Cleveland Browns bye week report cards: Defensive line

Olivier Vernon – C

Olivier Vernon logged his first two sacks of the season last game, giving him over 57 percent of what he totaled in 10 games in 2019 (3.5 sacks). The Browns attempted to upgrade from Vernon over the offseason, most notably going after Jadeveon Clowney, but were unable to get a deal done. Vernon was set to make $15 million this season, but none of it was guaranteed.

Given his injury history, it would have been unwise to pay him that much. However, Vernon is still a solid player, and since the team couldn’t find a better option, a compromise was reached; Vernon’s cap hit was reduced to a much more reasonable $11 million, in exchange for that amount to be guaranteed,

He missed Week 2 and Week 3 due to an abdominal injury, and when he’s been on the field, he’s not been as effective as he was last season. His pressure rate is down from 13.2 percent to 8.5 percent, and he does seem to go missing for long stretches at a time. He will almost certainly not be back in Cleveland in 2021, and if he doesn’t show significant improvement over the second half of the campaign, he won’t get much money on the open market.

In a vacuum, trading Kevin Zeitler for Vernon wasn’t a bad deal. The problem was that the Browns didn’t have a suitable replacement for Zeitler (that was supposed to be Austin Corbett, but he turned out to be an atrocious 33rd overall pick), and Vernon has missed eight of a possible 26 games with Cleveland.