The Cleveland Browns offensive line is a financial disaster, with all five starters over 30 years old, and probably on the downside of their careers who are free agents in 2026.
That’s not so bad, but they will also result in $60 million dollars in “dead money” charges to the Browns’ salary cap if they leave.
This is money that comes out of their cap allowance and cannot be spent on free agents or salaries for other players.
At the same time, they will owe $80 million dollars to Deshaun Watson in 2026. It’s easy to predict that there will be over $100 million dollars in cap that will not be used for players that actually play football for the Browns in 2026.
How is such a situation even possible?
The improbable answer is the NFL invention of “voidable years” in player contracts, which is like a credit card.
Teams can sign players to a two-year deal, say, but the bonus money charges are spread out over five years instead of two.
When the two years are up, the remaining bonus money charges show up in the Year 3 cap as “Dead Money.” The idea is that NFL teams are allowed to do this to keep their “Super Bowl window” open a year or two longer.
Cleveland did not really have a Super Bowl window, more like a forlorn hope, but they managed their cap as if Watson was going to make them a contender for three or four years.
Now comes payback.
Four of the five starting linemen, LG Joel Bitonio, C Ethan Pocic, RG Wyatt Teller and RT Jack Conklin, carry “dead money” penalties in 2026, if they do not reach agreement on a new contract with the Browns.
The numbers are shown below, based on overthecap.com.
Now, many Browns fans already have a mind to bench Sanders and draft a new, prettier, first-round quarterback. That’s fine, but you have literally no offensive linemen except for LT Dawand Jones, who will be trying to come back from knee surgery.
That’s it. That’s your offensive line.
What can they do? One thing they can do is to re-sign their free agent players, especially Joel Bitonio and Wyatt Teller, who have the biggest bills for dead money, in which case it can be deferred until the end of the new contract.
The problem is, do they have any linemen who are worth re-signing for another year?
Pro Football Network ranks the Browns O-line at 32nd out of 32 NFL teams.
In particular, their running stats are terrible and at least some of that has to be the fault of the offensive line. All these players are over 30 and they are not getting any younger.
Of course, all linemen play injured to some extent all the time in the NFL and it is difficult to say how they might perform a year from now.
Might one or two of these fan favorites come through one more season?
What they really need to do is to draft offensive linemen in the early rounds of the 2026 draft.
The dead money problem can be delayed but at some point they have to take their medicine. The real solution is younger players with affordable contracts.
Too much money is going out the window for Watson and the offensive line. The 2026 team is looking at well over $100 million being charged on behalf of players who will not play football for Cleveland.
It is hard to see how the Browns can be competitive if everyone else can outspend them to build a roster by such a huge amount of money.