Browns Added Three Defensive Tackles in Five Days. Collins Is Still Out.

When Jadeveon Clowney chose to return to Houston on August 2, the Browns had a visible hole at defensive tackle and no obvious way to fill it quickly. Andrew Berry filled it three times over. Travis Bell came in on August 3, Patrick Jenkins followed on August 7, and Jared Verse — ranked 35th on the NFL's Top 100 by his peers — was added in between. As a burst of activity goes, that's a real response to a real problem.

The problem, though, is that Maliek Collins is still Out. He was the only defensive tackle who played meaningful snaps for Cleveland in 2025, and his knee injury has carried into training camp with no resolution in sight. Bell and Jenkins are depth additions; Verse is a pass rusher by trade. None of them are Collins, and none of them have yet shown what they can do in this system.

So the rotation looks fuller on paper than it did two weeks ago, which is something. Whether it holds up once the pads go on is a different question entirely — one that won't have an answer until Collins either returns or doesn't.