Cleveland Browns Stock Up, Stock Down Entering Week 2 of the 2026 NFL Season

No team looked worse in the NFL in Week 1 than the Cleveland Browns.

Todd Monken's coaching debut was marked by undisciplined offense and sloppy defense as the Jaguars ran up a 34-10 lead. The point differential was the worst in the league on opening weekend.

There wasn't much that went right. The Jaguars figure to be one of the top teams in the AFC this season, but the lack of competitiveness certainly stung.

The reality is that this is a season where individual performances will need to be evaluated. Every week there will be players who make their case to be part of the long-term picture.

There will also be those who play themselves into a demotion. Let's take a look at both categories heading into this week's road trip to Tampa Bay.

It would have been nice to see Denzel Boston make plays earlier in the game. But he didn't see his first target until there was eight seconds left in the second quarter.

He saw three in the second half and he made them count. His first catch moved the chains on a 2nd-and-13 before he made the best play of the afternoon with a 46 yard reception for a touchdown. He clearly established himself as the team's best deep threat moving forward.

Austin Barber got the opportunity to show he can be a starter due to Teven Jenkins being out with an injury. He made the most of it.

The Browns struggled to protect Deshaun Watson or make a ton of running lanes, but Barber sported the team's best PFF grade and was ranked No. 1 among all rookie offensive linemen through Sunday.

That could make it difficult to bump him out of the starting lineup.

Raheim Sanders was another rookie who was pushed into a bigger role due to injury. Dylan Sampson's knee injury opened some opportunity for the rookie and he took advantage.

He was a reliable safety valve in the passing game with three receptions for 25 yards. His 74 yard kickoff return was one of the few highlights of the game as well. He should serve nicely as the team's second running back while Sampson recovers.

Todd Monken can say all he wants about the good things he saw on film and his faith in Deshaun Watson. The quarterback was miserable on Sunday and was a driving force behind the blowout loss.

Watson's stat line was deceiving by the end of the afternoon, but his play early in the game was disastrous. The offensive line might not have played well, but he contributed to his own pressures with deep drops in the pocket.

He took five sacks, threw a momentum-killing pick on the first drive of the game and missed open receivers all afternoon. If he puts up a similar performance against Tampa, the pleas for Shedeur Sanders will only grow louder.

Zion Johnson is supposed to be a key cog in the Browns rebuilt offensive line. He was far from it on Sunday.

Johnson showed why the Chargers were alright with letting him walk in free agency this offseason. He had two holding penalties on the same drive to end the second quarter.

He also appeared to miss an assignment that brought immediate pressure on Watson when he threw his first pick. It was a sloppy debut from a guard who needs to offer consistency and more help in the run game.

Deshaun Watson caught a lot of the blame for the Browns 10-point performance on Sunday. Second-year running back Quinshon Judkins probably deserves more than he's getting. He finished the day with 12 carries for 33 yards (2.8 ypc).

The initial reaction might be to blame the offensive line, but ESPN Analytics credited the Browns with the seventh-highest run block win rate in the league. Next Gen Stats noted that Judkins had the second-lowest yards over expected per attempt while facing no eight-man boxes the whole game.

In other words, the Browns had no shot at leaning on their running game while the quarterback was struggling. Judkins was not explosive and seemed to get less than what the offensive line blocked for him.

There wasn't much good to parse from the defensive performance, but Mason Graham is one of the few exceptions. The second-year defensive tackle looked more explosive than last season and gave them something to build around.

He already topped his sack total from last season, taking down Trevor Lawrence on a 3rd-and-1 to get the defense off the field.

He also chipped in another two tackles for a loss. A disruptive interior pressure player can be a game-changer and Graham flashed that potential in this game.

It was unclear what second-round pick Emmanuel McNeil-Warren's role would be on the defense. The Toledo product ended up being the third safety and lined up deep, in the box and as a slot corner in at least one of his 14 snaps in the game.

McNeil-Warren wasn't stellar by any means, but he was quick to fill the alley in the run game and made a good open-field tackle on Bhaysul Tuten.

At the very least, the rookie showed he could continue to be deployed in that role. At best, he should be considered as a replacement for Ronnie Hickman if the veteran doesn't look better soon.

We'll start the Stock Down section the same way Trevor Lawrence spend much of his Sunday afternoon: Picking on Myles Harden.

According to PFF , Harden gave up a perfect 158.3 passer rating when targeted on Sunday. The Jaguars clearly had a gameplan to find Harden and work the slot. Parker Washington led the team with six targets, catching five of them for 83 yards and a touchdown.

Harden was a weak link on paper heading into the season. He didn't do anything in Week 1 to shake that perception.

It's not fair to compare Jared Verse to Myles Garrett. There's a reason the Browns got massive draft compensation in addition to Verse.

But can we at least compare him to an average starting NFL defensive end?

Verse struggled mightily in his first game as the team's top pass-rusher. Additional attention in the form of chips and double teams were too much for Verse to handle. He didn't register a single pressure on a day where the Browns hardly blitzed and needed to disrupt Lawrence.

Verse has work to do to live up his potential as the team's top edge player.

The Browns have a lot of young pieces on defense so it was key to bring in a veteran like Quincy Williams to provide consistency and leadership. Unfortunately, Williams was consistently uninvolved in the defense in his debut.

He played every defensive snap of the game, but managed to only be a part of four tackles.

The most notable thing he did was become a meme for spending the first few seconds of a play in coverage frozen in one spot. Lawrence threw a ball over his head for a big gain to get inside the 30 on the play.

He has to be better to play out his two-year contract in Cleveland.