Cleveland Browns 2026 Season Preview

Soft slate, hard truth

Cleveland drew one of the league's easiest schedules for 2026, the 30th-hardest slate of 32, which hands Todd Monken a real chance to bank wins early. That cushion matters because the 5-12 finish buried a team that was actually better than it played, worn down by turnovers and close-game losses that rarely repeat two years running. Seven wins is the number on the page, but a favorable draw plus that overdue correction points to a Browns team that climbs out of the AFC North basement before it settles back into it.

Monken's First Test

Todd Monken takes over a team whose 5-12 record hid real structural problems, not just bad luck. The defense let opponents score far too easily, needing only 12.7 yards to produce a point against a league median of 14.4. That is the part of this roster Monken cannot scheme around from the offensive side of the ball. His actual assignment is the offense, and it wasted chances all year, needing 16.0 yards for every point it scored. Fixing that conversion problem, not chasing last year's win total, is the real measure of his first season.

Numbers hid a real team

Cleveland's yardage margin actually pointed to a team that should have won more than it did, which makes 5-12 the floor, not the ceiling. The offense was the drag: 4.33 yards per play ranked 32nd, and needing 16.0 yards per point shows how badly this unit bled scoring chances even when it moved the ball. The defense told the opposite story, ranking 4th in yards allowed per game and 3rd in sacks with 53, though it got scored on cheaply at 12.7 yards allowed per point. A -8 turnover margin and a 3-6 mark in one-score games both cut against the record too, and neither is likely to repeat at that rate. Deshaun Watson is projected to run the 2026 offense, and how much he can lift a passing attack that managed just 165 yards per game will decide whether that defense finally gets matched.

Deshaun Watson takes the first-team reps into 2026, the front-runner in a competition that Todd Monken has not locked down. Dillon Gabriel threw for 937 yards and 7 touchdowns across 10 games, and Shedeur Sanders added 1,400 yards with 10 interceptions against 7 scores, so neither pushed the offense forward in relief. That offense scored just 16.4 points per game, 31st in the league, while averaging 4.33 yards per play, 32nd. Arkansas rookie Taylen Green arrived in the sixth round, pure developmental depth with no NFL snaps yet. Watson carries the highest salary in the room at $46M, which says who the club is banking on even before camp settles anything.

Quinshon Judkins is the engine here, and his 827 yards on a team that averaged just 97 rushing yards per game says the surrounding blocking, not the runner, was the problem. Dylan Sampson gives Todd Monken a pass-catching complement out of the backfield, with 33 grabs for 271 yards a year ago. Jerome Ford's departure clears out the third-down and change-of-pace role he held, and Raheim Sanders, limited to four games in 2025, is the clearest in-house option to absorb some of those touches. Michael Burton arrives from Denver as a depth piece, while Davon Booth and Ahmani Marshall round out a room with no proven passing-game answer beyond Sampson. Judkins is the whole story until this offense proves it can move the ball any other way.

Jerry Jeudy is the one proven target in a room that produced 165 passing yards per game in 2025, second-fewest in the league, catching 50 balls for 602 yards and 2 touchdowns. Everyone else is a question mark with upside attached. Isaiah Bond flashed at 338 yards on just 18 catches, and Cedric Tillman scored twice despite missing time, but neither has forced consistent volume. Todd Monken now has to build a passing game from that thin base while adding Tylan Wallace off Baltimore and two rookies, KC Concepcion and Denzel Boston, taken in the first two rounds. Six receivers left this offseason, including Diontae Johnson, so Concepcion and Boston are not competing for scraps, they are the plan.

Harold Fannin Jr. caught 72 passes for 731 yards and 6 touchdowns, numbers that dwarf what David Njoku produced before his departure. Todd Monken now has to design an offense around that gap, with Fannin as the clear focal point in the passing game rather than a complement to a bigger name. Jack Stoll arrives from the Saints, where he caught 6 passes for 46 yards and a touchdown, and projects as a blocking piece more than a receiving threat. Blake Whiteheart and Brenden Bates return with modest 2025 numbers, and rookies Joe Royer and Carsen Ryan add depth without any professional stat line yet. Cleveland's passing attack ranked 31st in the league a year ago, so how much Monken leans on Fannin will shape whether that number moves at all.

Cleveland's line allowed 51 sacks and managed just 4.33 yards per play in 2025, numbers 26th and 32nd in the league, and Todd Monken inherits that mess in his first year. The fix came through free agency and the draft rather than continuity: Tytus Howard arrives from the Texans as the room's highest-paid piece at $21M, joined by Zion Johnson from the Chargers and Elgton Jenkins from the Packers. Jack Conklin and Joel Bitonio are among 16 departures, against 10 returning names including Dawand Jones and Kingsley Eguakun, so more experience walked out the door than came back. Utah's Spencer Fano, taken ninth overall, and Florida's Austin Barber give the tackle spots real long-term answers, though neither has played a professional snap yet. This is a rebuild built on outside additions, not a unit clinging to what it had.

