The Browns, yet again, spent the Saturday before the start of free agency trading to improve their wide receiving corps.

A league source confirmed for the Beacon Journal the Browns will acquire wide receiver Jerry Jeudy from the Denver Broncos. Cleveland will send a fifth- and a sixth-round pick in April's draft to Denver as compensation.

ESPN's Adam Schefter was the first to report.

The exact picks the Browns will send to Denver are No. 135 and No. 202 overall,. They had two picks in each of those rounds, so they will maintain No. 155 and No. 205.

The Browns still have five picks overall in the draft: No. 54 (second round), No. 85 (third round), No. 155 (fifth round), No. 205 (sixth round) and No. 243 (seventh round).

The trade can't be official until the new league year begins at 4 p.m. Wednesday. The free-agency negotiation period starts noon Monday.

Two years ago, it was on the Saturday before free agency the Browns agreed to the deal with the Dallas Cowboys to acquire wide receiver Amari Cooper. To get that deal done, they sent Dallas a fifth-round pick, then swapped sixth-round picks.

The Browns also used a trade with the New York Jets last March to bring in Elijah Moore in exchange for their second-round pick. Jeudy will join the two fellow South Floridians at the top of the receiving corps in Cleveland.

All three will be on the final year of their respective contracts. An ideal world would see Jeudy pair up with quarterback Deshaun Watson in Cleveland and unlock all of the potential which made him such an intriguing prospect when he was the No. 15 overall pick in the 2020 draft out of the University of Alabama.

If that were to happen, the Browns could simply extend Jeudy and watch him slide into the No. 1 wide receiver role beyond 2024, taking the place of Cooper, who will be 30 and in his 10th NFL season this fall. They could also buffer themselves against the possibility of losing Moore in April's draft, where the wide receiver class is seen as deep and talented.

Jeudy comes to Cleveland while playing on his fifth-year option, which carries a $12,987,000 price tag. The Broncos have been looking for ways to offload salary to help alleviate the cap issues they created by their intent to release quarterback Russell Wilson. Wilson would be an $85 million cap hit for Denver if he was a pre-June 1 cut.

The Browns have coveted Jeudy for some time, and made overtures to the Broncos last offseason to try and pull him out of Denver. Much like with Moore, who was a trade deadline target in 2022, they ultimately managed to get their guy, even if it was later than expected.

The 6-foot-1, 193-pound wide receiver played in 16 games last season, starting 11, with 54 catches for 758 yards and two touchdowns. It's one of only two seasons in which Jeudy has played 16 games over his first four seasons, the other being his rookie year.

Jeudy missed a combined nine games in 2021 and 2022, although he only missed two in the latter year. He posted career highs in 2022 with 67 catches for 972 yards and six touchdowns.

For his 57-game career, Jeudy has caught 211 passes for 3,053 yards and 11 touchdowns. He has had 24 career drops, according to Pro Football Focus.com, but half of those came in his rookie season.

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

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Browns agree to trade with Broncos for receiver Jerry Jeudy