The ESSENTIAL Football Show 2025 Cap Space: $6.4 million
2026 Cap Space: (-$6.6 million) (negative)
2027 Cap Space: $167.6 million
2026 Draft Picks: Own Picks, Rounds 1-5 plus JAX RD1, DET RD6, SEA RD7, BUF RD7
Deshaun Watson is still on the Cleveland Browns roster, so it might be premature to say we have seen the end of that saga, but with the embattled quarterback working his way back from a second tear to his Achilles, it’s safe to say that the Watson discussion won’t color the discussion of this roster entering 2025.
It’s difficult to overstate the cost of that disaster; at the time that the Browns acquired Watson, there was a legitimate argument that, setting the quarterback position aside, the rest of Cleveland’s roster was the best in the NFL. With an elite offensive line, a running back on a Hall of Fame trajectory, and a defense keyed by a shutdown cornerback and a transcendent edge rusher, all Cleveland needed was an engine to make it all run.
The roster hardly disappointed - Cleveland was on track to make the playoffs with Jacoby Brissett at the helm three years ago - but three years is an eternity in the NFL.
Running back Nick Chubb’s knee injury happened. Left guard Joel Bitonio flirted with the idea of retirement this offseason. Wide receiver Amari Cooper, who was slated to be Watson’s number one target, is on the fringes of the league after a down season that saw the Browns trade him to Buffalo. On defense, cornerback Denzel Ward and edge rusher Myles Garrett remain, but there has been massive turnover on this unit since they were arguably the NFL’s best in 2023.
It’s all led to a total reset in Cleveland, where the quarterback depth chart includes the names Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel, and Shedeur Sanders, making the Browns the one team in the NFL where I can’t confidently write in a “starter” at the position.
There’s a chance Cleveland’s dancing elf catches lighting in a bottle (or perhaps more realistically, that Shedeur Sanders takes the bull by the horns and rebounds from his pre-draft process to seize this job), but there’s also a chance we wind up monitoring Watson’s Achilles rehab down the stretch, and whether Cleveland will throw him out there in December to “see what they’ve got” at the end of a long season.
For general manager Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski, it’s a process that will take time to unfold, and there’s a lot of ways to approach it, but if I were in Berry’s shoes, I’d be focused on which players will be able to help us in 2026 and 2027, and make my roster moves accordingly.
Quarterback
Starter: Unknown
Backups: Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel (3rd Rd), Shedeur Sanders (5th Rd), Deshaun Watson
Running Back
Starters: Jerome Ford, Quinshon Judkins (2nd Rd)
Backups: Dylan Sampson (4th Rd), Pierre Strong
Wide Receiver
Starters: Jerry Jeudy, Cedric Tillman
Backups: Diontae Johnson, Michael Woods, Jamari Thrash, Michael Woods, David Bell, DeAndre Carter
Tight End
Starters: David Njoku
Backups: Harold Fanin Jr. (3rd Rd), Blake Whiteheart
Offensive Line
Starters: Dawand Jones, Joel Bitonio, Ethan Pocic, Wyatt Teller, Jack Conklin
Backups: Cornelius Lucas, Teven Jenkins, Zak Zinter, Luke Wypier
Offense Overview
There’s a lot of places we could start on Cleveland’s offense, but while he might not stick, the decision to add wide receiver Diontae Johnson is a microcosm of the team’s overall approach. They are desperate for players, particularly cost-controlled players, and if there’s a chance for a dice roll on Diontae Johnson, Cleveland is going to take it.
On the positive side, receiver Jerry Jeudy validated Cleveland’s decision to hand him a three-year extension after they acquired him from Denver; after posting 90 catches for 1229 yards, which were good for 12th and 6th in the NFL, his $17.5 million annual average looks very reasonable.
The Browns will also roll rookie running backs Quinshon Judkins (2nd Rd) and Dylan Sampson (4th Rd) into the mix with Jerome Ford as they move into a post-Nick Chubb world. Ford has already shown the spark he can give an offense as an explosive playmaker out of the backfield; if Judkins and Sampson can provide down-to-down consistency to complement that, it would go a long way in steadying things out behind the offensive line.
