4 Cleveland Browns who should be headed elsewhere in 2022
By Randy Gurzi
No. 3: Cleveland Browns DT Malik Jackson
In 2019 and 2020, the Cleveland Browns had a couple of defensive tackles that played at a high level. Sheldon Richardson was the best of the two and had 126 tackles and 7.5 sacks in that stretch.
Larry Ogunjobi lined up next to him and while he might not have been a great fit at the nose tackle, he did have 96 tackles and eight sacks in that same span. Cleveland ended up allowing him to hit the open market though and he signed with the Cincinnati Bengals.
As for Richardson, he was a salary cap casualty as they saved roughly $13 million by moving on. In order to help fill the void, they turned to veteran Malik Jackson who has just 23 tackles and a half-sack on the year. Jackson hasn’t been a bad player by any means but he’s also been less impactful than either of the players he was trying to help replace.
Cleveland does have some options going forward as they had Jordan Elliott and Tommy Togiai under contract. Both are much younger than Jackson but a youth movement could be a good thing. They could also re-sign Malik McDowell, who has been a pleasant surprise this season after general manager Andrew Berry took a chance on him in the offseason.