BEREA, Ohio -- Duke Johnson didn't hesitate when asked what was more fun, running the ball or catching it.

"Receiver, period," he said. "Being in the slot or lined up out wide is fun for me because it's different. It's something that I love to do."

So it wasn't a problem when the Browns' offensive coaching staff essentially made him their slot receiver to start the 2017 season? Or when they signed one running back and drafted another with a second-round pick this offseason?

"I want to be a slot receiver," he said. "I'd rather be a slot receiver than a running back, 100 percent."

In fact, he lobbies head coach Hue Jackson hard to play receiver.

"He's very demanding about it," Jackson said, laughing. "When he wants it, he asks for it and I want him to be that way. He does it the right way. When you have your good players asking for the ball because they want to help the team win, I'm all for that."

Still, we're talking about the all-time leading rusher at the University of Miami here, a school that has produced the likes of Frank Gore, Edgerrin James, Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, Ottis Anderson -- The U, where Johnson says they're just built different. Why in the world would he want to be a slot receiver?

"It's fun for me, if I'm being honest," Johnson said. "Running back is OK. It's getting fun because they're allowing things that make it fun for me. But, if I had to go out there and be strictly a running back, no pass catching, no creativity, then that would suck."

In fact, if Johnson had his druthers, he'd probably play on the other side of the ball, opposite Denzel Ward at cornerback. He hasn't lobbied Jackson on that one yet.

"Oh, that's not happening," he said. "I'm babystepping. I'm starting as a receiver and I'll leave it there. I'll leave it there."

Johnson sat down with cleveland.com last Friday at the tail end of about 30 minutes worth of interviews. He's one of the faces of the Browns now, picked three general managers ago, a hit for Ray Farmer that John Dorsey rewarded with a new contract. His emergence last season was one of the bright spots in a dismal march to 0-16.

The fourth-year former Hurricane really is built a little different. His Instagram stories are more likely to show you what movie he's watching or what dish he just took out of the oven than his latest workout. Cooking is a hobby he picked up, he says, because it's something he can do while he walks around his house listening to music.

"I'm going to cooking school," he said. "I like cooking, so I'm going to school for it."

He talks like a grizzled veteran, even though he doesn't turn 25 until September. He calls himself old when it's brought up that this is his fourth training camp. He jokes that he was the mentor between him and former teammate Isaiah Crowell. His biggest lesson from his three previous training camps: go to sleep.

"You have to go to sleep," he said. "Because we get out (of the team facility) so late that it's like, go to sleep."

Johnson is softspoken when it's his turn at the podium, but he'll slip things in, like the nickname "Old School" for rookie Nick Chubb.

"The way (Chubb) carries himself, the way he dresses in practice, it drives me crazy," Johnson said.

When a reporter asked about his excellent hands, he nodded, mid-question and smiled. "Excellent hands. I like that," he said.

He's a chess player -- or at least he was in elementary school when his FCAT score, a standardized test in Florida, was so good he ended up in the chess club. He picked it back up recently after a hiatus.

"I played chess about a year ago, my first time playing in about ten years," he said.

He's a basketball fan, too, a Heat fan, specifically, who grew up in Miami. So it felt natural to bring up the idea of how basketball is becoming a game without positions. Could football emulate that? Could his role be defined like that?

"To a sense it can be," Johnson said. "Like you said, you look at LeBron, who's a (small forward), but he can play the point. You've got Giannis (Antetokounmpo), the Greek Freak, which, I don't know what he plays, but he can play everything. Basketball, yes. Football, running back, we're the ones who can be a playmaker in the sense."

Just like a basketball player, it's the matchups that Johnson seems to love -- in space against a linebacker or one-on-one barreling towards a cornerback. He thinks opponents still underestimate his physicality.

"100 percent. A lot of people still think I'm smaller than what they think, but I'm not," he said.

He points to 205 pounds as the weight he likes to play at, but mostly plays at 208 or 210 pounds. He's careful about balancing his size with his speed. He showed off last year that he can be as tough to bring down as any player in the league.

"I haven't seen too many people get him down one-on-one," Jackson said, "so he's a nice weapon to have."

It's not hard to find any number of plays in which Johnson put his agility, his toughness or both on display.

There was this play in the first quarter of the Browns' loss to Detroit where Johnson managed to keep his right knee inches -- maybe centimeters -- off the ground as he stretched for a first down.

Or, how about in 2016 when he crossed up two Chargers defenders after a catch?

He scored the Browns' lone touchdown against Jacksonville, finishing second on the team in receptions and receiving yards against the league's stingiest pass defense.

Johnson flies under the radar, at least in part because his teams have won four games during his career. It's hard to get noticed outside fantasy football circles when almost all your games are on Sunday at 1 p.m.

He was the sixth running back picked in a strong running back class that included Todd Gurley, Melvin Gordon and Tevin Coleman in front of him and David Johnson nine picks after. Jay Ajayi was a fifth round pick that year.

He ranks ninth among that draft class in career rushing yards but has fewer carries -- by a significant margin in some cases -- than all eight of the backs in front of him. He is fourth in the entire draft class -- not just running backs -- in receptions and sixth in receiving yards. He leads the running backs drafted in that class in both categories.

He points to Gurley, whose game reached a new stratosphere last season when he rushed for 1,305 yards and caught 64 passes for 788 yards, as an example of a playmaker, not just a runner. The Rams rewarded him with a four-year, $60 million extension.

"I look at Todd Gurley as one guy who got paid to be a playmaker," Johnson said, "not a running back, he's a playmaker."

Johnson has always faced questions at the NFL level about his durability and how much of a workload he can handle, even though he hasn't missed a game in the NFL. He has finished second on the Browns in total touches three years running.

The only significant time he missed in college came because of a broken ankle.

"That can happen to anybody," he said.

Johnson thinks those questions come from people repeating misinformation they've read elsewhere.

Longterm durability, though, is one of the bonuses he sees in not carrying the ball 25 times a game, though he's quick to point out, "I don't mind, I can do it."

"I'm able to be healthy, body don't really bother too much," he said, "because my biggest thing is after football. My biggest thing is, for me, after football, me having the ability to do what I want with my family and not have no restrictions, limitations because of football."

He's still a ways away from that post-football life, though, so where does he see himself in ten years?

"I better be retired in ten years," he said.

OK, five years.

"I'll still be here, hopefully," he said. "I'll still be in the league. That's definitely the plan, God willing I stay healthy enough to play, I still want to be in the league, hopefully at receiver."

He might just be serious about this whole receiver thing.

"Oh," he said, "I'm lobbying for receiver to death."

Listen to the full interview with Duke Johnson in the podcast below. Interview starts at around the 18-minute mark:

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