A bye week means nothing to the Cleveland Browns and what has become a spectacle of a season for them and fans who are simply waiting for more shoes to drop.
While Cleveland is 2-7 with not much left to experiment with for the rest of the season outside of finding out if Jameis Winston is worth keeping as a backup in free agency and who to keep from the team’s struggling secondary, another storyline has emerged in recent days on the Browns’ offensive line. That story begins with Jed Wills Jr., Cleveland’s first round pick back in 2020. Wills, who has been underwhelming this season and pancaked repeatedly, was benched in Week 8 in favor of Dawand Jones, who took over at LT and seemed to thrive from that end of the line. Jones won the starting job again in Week 9, and head coach Kevin Stefanski seems content to keep Jones at that spot for the season moving forward.
Wills’ benching wasn’t a shock, but what was shocking was him and ahead of Week 11 to say that he had decided to sit against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 8 because he allegedly didn’t want to play hurt. That decision, which he called a “business decision,” backfired. He’s yet to come back as a starter since then, showing Cleveland didn’t take that choice lightly. “It was pretty shocking, I mean, I decided myself. I made a business decision not to play after the Bengals game going into that Ravens game because I was injured. And then the next week is when I received the news,” said Wills to the media during the team’s availability ahead of Week 11.
While the choice cost him the starting job, Wills also told reporters that he doesn’t regret putting his health first – especially since the team had a fall back option in Jones who was 100% healthy and ready to go in place of him in Week 8 and beyond.
“You wouldn’t want to go out there and put forth 70% of your effort while you’re injured, and then you have somebody else who can go out there and give 100%. I don’t want to be out there the whole time thinking about my knee. I got to focus on my assignment,” said Wills. Wills’ decision to sit in Week 8 has obviously opened the door for Jones to show what he can do on the Browns’ O-line, and since Wills sat, Jameis Winston has definitely seen less pressures from that side of the line when dropping back in the pocket. While Wills is still young – only 25 years old – he’s also become a bit of a cap space liability thanks to the terrible manuveuring of Andrew Berry and the Browns front office.
Wills was one of a few players who Cleveland decided to convert contract money into signing bonus money for as a means of saving cap space this season and essentially kicking the money can down the road. But now, if Wills is let go in 2025, the Browns face a huge cap hit on his contract – $11.8 million, specifically. Cleveland might just have to eat that considering Wills has shown very little to extend his stay on a very bad O-line. Jones’ cap hit for 2025 sits at just $1.2 million, which allows the Browns a lot more flexibility at the LT position. If they to back Jones up, they can at least just worry about paying out Wills’ hefty remaining contract while spending very little on a better tackle in Jones.
