The Opening Drive 7/16: Browns Well Represented on Defense Among League's Elite
With a bright future, there should be a continuation of strong defense in Cleveland again this year.
ESPN closed out its annual top-10 positional rankings this week, and the Browns’ defense offers a strange kind of data point. A year ago this exercise was almost a formality for Cleveland — you knew where Myles Garrett was going to land and you knew Denzel Ward was respect but that was about it. This year, with Garrett gone to the Rams, the rankings actually tell you something about the roster Andrew Berry has built around their former star edge and how they were able to replace him to keep the train moving.
Start at cornerback, because it’s the cleanest case. Denzel Ward landed at No. 7 among Jeremy Fowler’s panel of executives, coaches and scouts, down from third a year ago. The drop reads worse than the voting actually was — Fowler noted Ward falls to No. 7 but easily could have been No. 4, and that’s how tight the voting was among those four spots. That’s the least surprising outcome on this list. The Browns also had their cornerback opposite of Ward, Tyson Campbell, receiver a few votes as well. This is yet another indication they won the trade sending Greg Newsome to Jacksonville.
Edge is where you see the familiar face in Garrett but not all is lost. Jared Verse didn’t make the top 10 — he lost a close vote to Denver’s Nik Bonitto for the final spot, with an AFC executive summing up the gap as one of style rather than talent: some of the other rushers higher than him have more variety, whereas Verse leans power so often — I do think that changes this year, though. Worth sitting with for a second: the same panel had Garrett as the unanimous No. 1 edge rusher in the league one year removed from a Browns uniform. The trade return for that unanimous No. 1 is a player who, by this same group’s own admission, is a year or two of “variety” away from being a top-10 player himself. That’s not a condemnation of the deal — three future high-caliber picks buy patience — but it’s the rawest version of what “rebuilding around picks instead of a star” actually costs in year one.
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Defensive tackle is the shutout but that doesn’t mean it is lacking talent. Mason Graham and Maliek Collins combined for a defensive tackle room that graded out quietly well last season, and although neither cracked ESPN’s top 10 or even the honorable-mention tier, that doesn’t mean the group lacks quality play. It just means one name has yet to elevate but Graham could be on his way. He finished 20th among all defensive tackles in pass rush win rate as a rookie — solid, but unspectacular. He plays a high volume of snaps and he has flashed exactly the way you want your rookie defensive tackle to flash in what is one of the toughest positions to translate from going from college to the NFL. If there’s a Browns defender with the most to gain via opportunity and skill in year two, Graham might sit atop that list. The Browns need him to be a star.
Linebacker is the most exciting new level of respect from the rest of the league. Carson Schwesinger came in at No. 3 among off-ball linebackers as a second-year player, trailing only Fred Warner and Roquan Smith — two players with a combined eleven Pro Bowls between them. One personnel executive’s comp for Schwesinger wasn’t hedged at all: “he’s Kuechly reincarnated — elite speed, athleticism, instincts, ball skills.” For context, the last rookie to log multiple sacks, multiple interceptions and double-digit tackles for loss in a season before Schwesinger did it was Shaquille Leonard in 2018. A No. 3 ranking for a player entering year two, at a position where the panel called the field wide open beneath Warner, is the single most disproportionate result on the entire board relative to name recognition.
Safety didn’t produce a top-10 Brown, but it’s worth noting why Grant Delpit’s name keeps surfacing in these conversations anyway. He’s not a ballhawk by the metrics that usually drive these votes — one interception last season — but Sports Info Solutions ranked him seventh among all safeties in its total points saved metric last season, which is the kind of stat that never shows up in a positional ranking built on name recognition and highlight plays. It’s also the exact argument Cleveland is reportedly using internally to justify an extension before his contract voids after this season.
Line all five lists up and the picture isn’t “the Browns defense got worse without Garrett.” It’s that the value moved . There are more intriguing pieces in more places than ever for this defense. Losing Garrett isn’t easy to replace but the widespread talent, of which the NFL respects, tells you this defense should continue its higher standard of the Jim Schwartz versions. Whether that’s a sustainable identity remains to be seen but you should be excited about what the NFL world is telling you about the talent.
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