Collins Is Out, and the Browns Have Nobody Behind Him

Maliek Collins reported to Berea with a knee injury that carried over from 2025, and as of now he is listed out. That is a significant problem for a team that went into this offseason with exactly one defensive tackle who played meaningful snaps last season.

The depth chart behind Collins — Malik Jackson and Mike Hall Jr., the latter of whom is already questionable — has not been tested in any real way. No one behind Collins logged real production last year. That was a known vulnerability when I wrote about Cleveland's roster gaps earlier this month, and it has not been addressed. The Browns are opening training camp with their starting defensive tackle hurt and nothing behind him that has been proven on the field.

The Damarri Mathis signing at cornerback last week showed the front office can move when it has to. My read is the interior line situation is now at least as urgent. Whether there is a viable free agent option out there is a separate question — nothing in the news corpus points to a move being imminent — but the clock is running. Training camp reps matter, and right now the Browns are asking unproven players to fill a hole at one of the harder positions to patch mid-summer.