The Cleveland Browns suffered a frustrating defeat to the Buffalo Bills in week 16 by a score of 23 to 20, but these games aren’t necessarily about wins and losses anymore. It’s about player development
and seeing what the team has in its younger players as they close out the 2025 season.
Over the past two games, the spotlight has been on C Luke Wypler after Ethan Pocic went down with a season-ending injury against the Titans. Cleveland needs to figure out what they’re going to do at the center position in the future, as Pocic is set to become a free agent when the new league year begins in 2026.
Wypler has been serviceable as a depth-level player since arriving in Northeast Ohio, but now it’s time to see if he can handle being a full-time starter at center. He’s consistently shown the ability to be effective in limited snaps, and he’s performed pretty well with Shedeur Sanders over the past couple of games.
He’s improved each week since taking over as the starter, and he might have had his best game of the year against the Bills, despite getting called for holding on one of the Browns’ best runs on Sunday.
Wypler continues to excel in pass protection (75.4 PFF grade against Buffalo) and moving to the second level in the run game. Despite having shorter-than-ideal arms, he wins with hand speed and placement, and his ability to anchor has been extremely impressive since entering the league. He did very well against the Bills’ 6’7”, 330-pound DT Deone Walker on Sunday, showing off the ability to hop back and win with leverage in base protection.
Wypler also did a great job communicating against Buffalo, making quite a few adjustments at the line of scrimmage.
Where he still needs to improve is at the point of contact against head-up nose tackles in odd fronts. He’s able to overtake defenders a bit easier in the run game when he has the angle advantage of a shaded defensive tackle, but he still needs to work on his lower body to improve leg drive in 1-on-1 situations.
Overall, it seems like Wypler has shown improvement and consistency each week in the areas that he needs to. If he continues on this path and performs well to end the year, he’ll definitely be trending to be the starter in 2026.
