CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cleveland Browns face a daunting challenge after officially losing linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah for the 2025 season: how do you replace a defender with “rare shape-shifting movement skills” who was the defense’s primary turnover creator?
The answer, according to those closest to the team, isn’t finding a single replacement – it’s building a committee.
“When I think about obviously trying to replace Jok, I don’t think that it’s a one-person job,” Orange and Brown Talk podcast host Dan Labbe explained. “I think that he is one of those guys. I almost kind of put him in the class of Myles Garrett, just in the sense of the way he moves and the way he operates is like unique. It’s special.”
That unique quality – JOK’s ability to seemingly bend physics with his blitzing and gap-shooting abilities – simply can’t be replicated by any single player on the roster. It’s why the Browns have spent the offseason assembling a diverse linebacker room featuring both veteran additions and an early draft investment.
“I still think that you’re going to see sort of the same caliber of linebacker there. But yes, as you mentioned, it will be by committee to a certain extent,” cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Cabot confirmed.
At the center of this committee approach stands rookie Carson Schwesinger, the Browns’ high second-round pick who now faces heightened expectations. While drafted as JOK’s eventual complement, he’s suddenly thrust into a potential starring role – though with a drastically different skill set.
“When they talk about Carson, his superpower is in coverage,” Cabot explained, contrasting him with the incumbent star. “JOK’s superpower was in the blitz arena and being able to rush and do all of those kinds of things.”
This fundamental difference in their “superpowers” means the Browns won’t simply plug in Schwesinger and expect JOK-like results. Instead, they’ll likely tweak their defensive approach to maximize the rookie’s intelligence and coverage ability while finding other ways to generate the backfield havoc JOK created.
Schwesinger’s academic background – he’s a bioengineering major with exceptional intelligence – has the Browns believing he can quickly adapt to NFL complexity. His interception during rookie minicamp provided an early glimpse of his coverage instincts.
“They look at Carson as somebody like that. We know he is a bioengineering major, super smart, crazy high football acumen. And I think that showed up even during the small sample size we saw of him in the rookie minicamp,” Cabot said.
Surrounding Schwesinger will be veterans Jerome Baker and Jordan Hicks who bring experience if not JOK’s unique athleticism. Mohamoud Diabate, Winston Reid, and Nathaniel Watson round out a linebacker room that will need multiple contributors to collectively replace their fallen star.
The committee approach extends beyond personnel to scheme. Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, known for his adaptability, now faces the challenge of redesigning portions of his defense without the player who was described as “a perfect fit” for his system. The blitz packages that unleashed JOK’s “heat-seeking missile” quality will need reworking.
Perhaps the most irreplaceable element is JOK’s turnover creation. On a defense that struggled mightily to generate takeaways in 2024, he was the rare bright spot. Schwesinger’s interception during rookie minicamp offers hope, but replacing JOK’s knack for the football remains a significant concern.
As training camp approaches, the Browns’ defensive coaches face their most significant challenge: turning a committee of linebackers with varied skills into a cohesive unit that can somehow approximate what they’ve lost in their shape-shifting star.
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Note: Artificial intelligence was used to help generate this story from the Cleveland Orange and Brown Talk Podcast by cleveland.com. Visitors to cleveland.com have asked for more text stories based on website podcast discussions.