CLEVELAND, OHIO (TheOBR.com) - Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans, and Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.
The NFL is a wonderful business if you own the team, a pretty lucrative business if you are a star, and a meat grinder with a nice logo if you are one of the guys trying to hang onto roster spot No. 52. That is where my brain goes this morning with Dawand Jones, KT Leveston, and Luke Wypler — three offensive linemen who have enough talent to make you understand why they are still here, and enough uncertainty around them to make training camp feel less like a fresh start and more like a courtroom hearing.
My brain is in this place because I've been reading posts about the Browns' offensive line from Lane Adkins and Pete Smith in Rumor Central and Ask the Insiders, as the two - one at camp, the other madly working his cell phone - combine to give us a pretty complete picture of where the Cleveland Browns stand with the calendar gradually moving towards the start of Training Camp.
Jones is the biggest name and, obviously, the biggest human being in the group: 6-foot-8, 374 pounds, a 2023 fourth-round pick at No. 111 overall, and a PFWA All-Rookie selection after starting nine games as a rookie. There were real flashes there. Then there were real injuries — a knee injury ending his rookie year, then an ankle injury that put him on injured reserve on Nov. 19, 2024, after he had started games at both tackle spots. The Browns have since added Tytus Howard, drafted Spencer Fano at No. 6, and traded up for Austin Barber at No. 86. So, yes, Jones still has the size and history that makes coaches squint and imagine the payoff. He also has to show, rather immediately, that the payoff is not just something we keep talking about because the silhouette looks good getting off the bus.
Dawand Jones
Dawand Jones at off-season practice (Photo: USA TODAY Sports)
Browns fans know the history - the promise of his rookie year, followed by endless injuries, which have made him unavailable for large blocks of time. Jones is now on notice with the off-season off-line acquisitions, a situation that has some OBR subscribers wondering if this is the end for Jones.
With Jones' potential, the Browns will be looking for places to play him. They will give him a chance to succeed. But he has the cloud of availability and injury hanging over him. He's in great shape, but has to stay healthy to stick.
Leveston is different. He was a seventh-round Rams pick in 2024, came to Cleveland in that Aug. 26, 2025 trade, and the Browns list him at 6-foot-4 and 335 pounds. The official roster page gives him 16 games and seven starts last season, which is not nothing, despite what Twitter depth-chart scribblers may tell you between bites of gas-station pizza. A Lane Adkins item from a while back says offensive line coach George Warhop likes how Leveston has taken to coaching and shown it in technical work, with the real determination coming when late-July football arrives. That is both encouraging and terrifying. The NFL does not hand out lifetime achievement awards for having a good June stance set.
Then there is Wypler, the center who was a sixth-round pick at No. 190 in 2023, missed the entire 2024 season with an ankle injury, and is now trying to stay relevant in a room that suddenly has Elgton Jenkins, Parker Brailsford, and the usual camp math problem of how many interior linemen you can keep before the other roster positions are weakened. Lane says Jenkins enters camp as the center starter, Brailsford gets backup reps, and Wypler is expected to be ready to rep early in camp, barring an issue. That last phrase — barring an issue — is the entire NFL in three words. Wypler was a two-year starter at Ohio State and centered an offense that allowed only 12 sacks in 2022. Great. Helpful. Put it on the resume. Now go prove you can do it today, because yesterday is a charming little museum the league visits only when it needs a cutdown-day quote.
That is the harsh part of this sport, and maybe the part we don't talk about enough while we are arguing about quarterbacks and mock drafts like somewhat civilized lunatics. Players do not get unlimited chances to become the version of themselves everyone imagined on draft weekend. They get a rookie camp, a bad ankle, a new position coach, a numbers crunch, a preseason quarter with the third-team quarterback holding the ball too long, and then somebody from upstairs walks down with a folder. It is brutal. It is also the job. Jones, Leveston, and Wypler are not just fighting for snaps. They are fighting for the right to keep being in the fight.
Have a good one! GO BROWNS!
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THE LIFT
Positive news from the world of sports and beyond...
Today's lift comes from Good News Network, where a California-based nonprofit, Direct Relief, is sending more than 250,000 N95 respirators to the Democratic Republic of Congo to help protect frontline health workers responding to an Ebola outbreak.
The part that stuck with me was the dual-purpose thinking. Direct Relief is sending protective gear for Ebola, but also medicine and supplies to help keep routine care from collapsing while the crisis is going on. That's not a moonshot or a miracle cure. It's logistics, compassion, and people deciding that the folks doing the hardest work should not have to do it without masks. Some mornings, that's plenty uplifting.
WRAPPING UP
When not wondering whether offensive linemen should be issued frequent-flier miles between tackle, guard, center, and the waiver wire, Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.
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