BEREA, Ohio (AP) — Quarterback competitions and learning new offenses have been the norm for Jerry Jeudy during his seven seasons in the NFL.
The Cleveland Browns wide receiver said Wednesday this is at least the fifth year he has been on a team that's figuring out who will be its starting quarterback during training camp.
Even though Jeudy has become frustrated at times with the lack of stability — first with the Denver Broncos and now the Browns — he realizes that who lines up under center is not his decision.
“I just got to deal with it. I can’t control who's at quarterback, what happens to the quarterback, anything,” Jeudy said. “I do control what I can control and that’s running routes getting open and catching the ball, making plays. Other than that, I can’t do nothing else but my job.”
Jeudy — who has caught passes from 14 starting quarterbacks (seven each with the Browns and Broncos) — further clarified that a recent video on social media showing him holding up four fingers was about the age of his daughter and not an endorsement of Deshaun Watson, who wears that number, becoming Cleveland's starting QB for the Sept. 13 opener at Jacksonville.
“I think I'm mature and wise enough to not answer questions like that. For anyone to believe I would answer that on social media is kind of wild,” Jeudy said. “I don’t even answer quarterback questions in here, why would I answer quarterback questions on TikTok?”
Jeudy said the video of the livestream edited out a section that included his daughter. After the video went viral, Jeudy spoke to Watson and Shedeur Sanders while adding that he doesn't speak, at least publicly, “on decisions that aren't mine to make.”
“Five years ago, I just probably just let y’all think whatever y’all want to think. But now sometimes you just got to clear up a message because sometimes it lets people think whatever. That’s going to leave a bad taste or a bad memory in their head,” Jeudy said.
No matter who emerges as the Browns' QB, Jeudy will need to have a better season. After setting career highs in catches (90) and receiving yards (1,229) in 2024, his first year with Cleveland, Jeudy had only 50 catches for 602 yards last year.
Jeudy is also hoping that rookies KC Concepcion and Denzel Boston can emerge as receiving threats. Of the Browns' top six players in receptions last season, five were running backs or tight ends.
Jeudy also expects to get more playing time than usual this preseason after first-year coach Todd Monken said everyone on the roster would be playing in the three games.
“This offense, I’m excited because it all gets you in the right formation, the right play against the right look,” Jeudy said. “I think that’s a big step forward for this offense. The quarterback, being able to change the plays or have two or three plays in one just to get in the right look and the right play against the defense. So that’s going to be helpful a lot.”
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Cleveland Browns wide receiver Jerry Jeudy catches a pass during practice at the team's NFL football training camp, Thursday, July 30, 2026, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Richard)
Cleveland Browns wide receiver Jerry Jeudy catches a pass during the team's NFL football training camp, Wednesday, July 29, 2026, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Richard)
CEDAR CREST, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s attorney general sued the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday, accusing it of blocking the state from investigating sex crimes at Jeffrey Epstein’s former ranch near Santa Fe.
The lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., said the department and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stonewalled New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s criminal investigation into Epstein and others, taking action that “harms victims and undermines the public interest.”
The lawsuit sought judicial intervention to force the federal government to turn over materials to New Mexico's investigators. It was filed the same day that the New Mexico House of Representatives released a report saying “those directly responsible for protecting New Mexicans relied on others to do their job,” including federal prosecutors in New York.
Epstein took his own life in a federal jail in New York City in August 2019 after he was denied bail on sex trafficking charges lodged against him when he was arrested a month earlier.
Epstein's former girlfriend and close associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 conviction on sex trafficking charges in New York. Witness testimony at Maxwell's trial alleged she and Epstein had sexually abused women at his New Mexico ranch.
According to New Mexico's lawsuit, state prosecutors “have faced sustained resistance” to the kind of information-sharing common between state and federal investigators.
The Justice Department said in a statement it was not releasing some information the state requested because of federal court orders that ban disclosing victim-identifying information.
"New Mexico has provided no lawful basis to justify such sweeping disclosures,” the agency said. It said protecting victim privacy remains a top priority and the Justice Department "remains available to assist New Mexico’s investigation consistent with the law and binding court orders.”