Myles Garrett's 23 sacks walked out the door, and no single addition replaces that kind of production. Mason Graham anchors the interior after a 47-tackle rookie season, with Maliek Collins, the room's highest earner at $10M, still generating pressure off his 6.5 sacks. The bigger question is the edge, where Alex Wright opens the year unavailable, so Isaiah McGuire has to cover far more snaps than before. Derek Barnett arrives from Houston off 5 sacks in 16 games and gives Todd Monken a veteran hand at end, while Kalia Davis adds interior depth from San Francisco. Seven defensive linemen left in all, and this group finished 3rd in the league in sacks last year largely because of the man who is no longer here.

Carson Schwesinger piled up 147 tackles and 11 tackles for loss in 2025, and Cleveland built its offseason around protecting that investment rather than replacing him. Jared Verse arrives from the Rams off a 7.5-sack year, and Quincy Williams joins from the Jets after 81 tackles, giving Todd Monken two proven hitters alongside Schwesinger without needing rookie Justin Jefferson to play early. That matters because nine linebackers left this offseason, including Devin Bush's 123 tackles and three interceptions. Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, the room's highest earner at $12.5M, returns to a defense that already ranked 3rd in sacks last season. The floor here looks safer than the churn suggests, with Schwesinger, Verse and Williams forming a sturdier front three than Cleveland fielded in 2025.

Denzel Ward remains the anchor of a group that finished 3rd in defense passing yards allowed per game a year ago, and that number ought to hold with Tyson Campbell, Myles Harden and safeties Grant Delpit and Ronnie Hickman all back. Hickman's 103 tackles and Delpit's 3 sacks give Todd Monken a physical last line even as points allowed crept to 22.3 per game, a middling 14th mark that a shaky pass rush share of the blame for. Nine defensive backs left this offseason, including Rayshawn Jenkins, so free agency additions Myles Bryant and Daniel Thomas were brought in to add depth behind the starters. Round 2 pick Emmanuel McNeil-Warren arrives with no professional numbers yet, but he joins a back end that does not need him to fix anything immediately. This is a secondary built on continuity, not a reconstruction project.

Andre Szmyt made 24 of 27 field goals in 2025, a steady leg Cleveland keeps intact rather than replaces. Corey Bojorquez comes back too, having punted 91 times to a 37.6 yard net average, and his $2M mark makes him the top earner in this room. Dustin Hopkins is out the door, but the kicking change stops there since Szmyt already held the job. Behind them sit Rex Sunahara at long snapper and punters Nik Constantinou and Wes Pahl, none with numbers on file. Todd Monken inherits a specialist group that mostly picks up where it left off, not one he has to reinvent.

Verse and Williams Remake the Front Seven

Losing Myles Garrett's 23 sacks would gut most defenses, but Cleveland answered by adding Jared Verse and Quincy Williams rather than hoping a rookie grows into the void. Verse posted 7.5 sacks and 11 tackles for loss with the Rams, and Williams brought 81 tackles and 3.5 sacks over from the Jets, replacing departed linebackers Devin Bush, Mohamoud Diabate and Jerome Baker in one swing. Derek Barnett adds another 5 sacks up front, and the club used a large haul of 10 picks, headlined by tackle Spencer Fano at ninth overall, to keep rebuilding around Deshaun Watson rather than starting over at quarterback. That's the story here: this isn't a rebuild, it's a full-scale reload of the front seven with proven veterans. Todd Monken inherits a defense that changed its whole middle in one offseason, not one still figuring out who it is.

Sanders Must Outplay Watson's Shadow

Everything about Cleveland's offense funnels through whether Shedeur Sanders can turn his 8-game trial into something steadier. He threw for 1,400 yards but tossed 10 interceptions against 7 touchdowns, and that ratio is the real swing factor for 2026. Deshaun Watson is the projected starter, but Sanders' snaps last year already showed what happens when the offense stalls out short of the end zone. Harold Fannin Jr. gives whoever plays quarterback a reliable target after his 72-catch season, and Quinshon Judkins provides a run game that can mask early mistakes. None of that matters if the interception total does not shrink, because this offense simply cannot survive another year of live scoring chances handed to the other side.

Cheap on the numbers

Cleveland's own defense tells the ugly part of this story: opponents scored on just 12.7 yards per point, well below the 14.4 league median, meaning this unit got cut up cheaply all season. That is a real problem, not noise. But the offense, at 16.0 yards per point against a 14.3 median, left points on the field it should eventually convert, and a minus-8 turnover margin over 17 games is the kind of number that tends to even out. Todd Monken takes over a team that went 3-6 in games decided by a touchdown or less, the sort of record that flips with better luck alone. The betting market has not bought the turnaround yet, with the Browns covering just 41% of spreads overall and only 37% on the road, and a home-favorite mark of 46% suggests bettors still treat Cleveland as live only when the crowd shows up.