As to the line, it looks good on paper, but given the lengthy injury histories of tackles Dawand Jones and Jack Conklin, it’s a stretch to assume that things will stay that way. The Browns added Cornelius Lucas as a depth piece, and Germain Ifedi is out there as a free agent after playing 45% of the snaps for Cleveland last year, but those aren’t routes they want to pursue. The interior is more stable with Bitonio, center Ethan Pocic, and right guard Wyatt Teller, but given Bitonio’s age, the Browns also need to be looking to the next step there. They added former Bear Teven Jenkins in free agency, and Zak Zinter is in the wings as a 2024 3rd-round pick, which could make Bitonio a trade candidate if the Browns don’t win many games out of the gates.
Whoever wins the quarterback job will have to hope that Cedric Tillman, who showed real promise before a concussion prematurely ended his season, is able to get back healthy, because they lack experience behind him. David Njoku provides a receiving presence at tight end, though he could also wind up on the trade block after the Browns selected another pass-catching threat at the position, Harold Fanin Jr., in the 3rd round of the draft.
Defensive Tackle
Starters: Maliek Collins, Mason Graham (1st Rd)
Backups: Shelby Harris, Mike Hall Jr., Jowon Briggs
Edge
Starters: Myles Garrett, Isaiah McGuire
Backups: Alex Wright, Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, Ogbo Okoronkwo, Julian Okwara
Linebackers
Starters: Jordan Hicks, Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah (IR)
Backups: Carson Schwesinger (2nd Rd), Mohamoud Diabate, Jerome Baker, Devin Bush
Safety
Starters: Grant Delpit, Ronnie Hickman
Backups: Chris Edmonds, Troy Dean III
Slot
Starter: Greg Newsome II
Backups: Cameron Mitchell
Outside CB
Starters: Denzel Ward, Martin Emerson Jr.
Backups: Tony Brown II, Chigozie Anusiem.
Defense Overview
Myles Garrett is back with a hefty new contract, and he’s got a new running mate in defensive tackle Mason Graham, who Cleveland selected with the 5th overall pick after moving out of the 2nd spot.
Travis Hunter was an enticing prospect at #2 overall, but my take is that the Browns made the right move for their roster build at this point in time. This team went heavy on veteran contracts after trading a significant amount of draft capital in the Watson trade, and they need to get that rebalanced.
It will be a multi-year process to deploy all of the capital Cleveland got back in this deal, but in the meantime, the defense does have a chance to rebound. Hunter might have beat out one of their cornerbacks, but while 2024 was a down year, Denzel Ward, Greg Newsome, and Martin Emerson were arguably the NFL’s best corner group during the team’s dominant 2023 run, and there is certainly the potential they return to that standard. The defense doesn’t have the same name recognition in front of them, and they will need to find a way to replace linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah if his neck injury prevents him from playing moving forward, but they may already have a replacement in second-round pick Carson Schwesinger, who will have a clear path to a starting spot next to Jordan Hicks if J.O.K. can’t go.
If you did want to play Devil’s Advocate for taking Hunter with the second pick, you could point out that Newsome and Emerson are both entering the final years of their respective contracts, and that the timeline might have worked perfectly to start Hunter on offense before amping up his defensive workload after trading Newsome and Emerson… but that’s getting into a lot of ifs.
Overall Outlook
Kevin Stefanski may have the most difficult challenge of his coaching career ahead of him, because after reviewing this roster, it feels more like a band of mercenaries than anything else, which is perhaps exacerbated by the fact that their star player demanded a trade this offseason, publicly saying he doesn’t see Cleveland as a place he will win a Super Bowl, before signing on the dotted line as soon as the number went over $40 million.
I don’t fault Myles Garrett for that, but I do think there is a weird vibe to this roster, which feels somewhere between the hangover of a (badly) failed Super Bowl push and an expansion team. If this team had a quarterback, then perhaps they could rally behind Stefanski as he resumes control of the offense after last year’s failed experiment with Ken Dorsey, but it just doesn’t feel like it’s in the cards. There’s a lot of smart people in Cleveland’s building, and I’d bet that many of them - players, coaches, and front office execs - are going to go on to have success in the NFL.
As to that success coming in Cleveland?
I’m with Myles.
I just can’t see it.