Browns fifth-round center Parker Brailsford is leaning into the part of his game that jumps out first: his size. He doesn’t see it as a drawback. He sees leverage as the separator.
“ Just using my leverage, honestly, ” Brailsford said, via Akron Beacon Journal. “ Size doesn’t really matter if you don’t have the leverage behind it.
That’s a big piece. And also, I mean, I am smaller, but I don’t think I’m weak by any means, so definitely also helps me a lot.
”
That approach has already shown up in the way Browns offensive line coach George Warhop talks about him. Warhop said Brailsford has been quick to absorb the offense and has handled the mental side of the position with ease, especially when it comes to pre-snap communication.
“ He has zero issues seeing and doing what we’re asking him to do,” Warhop said. “ I mean, seeing the defense, IDing the defense, making the calls, all that stuff, he’s been tremendous, and I would say that it’s even beyond what he had in college.
It’s just how his brain is. He’s got a great football brain.
I’m not going to say it’s easy for him, but it hasn’t been difficult for him. And he’s a guy that does his due diligence at night.
He studies, he comes in prepared, he brings in questions. “
Warhop also pointed to Brailsford’s build as part of a broader type of center he’s coached before, comparing his frame to Raiders center Tyler Linderbaum, whom he coached in Baltimore. In Warhop’s view, different body types bring different strengths, whether that’s a bigger interior presence or a center who can move and create something at the next level.
“ I’ve been fortunate that I’ve coached bigger centers, smaller centers, ” Warhop said. “ So either you’re going to get a bigger guy, a little stouter guy that’s going to be a more in-the-box player, or you’re going to get a guy who’s a space player who could hold his own at the point of attack, but gives you another element at the second and third level.
That’s what we had last year in Baltimore. That’s what we have here with Parker and how he plays.
So I think they all have advantages. If he’s your starter, you make those adjustments and you take advantage of that.
If he’s your backup, then he’s got to deal with what the starter has to do. “
Todd Monken’s move from Baltimore to Cleveland brought him into a new role, but the Browns’ new head coach spent the previous three seasons as the Ravens’ offensive coordinator. Baltimore reached the postseason in Monken’s first two years, then missed it last year, and Monken made clear he doesn’t believe the offense or staff did enough to get the Ravens where they wanted to go.
“First of all, Lamar is a tremendous person,” Monken said, via Brian Wacker of The Baltimore Sun. “I wouldn’t have this job without him.
It’s just, ultimately, we didn’t coach well enough, we didn’t play well enough. It’s really the other things that are involved in all that.”
Monken said he didn’t know John Harbaugh before joining the Ravens, but he felt comfortable that even if things had gone sideways, there could still have been another opportunity down the line.
“I didn’t really know John,” Monken said. “But working for John, I thought to myself, even if it doesn’t work out there, John’s probably not gonna be done coaching.
He’ll get another job. I’m sitting there going, well, if I do a good job and he gets let go, maybe I’ll be his coordinator.
Then Lamar signed, so it all worked out.”
He also said the Ravens didn’t run the ball enough in 2025 and were too often forced into a pass-heavy approach because they fell behind.
“We didn’t run it enough,” Monken said. “It’s not the number of runs.
We didn’t attack them downhill. We were lateral.
Then we were behind, and we started throwing it. We didn’t think they’d stay at 17 [points].
At some point, we thought, f-, if they score again, we’re three possessions down.”
In Pittsburgh, Mike McCarthy said Steelers fans should not expect a total overhaul on offense. The new head coach said he’ll stick with the core ideas that have worked and build from there.
“ You have core beliefs, which established during those early years, and then off of those come variations, ” McCarthy said, via Around The NFL. “ You look at pro football, (there are) a lot of similar plays, a lot of similar schemes - but everybody runs them a little differently. ”
Aaron Rodgers, meanwhile, is back with McCarthy and said the system feels familiar after so many years in Green Bay. He noted that the offense has been adjusted since McCarthy’s Dallas days, but much of it still looks like what he has already run before.
“ I spent 13 years in (McCarthy’s offense), ” Rodgers said. “ He’s changed some stuff when he was in Dallas.
… It’s stuff that we used to run, but he’s just called it something different now. “
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