The Cleveland Browns subtracted Myles Garrett from their defensive line this offseason, but Jared Verse has already taken on a bit of a leadership role while acknowledging that he’s not trying to live up to what Garrett accomplished, since they have different styles in their game.
Our Reacts poll this week asked how Browns fans felt about the defensive end position in general. We thought there might be a new element to the line, because shortly after posting the poll, Cleveland brought DE Jadeveon
Clowney in for a visit. He then proceeded to sign with another team.
Nonetheless, I’m pretty sure all of the votes happened without fans taking the potential of Clowney into consideration. And with that, a majority of 59% of fans still think Cleveland is in solid shape on the edge. 31% think the group will be just average, while 10% think it will be a weakness.
One fan thinks that the rest of the fanbase is severely underrating the impact that Garrett had, and how the line will take a hit this year:
There’s a lot of confused fans voting here. We just traded Garrett. He had 23 sacks last year and we replaced him with Verse, who has 12 sacks in his career. That’s a huge step back! Also, without Garrett commanding double teams every play, the returning players are going to find it more difficult to get pressure.
The Browns are still heavy underdogs to make the postseason, at 64/1 compared to the other teams, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.
