Cleveland Browns<\/a> who would have been eligible for the escalator are: WR Cedric Tillman, OT Dawand Jones, C Luke Wypler, and DE Isaiah McGuire. Players from the 2023 NFL Draft who came from other teams would also be eligible. I don\u2019t believe that applies to anyone for Cleveland.<\/p>\nWR Cedric Tillman \u2013 3rd Round Pick in 2023<\/p>\n
Year<\/p>\n
% Snaps<\/p>\n
Played<\/p>\n
Team<\/p>\n
2025<\/p>\n
47.60%<\/p>\n
515<\/p>\n
1,082<\/p>\n
2024<\/p>\n
36.61%<\/p>\n
432<\/p>\n
1,180<\/p>\n
2023<\/p>\n
49.11%<\/p>\n
609<\/p>\n
1,240<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with WR Cedric Tillman, the team\u2019s third-round pick in 2023. He played in nearly half of the team\u2019s snaps as a rookie, and then in 2024, he dropped to 36.6% of the snaps. Still, since he played over 35% in two of his three seasons, he qualified for a Level 1 PPE.<\/p>\n
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Tillman was originally set to make $1.463 million in base salary in 2026. With the Level 1 PPE, the base salary jumps to about $3.605 million, an increase of $2.142 million.<\/p>\n
OT Dawand Jones \u2013 4th Round Pick in 2023<\/p>\n
Year<\/p>\n
% Snaps<\/p>\n
Played<\/p>\n
Team<\/p>\n
2025<\/p>\n
13.22%<\/p>\n
143<\/p>\n
1,082<\/p>\n
2024<\/p>\n
43.31%<\/p>\n
511<\/p>\n
1,180<\/p>\n
2023<\/p>\n
57.42%<\/p>\n
712<\/p>\n
1,240<\/p>\n
Next up is OT Dawand Jones, a fourth-round pick in 2023. He\u2019s been banged up throughout his NFL career, to the point where it\u2019s challenging to depend on him as a regular starting lineman. Last year, he only played in 13% of the team\u2019s snaps. That didn\u2019t matter because Jones played in over 35% of the team\u2019s snaps in his first two years, so like Tillman, he already had the PPE locked up with his first two seasons.<\/p>\n
Jones was originally set to make $1.145 million in base salary in 2026. With the Level 1 PPE, the base salary jumps to about $3.605 million, an increase of $2.46 million.<\/p>\n
C Luke Wypler \u2013 6th Round Pick in 2023<\/p>\n
Year<\/p>\n
% Snaps<\/p>\n
Played<\/p>\n
Team<\/p>\n
2025<\/p>\n
25.14%<\/p>\n
272<\/p>\n
1,082<\/p>\n
2024<\/p>\n
0.00%<\/p>\n
0<\/p>\n
1,180<\/p>\n
2023<\/p>\n
4.60%<\/p>\n
57<\/p>\n
1,240<\/p>\n
C Luke Wypler barely played as a rookie, and then he missed the entire 2024 season with an ankle injury. Even if he had played in 100% of the team\u2019s snaps in 2025, he wasn\u2019t going to be eligible for the PPE. His only shot would have been as a first-ballot Pro Bowler, but obviously that didn\u2019t happen, so there was no PPE for Wypler.<\/p>\n
DE Isaiah McGuire \u2013 4th Round Pick in 2023<\/p>\n
Year<\/p>\n
% Snaps<\/p>\n
Played<\/p>\n
Team<\/p>\n
2025<\/p>\n
39.09%<\/p>\n
412<\/p>\n
1,054<\/p>\n
2024<\/p>\n
43.43%<\/p>\n
469<\/p>\n
1,080<\/p>\n
2023<\/p>\n
8.88%<\/p>\n
94<\/p>\n
1,059<\/p>\n
DE Isaiah McGuire is the only other player from the team\u2019s 2023 draft class who is still with the team, and this was probably the closest one. He did not play very much as a rookie, but in 2024, he played in 43.4% of the team\u2019s snaps. He needed to crack at least 35% of the team\u2019s snaps in 2025 to get the PPE. Early on, it looked like it would happen easily, as he was a big part of the rotation. However, he had some injuries, and then Alex Wright ended up getting more snaps. Still, McGuire played in 39.1% of the snaps last year, allowing him to qualify for the PPE with two seasons above 35%.<\/p>\n
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McGuire was originally set to make $1.145 million in base salary in 2026. With the Level 1 PPE, the base salary jumps to about $3.605 million, an increase of $2.46 million.<\/p>\n
Cumulatively, the three Browns players who earned PPE amounted to increases of $7.062 million that have already factored into the team\u2019s cap space in 2026.<\/p>\n
Looking Into the Future<\/p>\n
Looking forward to next year, players who could potentially earn a PPE are DT Mike Hall Jr, WR Malachi Corley, OG Zak Zinter, WR Jamari Thrash, LB Nathaniel Watson, CB Myles Harden. None of those players have clinched a PPE through their first two seasons, and the only player of the group that has had any season above 35% is Harden, who played in 50% of the snaps last season. If Harden is the team\u2019s primary nickelback again in 2026, then he has a good shot at the PPE.<\/p>\n
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Zinter could also have a shot at it, but only if you project him to be a starter and play nearly 100% of the snaps. Given their depth on the roster, Corley and Thrash are doubtful to get it, and Watson has no shot at getting it. That leaves Hall, who has played in 18.7% and 16.6% of the snaps. Given the fact that defensive tackles are often rotational players, and he would need to play in about 70.4% of the team\u2019s snaps this year to reach a three-year cumulative of 35%, he is also unlikely to get it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s that time of year again in which we look at which members of the Cleveland Browns earned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2054],"tags":[17358,16916,86,7469,85,54,2337,19996,7,345,35577,19211,38886,2315,47025,10789,42027,6,89619,38836],"class_list":{"0":"post-776556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-alex-wright","9":"tag-base-salary","10":"tag-browns","11":"tag-cedric-tillman","12":"tag-cleveland","13":"tag-cleveland-browns","14":"tag-clevelandbrowns","15":"tag-dawand-jones","16":"tag-football","17":"tag-green-bay-packers","18":"tag-isaiah-mcguire","19":"tag-jamari-thrash","20":"tag-luke-wypler","21":"tag-malachi-corley","22":"tag-mike-hall-jr","23":"tag-myles-harden","24":"tag-nathaniel-watson","25":"tag-nfl","26":"tag-ppe","27":"tag-zak-zinter"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116134190118880707","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}