‘4 Downs’ with Rich: the Cleveland Browns’ Biggest Questions Heading into the 2026 NFL Season

The Cleveland Browns questions write themselves this year, and Rich said so out loud before running his four downs on them. That does not make any of the four easier to answer.

First down is the one with no good answer at all: what does a post-Garrett defense look like?

"Where are you going to find those 20-plus sacks?" Rich asked. Chris pushed back that the framing short-changed the man himself, since Myles Garrett's number was 23.

The natural place to look is Jared Verse, who already made news this offseason by acquiring the number eight from Dillon Gabriel. Verse addressed it on Good Morning Football last week and gave the least revealing possible answer.

"I saw all the stories," he said. "We had a quick conversation. So, number was discussed. We handled business that way."

A transaction happened. Verse would not say what it was or how much it cost. The show landed on a bag of donuts.

Rich's hope is that Verse takes the hearts and souls of opposing quarterbacks the way he took the number. But he was also honest that it is not fair to hang the whole thing on one player. Even if Verse gets to half of 23, which would be a very good season, somebody has to produce the other half. Nobody in the room could name who.

"It's going to be a while till we figure out how the Browns can fill that void," Rich said.

Second down is about the new man in charge. Is Todd Monken ready for prime time?

Rich made clear this is not a Cleveland-specific shot. He is asking it of every first-year head coach this season, including Mike LaFleur in Arizona and Clint Kubiak, who went from coordinating the defending champion Seattle Seahawks to running the Las Vegas Raiders.

There is just a scheduling wrinkle that makes the phrase land funny. The Browns have 1:00 p.m. Eastern kickoffs in every game this season but one, a Thursday night against the Steelers in week four. That is it.

Which means the only way anyone outside Ohio watches this team is if the league flexes them, and the show got roughly four minutes of mileage out of "flexing into Monken" before landing on "Monken see, Monken do" and filing "Yielding Monken" alongside Minter Fresh and What's Rich in the fantasy team name archive.

Otherwise, Rich said, you are hanging with Scott Hanson to watch your Browns.

Third down is the question every Cleveland conversation eventually becomes. Who is QB1?

Rich noted that Shedeur cracked the top 70 of the top 100 NFL players, which is not nothing. But he does not believe that settles it, and his read on the organization is unsentimental.

The Browns have put too much capital into Deshaun Watson. Draft picks, money, sweat equity, all of it. Rich thinks the pull of that investment is going to be difficult to resist, especially with Watson coming back from an Achilles injury.

"They're going to do their damndest to see if there's anything left in Deshaun Watson for them to somehow, some way go see, at least we got this," Rich said.

Going with Shedeur instead would be the bold choice. Rich is just not sure this organization is positioned to make it.

Fourth down extends the same question by a year. Is this year's QB1 also next year's?

Here Rich gave Cleveland real credit. The Browns have drafted very well the last couple of years, and if you look at how Andrew Berry has stacked and cascaded the picks, they are extremely well positioned to take a quarterback in next year's draft.

Well positioned is not the same as guaranteed, and Rich made a point of killing the lazy version of this argument. Having a pile of first-round picks does not mean you get whoever you want. If the Jets finish first overall, Cleveland can want that pick all it likes. Get in line.

So the real fourth down is a decision tree. Do they use one of those picks on a quarterback next spring and tell both Shedeur and Watson thanks for 2026? Do they flip players for draft choices at the deadline if the season goes sideways?

Or does the other branch happen. Monken and whoever wins the job put a winning season together, the Browns become the sleeper team of 2026, and next year's draft becomes a first-class problem instead of a rescue mission.

"A lot of questions for those kids," Chris said.

Four of them, anyway. The Commanders get their turn tomorrow.