Three Defensive Tackles in Five Days, and the Problem Is Still Standing There

The Browns didn't solve their defensive tackle crisis this offseason. They papered over it — aggressively, expensively, and with genuine urgency — but Maliek Collins is still Out, and that fact swallows everything else.

Here is what the depth chart actually said after the 2025 season: one defensive tackle with meaningful playing time. One. A typical NFL rotation carries two or more. Collins accounted for 100 percent of the production share at the position, which means the moment he went down, the Browns were running a starting-caliber player at a position that demands rotation, depth, and redundancy. That is not a roster quirk. That is a structural failure, and it survived the entire season without being addressed. When you watched this team go 5-12 and get outscored by 100 points, the interior defensive line was not a footnote — it was a load-bearing wall with a crack running through it.

Andrew Berry clearly understood the gravity. When Jadeveon Clowney agreed to return to Houston on August 2 instead of coming to Cleveland, the front office didn't pause to regroup. Travis Bell arrived August 3. Jared Verse — ranked No. 35 on the NFL's Top 100 by his peers — followed. Patrick Jenkins came through the door on August 7. Three interior additions in five days is not a depth move. That is a front office in triage mode, and the pace of it tells you how seriously they rated the exposure. Verse's peer ranking, in particular, signals this isn't just bodies — it's a genuine attempt to change the identity of the line.

But here is where the box score disagrees with the narrative of resolution: Collins is still Out. Everything Bell, Verse, and Jenkins represent is rotation depth around a starter who isn't practicing. The depth chart still lists Collins at the top with 100 percent of the position's production — and every player behind him at zero. The additions are meaningful precisely because the alternative was catastrophic, but "better than catastrophic" is not the same as "solved." If Collins misses meaningful time into the regular season, the Browns are asking three offseason additions to carry a position that broke them last year.

My read is that this is the one place where Berry's otherwise disciplined offseason — Ward locked up at record money, Delpit extended, Fannin and Jeudy cleared — still has a live wire hanging. The secondary is stabilized. The receiving corps is intact. The offensive line is healthy. But the interior defensive line remains the question the Browns cannot answer until Collins either returns to the field or doesn't. Three signings bought time and insurance. They didn't buy certainty. That distinction matters enormously for a team that cannot afford another season of getting pushed around at the point of attack.