The Cleveland Browns have had an excellent start to this year’s player acquisition period, especially along the offensive line. They were able to sign free agent interior linemen Zion Johnson and Elgton Jenkins, re-sign Teven Jenkins, and trade for Texans OT Tytus Howard so far.
Aside from already being a huge improvement on paper for the Browns, the skillset and ability of these new guys could also point to a much different type of run game scheme than Cleveland fans are used to.
All of these players
except for Tytus Howard could be seen as above average run blockers, especially in schemes that focus on vertical displacement of defensive linemen rather than lateral movement like Kevin Stefanski’s system was.
Zion Johnson, Elgton Jenkins, and Teven Jenkins are all excellent pullers and are consistently able to kick out and “log” defenders on a consistent basis. Coincidently, Todd Monken utilized these types of gap-focused power schemes in Baltimore over the past few seasons. Yes, Cleveland used to pull linemen and run different power variations quite a bit early on in Kevin Stefanski’s career, but they got away from it over the past two seasons.
There’s a very good chance that Monken’s going to focus primarily on a more downhill, between-the-tackles type of run game in Cleveland just as he did with both Baltimore and in the college ranks at Georgia.
A lot more A/B-gap power, trap, and counter variations are in the Browns’ future, and it’s probably going to result in a more efficient ground attack in 2026 and behind. It’s also worth noting that Quinshon Judkins is built for this type of run game, as his vision and short-area burst would be amplified between the hashes.
