The Cleveland Browns come into the 2025 league year with all kinds of questions, few of which were answered in free agency or the draft. Caught between a win-now mentality and the inevitable negative drive of age and injury at several positions, the current franchise would obviously love to improve on last year’s 3-14 record, but to what end?
The quarterback position, now ostensibly split between Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel, and Shedeur Sanders, has been bollixed for years by the shadow of Deshaun Watson, and it’ll still be a while before ownership can take an acceptable haircut on Watson’s contract that won’t bankrupt everything.
That’s one holding pattern. Perhaps the more interesting holding pattern comes in the 2026 league year, which could have Black Sabbath’s “Into the Void” as its theme song. An intractable number of key players enter the void years of their current contracts, led by tackle Jack Conklin, guards Joel Bitonio and Wyatt Teller, center Ethan Pocic, tight end David Njoku, defensive lineman Shelby Harris, pass-rushers Ogbonnia Okoronkwo and Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, and linebackers Devin Bush and Jordan Hicks.
Most of those guys are on the wrong end of the age curve, and were the 2026 league year to begin today, the Browns would already be more than $6 million over the salary cap. This is what happens when you have a cap hit of more than $80 million sewn up in a defective quarterback.
Fun times!
So, this could be a major rebuild without a ton of resources sooner than later. Whether GM Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski will be part of that process is a matter of conjecture at this point, but for the 2025 Browns to make a mark, it’s not just the stars who will have to step up. Here, we look at three “hidden gems” for the 2025 Browns: One underrated veteran, one underrated free-agent acquisition, and one underrated draft pick.
Underrated veteran: CB Martin Emerson Jr.
At the end of the 2023 season, it looked for all the world that Martin Emerson Jr. was developing into one of the NFL’s best young cornerbacks in a group of defenders that could rival any at that position. Between Emerson, Greg Newsome II, and Denzel Ward, Cleveland’s primary cornerbacks allowed six touchdowns to eight interceptions and 29 pass breakups. The 2023 Browns ranked second behind the Baltimore Ravens in Defensive DVOA, and their opponent passer rating of 75.1 was also the NFL’s second-best behind only Baltimore’s 74.8.
Injuries scuttled things for that group last season. Cleveland fell to 25th in Defensive DVOA in 2024, and their opponent passer rating of 99.0 was the NFL’s sixth-worst. That same group allowed 13 touchdowns to just three interceptions and 22 pass breakups. Emerson, who in 2023 allowed 36 catches on 73 targets for 498 yards, 161 yards after the catch, one touchdown, four interceptions, nine pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 53.3, fell off a cliff last season while contending with multiple injuries – head, back, rib, and ankle maladies. Last season, he allowed 52 catches on 83 targets for 604 yards, 170 yards after the catch, no interceptions, six touchdowns, five pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 108.7.
At his best, Emerson is a big (6’2, 201-pound), rangy eraser who can win in press coverage just as well as he can trail receivers while playing off. Hopefully, he’ll have a return to health in 2025, and the attributes that were all over his 2023 tape will be there again. It’s a contract year for the 2022 third-round pick out of Mississippi State, so getting the best version of Martin Emerson back on the field would pay dividends for all involved.
Underrated free-agent signing: OG Teven Jenkins
A few years ago, you could credibly argue that in the aforementioned Joel Bitonio and Wyatt Teller, the Browns had the NFL’s best guard duo. No matter the scheme, those two guys were smart, tough, athletic, rangy as hell, and out for blood against enemy defensive linemen. And when it was time for Bitonio and Teller to pull and get on the move, you saw a few cornerbacks making business decisions on the edge.
Sadly, Father Time remains undefeated. In 2024, the 33-year-old Bitonio and the 30-year-old Teller were not quite up to their usual standards. Injuries played a part here, as well – Teller suffered a torn MCL in-season and was lost for four games, and Bitonio, who thought about retirement after the 2024 season before he reconsidered, had all kinds of smaller issues he played through.
Which is where Teven Jenkins comes in. The 2021 second-round pick of the Chicago Bears out of Oklahoma State was a casualty of Chicago’s complete interior offensive line makeover, and the Browns were able to nab him on a one-year, $3.05 million deal with $2.67 million guaranteed.
Chicago’s willingness to move on, and the smaller size of Jenkins’ current contract, would have you thinking that this is a camp body at best. But there’s more to Jenkins’ game than you may think. Despite his own injuries last season (knee, ankle, calf), and blocking in a Bears offense that had three different coordinators and made no sense to anybody, Jenkins played well. He’s also an object example of the fact that you have to look at sacks and pressures allowed, as opposed to just box-score scouting and accepting those numbers as gospel.
Pro Football Focus will tell you that with 738 snaps at left guard in 2024, Jenkins allowed four sacks and 17 total pressures. When you watch those alleged miscues, there’s a lot of stuff that was on rookie quarterback Caleb Williams waiting too long to make the throw, and Jenkins was by the wayside with blocks that would have been just fine protecting a more decisive quarterback. I would say that two of those four sacks were actually on him. Jenkins could use some refinements, but maybe new O-line coach Mike Bloomgren can get that done, and Jenkins could become more than a one-year rental.
Underrated draft pick: RB Dylan Sampson
Speaking of injuries… we’re obviously in the post-NIck Chubb era now, as the former franchise back tries to make a career comeback from the multi-ligament knee injury he suffered in 2023 that was brutally similar to the MCL/LCL/PCL combo he suffered at Georgia. Chubb made it back for eight games in 2024, averaged 3.3 yards per carry as opposed to the 6.1 he averaged in 2023, broke his left foot, and that was sadly that.
The Browns went whole hog to redefine the running back position in the draft with the selections of Ohio State’s Quinshon Judkins 36th overall in the second round, and Tennessee’s Dylan Sampson with the 126th overall pick in the fourth.
Judkins is the obvious power back with surprising explosiveness, but don’t automatically assume that Sampson is the second banana. Last season for the Vols, Sampson gained 1,488 yards and scored 22 touchdowns on 258 carries, so you know he’s a workhorse. And at just 5’8 and 199 pounds, Sampson ranked seventh in the FBS last season with 70 forced missed tackles. 929 of his rushing yards came after contact, and he had 17 runs of 15 or more yards. And with 20 catches for 143 yards last season, he’s capable of providing a bit of juice in the passing game.
Last season, the Browns were in 21 personnel (two running backs, one receiver, one tight end) on just five plays. You might expect to see a serious uptick in 2025.
