The Browns rebuilt their entire offensive line — and 2 rookies will start from Day 1

BrownsThe Browns blew up their entire offensive line — here’s why that’s such a massive gambleBy Orange and Brown Talk Podcast, cleveland.comCLEVELAND, Ohio — The quarterback conversation tends to swallow everything else when it comes to the Browns. But during their 2026 season preview on Orange and Brown Talk, the crew made sure to carve out time for the two non-quarterback storylines that could define the entire year.First: the offensive line. Browns beat reporter Ashley Bastock called it her biggest non-quarterback question of the season — and the math alone makes the concern reasonable.“It is not often that teams get five new starters on their offensive line in a season,” Bastock said. “Obviously these guys took their top pick in the draft and drafted Spencer Fano to be their left tackle of the future. So I think there’s a lot riding on this O-line.”Terry Pluto says he’s never seen anything like Todd Monken’s drill designed to eliminate the Browns’ presnap penaltiesThe youth movement is what drives this 2026 Cleveland Browns season prediction — Irie HarrisWhen will Shedeur Sanders start for the Browns in 2026?The Browns essentially blew up their entire offensive line and rebuilt it from scratch — with potentially two rookies in the starting lineup from Day 1. Fano at left tackle. Austin Barber possibly stepping in at right guard. The success of the run game, the protection of whoever lines up under center and the functionality of Monken’s entire system runs directly through whether those five guys can figure each other out in real time.Browns beat reporter Mary Kay Cabot pointed out the compounding difficulty: Watson hasn’t played in nearly two years, the receiving corps includes multiple rookies and now the guys blocking for him are also largely untested as a unit.“You have to get those five guys working together,” Cabot said, “and if they switch to Austin Barber at right guard, then once again you’re kind of back to — you haven’t had these five guys repping it over and over and over and over and it just gets a little tricky to function like a well-oiled machine.”On the defensive side, Cabot introduced what she called “LAM” — Life After Myles. Myles Garrett, the most dominant defensive player in Cleveland in decades, is gone. The Browns landed edge rusher Jared Verse in the trade, and defensive coordinator Mike Rutenberg steps in to run a unit that ranked first in the NFL over the past three seasons under Jim Schwartz.“Life after Myles is a big question mark for me because we don’t really know exactly how Jared Verse is going to fare when he’s plucked off of the Rams defense and put onto the Cleveland Browns defense where he is going to be expected to be the guy,” Cabot said. “A lot is riding on him.”Labbe put it plainly: losing both Garrett and Schwartz in the same offseason has to have some kind of impact, even if the defense avoids a dramatic statistical drop.“It doesn’t mean the defense is going to be bad,” Labbe said. “It doesn’t mean that Jared Verse can’t handle it or that Mike Rutenberg can’t call a defense. It’s just that especially with that latter one, we just don’t know.”Bastock offered a note of cautious optimism, pointing out that defensive linemen who were in Cleveland last year have consistently described the scheme as largely unchanged — same concepts, just different verbiage and a few new wrinkles in the secondary.But optimism only carries so far without evidence. Training camp gives you hints. Sundays give you answers.This article was produced with assistance from AI tools and reviewed by Cleveland.com staff.