The lawsuit claims the Justice Department and Blanche were hiding information about Epstein and his co-conspirators when the state is one of the few jurisdictions that may still be able to hold Epstein's associates accountable or “provide some sense of justice to survivors.”
New Mexico's attorney general said his office made 10 requests for key information that were ignored or denied.
“We have heard repeatedly they will cooperate and what our team has experienced is anything but cooperation,” Torrez told reporters in a video call.
“Todd Blanche today with a stroke of a pen could grant us the access that he claimed,” Torrez said. “Instead they have decided to stonewall, to obstruct and to frankly conceal for whatever reason.”
The interim report released by the New Mexico Survivors' Truth Commission in part blamed federal prosecutors in Manhattan for a dearth of information about Epstein's activities in New Mexico. The commission, established in February by state lawmakers, said federal officials focused on Epstein’s misdeeds in New York, Palm Beach, Florida, and the Virgin Islands, while leaving his offenses in New Mexico unexamined.
But the commission also cited evidence gathered by federal prosecutors in New York to describe women who recounted suffering sexual abuse from Epstein at his Zorro Ranch.
At Maxwell's trial, Annie Farmer, now a psychologist, testified she was 16 when she agreed to go to the ranch, where Maxwell touched her breast during a massage and Epstein unexpectedly crawled into bed and pressed himself against her.
A spokesperson for federal prosecutors in New York sent along the Justice Department statement on Epstein in response to a request for comment.
Coinciding with the release of the report, about 50 members of the media and the public gathered in a legislative hearing room at the New Mexico state capitol on Wednesday to hear about the commission’s preliminary findings.
Rachel Benavidez, the lone speaker in the “survivor testimony” portion of the meeting, alleged that Epstein sexually abused her at Zorro Ranch. Benavidez said Epstein’s connections with powerful people in the state allowed him to “roam free here in New Mexico unchecked” after he was convicted of sex crimes elsewhere.
“We don’t need more paper files sitting as artifacts,” Benavidez said, urging the commission to question “co-conspirators” who helped Epstein evade accountability in the state.
Benavidez has said in interviews that she was brought to the ranch to work as a massage therapist beginning in the late 1990s. She said Wednesday that Epstein exploited “the one thing that meant everything to me at that time, my hard earned career.”
A group of Epstein victims and victims' family members accused Blanche in a statement of “continuing to protect abusers” by withholding the information sought by New Mexico.
“The DOJ’s argument that it won’t hand over files in order to protect survivors’ identities is laughable when the DOJ has already revealed their names and personal information,” they said.
Epstein purchased his expansive property in Stanley, New Mexico, a sparsely populated ranching community about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Santa Fe, in 1993 from former Democratic Gov. Bruce King and built a hilltop mansion with a private airstrip and helipad.
The property was sold by Epstein’s estate in 2023 to the family of Don Huffines, a Republican recently appointed Texas' state comptroller. In a February social media post, Huffines said the property has been renamed San Rafael Ranch after a saint associated with healing and that his family plans to operate a Christian retreat there.
The Justice Department in December started releasing investigative records pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Accusers and members of Congress who fought to pass the transparency act quickly complained about shoddy redactions and too many sealed materials. Records that were released, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs, court records and other documents, were either already public or heavily blacked out, and many lacked necessary context.
Associated Press writers Larry Neumeister in New York and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
Crosses, flowers and other mementos are displayed outside Jeffrey Epstein's former Zorro Ranch near Stanley, N.M., on Friday April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Savannah Peters)
Four state legislators that make up a truth commission investigating Jeffery Epstein's activity in New Mexico present preliminary findings at the state capitol in Santa Fe, N.M. on Aug. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Savannah Peters)
Rachel Benavidez, who alleges she was sexually abused by Jeffery Epstein at his New Mexico ranch, testifies to the state legislature's truth commission at the state capitol in Santa Fe, N.M. on Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Savannah Peters)
FILE — This photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein on March 28, 2017. (New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP, File)
FILE - Audrey Strauss, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, points to a photo of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell during a news conference in New York on July 2, 2020. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
