The ESSENTIAL Football Show 
Top 51 Cap Space: 2026: $25.0 million | 2027: $82.5 million | 2028: $254.8 million
Draft Picks: 2027: 1-5, 7; HOU 5, 7 | 2028: 1-6
Football Decision Makers: GM Andrew Berry | HC Todd Monken | OC Travis Switzer | DC Mike Rutenberg | ST Byron Storer
State of the Team
It never came to fruition due to their disastrous trade for Deshaun Watson, but up until the moment running back Nick Chubb blew his knee out, there was a stretch where the Browns had a case for the best roster in football (with the exception of the quarterback position).
That’s all unraveled; whether you point to Chubb, the offensive line sans Joel Bitonio and Wyatt Teller, or Denzel Ward as the last man standing from the cornerback trio he formed with Martin Emerson and Greg Newsome, it’s a new era in Cleveland, one that closes the door on an wild swing and a miss on a potential championship window.
That said, GM Andrew Berry had a role in building this roster up once, and there’s reason to think he can do it again with new head coach Todd Monken. Monken comes in with Travis Switzer, who was in position as the run game coordinator when Monken joined the Ravens, as his offensive coordinator, and Mike Rutenberg, who has a long history in the NFL that began as a special assistant to Joe Gibbs in Washington and more recently continued with stints working with the New York Jets and Atlanta Falcons (Robert Saleh tree, then followed Jeff Ulbrich), as his defensive coordinator.
There’s no sure things here (outside of All-World edge rusher Myles Garrett), but Todd Monken has had a heck of a lot of success running offenses at both the NFL and college levels, and while things went sideways in Baltimore last season, the offense he schemed up with Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry was as good as any I recall watching when they were clicking.
Some of the bones remain on defense, but this is almost a complete reset, and it’s more likely than not that the 2027 Day One starting quarterback is not on the roster right now. There might not be a whole lot of wins, but Cleveland fans are familiar with handling that; if the Browns faithful can see development from the boatload of draft picks they just added, swallowing a few losses on the build to 2027 might be a bit more palatable than some recent vintages.
Offense
I’d prefer to get the quarterback discussion out of the way, so I’ll start there.
Deshaun Watson was an elite quarterback in my book when he played in Houston, but he appeared to have mentally short-circuited during the course of events that led to his suspension. As he evidently has a chance to start, I’ll note that I would be shocked if he found his game again; as much talk as there was about the scheme, I have no idea what offense is going to work when the quarterback can’t execute even the most basic concepts, and whether it was “Stick”, a half-field read on a rollout, or really any other play an NFL team can run, Watson was wildly inconsistent executing it. There were flashes of his physical tools early in the process - on the rare occasion he lined it all up, he hit some good-looking throws, and he could still run - but now he is coming off multiple major injuries, headlined by his twice-torn Achilles. When he played in Houston, I would have assumed Watson would succeed in any system, but if you didn’t know, anyone just watching the film would have to think the guy who arrived in Cleveland was an entirely different player.
As for Shedeur Sanders, he has a decent physical skillset that should allow him to be a bottom-end starter - think Mac Jones - but while he’s dropped in some nice deep balls on film I’ve evaluated, he also makes an astonishing number of terrible decisions, and perhaps more problematically, he consistently struggles to turn the ball loose on open concepts. Sanders needs to be a timing and rhythm passer, but that’s not the game he’s playing, and while the Jameis Winston/Will Levis-level bad decisions might get worked out of his system, the bigger gap might be in identifying and targeting open receivers; in the most realistic scenario, I think Sanders has a long-term future as a backup if he maxes out his game, but that’s not really moving the needle.
The rest of the offense is a Mystery Box. Tight end Harold Fanin is the lone exception as a non-injured, established Cleveland Brown, and receiver Jerry Jeudy might sneak in, though his week-to-week volatility makes it hard to call him a known quantity.
The good thing is the Browns made a lot of moves/bets that make sense. They brought in three established offensive linemen (guard Zion Johnson, center Elgton Jenkins, tackle Tytus Howard) and supplemented that with draft picks in the 1st, 3rd, and 5th rounds, headlined by 9th overall pick Spencer Fanu, who is slated to start as the left tackle. At receiver they went with quality and quantity, using two valuable picks on KC Concepcion (24th) and Denzel Boston (39th), who should complement each other (and Jeudy) well given their respective traits, with Concepcion bringing the explosiveness and Boston bringing the size.
Throw in the potential return to form of Quinshon Judkins, who looked like a star as a physical, sustaining runner with the ability to break off long gains before he broke his leg. If Judkins is back to health, Monken will have all the pieces to build a well-structured offense.
Unfortunately, the results might not be great given the quarterbacks, but the hope would be that Sanders can develop his game and the group can focus on improving in the back half of the year in preparation for the next step.
Defense
The offense might be missing a piece, but the defense has a chance to dominate.
It starts with Myles Garrett, and if you’re reading this, I assume I don’t need to familiarize you with the NFL’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year and new single-season sack King, but suffice to say that Garrett, the most physically impressive edge in the league, should continue to dominate regardless of changes around him.
Why the Jaguars traded Tyson Campbell, who had term left on his deal, and more importantly, has consistently played at a higher level than the player he was traded for, Greg Newsome, who had one year on his deal, remains something of a mystery, but Campbell continued to turn in his above-average to plus play on Cleveland tape I watched, looking different in the #7 uniform, but still making plays at the catch point. He and long-time star Denzel Ward form a quality outside tandem when healthy, and while slot corner is more of a question, the addition of safety Emmanuel McNeil-Warren in the second round to go along with Grant Delpit and Ronnie Hickman opens up the possibility Cleveland will feature more “big nickel” than “slot corner nickel”, which fits with how the league is trending to 12 personnel on offense.
The linebacker duo of Carson Schweisinger and Quincy Williams has a chance to be terrific, with Schweisinger providing the steady, read-it-out presence that C.J. Mosley provided next to Williams when they formed one of the NFL’s best tandems for the Jets. Williams is coming off a down year that saw his brother shipped out of town, but with the way Williams runs, it’s fairly easy to imagine a bounce-back season now that he is in a fresh situation.
How second-year defensive tackle Mason Graham develops will go a long way in determining how dangerous the interior pass rush is, but even if Graham is what he was as a rookie, this group has a lot of potential. It will be interesting to see how Mike Rutenberg changes things up from Jim Schwartz’s scheme - that is certainly an outstanding fit for Myles Garrett - and given some of the overlap in principles between what Robert Saleh, who Rutenberg worked with in San Francisco, then New York, to envision a defense that has the same overall feel, even if there’s a different flavor.
Final Takeaways
The fact that Deshaun Watson is back in the mix at quarterback makes this a sort of strange situation, and that’s my major hangup about this re-build; because it’s the Cleveland Browns, and because Jimmy Haslam is the owner, you have the feeling that something is going to go badly awry.
I’m not going to predict what that is - the NFL offers no shortage of possibilities for drama, in my thirty or so years of following the league - but whether they feel compelled to make Watson show up and work the hours for all the money they guaranteed to him, or can’t stomach the thought of cutting bait with him only for him to revive his career elsewhere (an Arena League, perhaps), I don’t understand why the organization decided to keep Watson in the building.
That said, while it’s a two-year outlook, everything appears to be in place for Andrew Berry and Todd Monken to build this organization up over the next two years, and to be competing in a big way in Year Three if everything goes right.
They just have to hope the other shoe doesn’t drop… again.