I know and then try to go off what I'm saying can put out there in my best effort. But like I said last year, I'm trying to turn and change that narrative and move the right way and just keep going."

There may be no tougher label to shake in the NFL than being marked as someone who doesn't "try hard." That's the perception that Johnson is trying to dispel.

Despite skipping voluntary OTAs, an absence he clarified with the coaching staff, Johnson believes he's putting his best foot forward. His focus now is on making the most of what very well might be the last opportunity he gets to stay in the league.

"Just be myself and prove everybody wrong," Johnson said. "That's my mindset. Keep going. Don't worry about the outside noise. Worry about what goes on between these gates. That’s it."

With a Browns roster largely devoid of proven wide receiver talent, he should have plenty of opportunities to show he's still the player who caught nearly 400 passes, for 4,363 yards and 25 touchdowns over a five-year span with the Steelers, and conversely, not the guy who everyone seems to believe he is.