Cleveland Browns: 3 biggest concerns entering the NFL season

Will the offensive line actually be better?

If you don’t have concerns about the offensive line, you haven’t been paying attention. There’s plenty of reason to be worried here. Firstly, Jedrick Wills has not been that good all training camp. Sure, some reports out of camp say he’s “improving”, but they’re not saying “he looks so good, omg”.  Sure, maybe he does better on the test than he does taking notes. Maybe he thrives on the pressure and he’ll be fine.

Also, maybe he’s just not ready yet. Maybe he might never be.

It’s an unfortunate reality but fans often just regurgitate things they hear and state them as fact. Like that Wills is going to be a beast. That’s not true, there isn’t any way of knowing that. He certainly might be a beast, but every year the NFL Draft sees offensive line prospects taken near the top of the draft, and every year some of those players never pan out.

That may not be Wills. He may be the next Joe Thomas. There is no magic crystal ball to know until we see it. We don’t know what hasn’t happened yet. What we do know is that we’ve seen him have a less-than-impressive camp.

That should worry people, even if only until we see otherwise.

Secondly, the most important position on the line, the center position, is often times the play call-adjuster. If new blocking assignments have to be given out it’s usually his job to do so. He reads the defense the same as the quarterback.

Thankfully the Browns have a good center in J.C. Tretter. Unfortunately, he’s developing knee issues. A lot of fans will respond to concern over Tretter’s health with “WELL NICK HARRIS IS GOOD, HE CAN JUST START, WE’LL BE FINE, JUDGE DREDD ’95 WAS BETTER THAN DREDD ’12.” To which I’d say; “…everything you just said is wrong”. Harris might be good. He’s a rookie. Most times a 5th round rookie gets thrown into the starting lineup of an NFL team that rookie is walking back to the sideline asking, “what happened?” because he got lit up.

That may not happen to Harris, he might be the next Matt Birk. He also might be Melvin Fowler. Who’s to say? This line has issues still beyond just Tretter and Wills, however. The Browns still have to rely on Wyatt Teller at right guard as well.

If Wills can’t adapt, Tretter can’t stay healthy and Teller can’t improve then this could be an ugly season.