General Manager Andrew Berry overhauled the Cleveland Browns offensive line this offseason, but several analysts ranked their new-look unit as one of the worst in football ahead of the 2026 season.
The Cleveland Browns had one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL in 2025. Just a few years removed from being one of the best in football, the group simply aged out and became too injury-prone to be reliable for the grind of a 17-game season.
Fixing the o-line was priority No. 1 this offseason for Executive Vice President of Football Operations Andrew Berry and he understood the assignment, turning over the group in its entirety during the first few days of free agency back in March.
Berry's moves included trading a fifth-round pick to the Houston Texans for tackle Tytus Howard and signing Los Angeles Chargers free agent guard Zion Johnson and Green Bay Packers guard/center Elgton Jenkins.
He also re-signed veteran guard Teven Jenkins, who spent the 2025 season with Cleveland, and then completed the overhaul by drafting Utah product Spencer Fano to be the team's franchise left tackle.
And so, the Browns are poised to have an entirely new starting o-line compared to Week 1 last season, granted the final iteration of it has yet to reveal itself. New head coach Todd Monken concluded the offseason program by asserting that four of the five spots are essentially settled and that training camp will help them identify the final starter.
On the surface, turning over the entire offensive line in one offseason is no easy feat and Berry deserves credit for pulling it off. The question is whether or not he simply addressed the team's biggest need, or actually fixed it.
The answer won't reveal itself until they're playing games this fall, but plenty of pundits are setting the bar extremely low for Cleveland's offensive front.
In a composite list o-line rankings from a handful of notable outlets, the Browns averaged out to 30.5 overall. Those outlets included the likes of ESPN's Mike Clay, Sharp Football's Warren Sharp, former Browns scout Scott DiBenedetto, along with popular sites like USA Today, 4for4 and FTN.
Clay actually gave the Browns their highest ranking at 28th overall, while Sharp and DiBenedetto had their o-line ranked dead last in the league.
It's hard to know how good or bad the Browns o-line will ultimately be right now. The first real sense anyone will get will come at training camp when pads go on for the first time and then throughout the preseason.
Where they show up on these preseason rankings is more than likely about the unknowns of a group made up of entirely new faces. There's a lot of communication and chemistry that comes with being a successful o-line. Those are things the Browns' projected starters still have to work through.
At the very least, Berry's additions should have raised the floor of the unit as a whole, though, giving it a chance to prove the pundits wrong in 2026.
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