The Browns selected OT Austin Barber with the 86th overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n
Cleveland parted with multiple picks to trade up and land the Florida offensive lineman.<\/p>\n
“We really liked him from the jump,” Browns coach Todd Monken said. “You don’t know how it’s going to go. There are certain players that are picked higher than you would have thought, and there’s others that are a little bit lower. Certainly, we knew we had to address the offensive line. And so, as he was still up on the board, I think the opportunity to move back and then as it continued then \u2013 let’s not wait any longer. Let’s go up and get him and we’re fired up to get him.”<\/p>\n
Barber spent his collegiate career at Florida, appearing in 50 career games. He started 39 games, including 34 at left tackle and five at right tackle. Barber redshirted in 2021, appearing in just three games. He then became the starting left tackle for three-and-a-half years, starting all 25 games across his junior and senior seasons and earned All-SEC honors.<\/p>\n
Barber joins an offensive line that saw the biggest changes during the early stages of free agency, with six of their offensive line becoming free agents when the new league year began. They worked to re-build the offensive line by acquiring T Tytus Howard<\/a> in a trade with the Texans, re-signing G Teven Jenkins<\/a> and signing G Zion Johnson<\/a> and C\/G Elgton Jenkins<\/a>. They also selected OT Spencer Fano with the sixth overall pick in the draft.<\/p>\n Their new additions join a unit that also features young players like T Dawand Jones<\/a>, C Luke Wypler<\/a> and G Zak Zinter<\/a>, as well as depth pieces in C Kingsley Eguakun<\/a>, G Jack Conley<\/a>, OL Kendrick Green<\/a>, OT Jeremiah Byers<\/a>, T KT Leveston<\/a> and T Tyre Phillips<\/a>.<\/p>\n “When you talk about the offensive linemen, you’re just trying to get some guys that you think can play tackle but also have position flex,” Monken said. “I think that’s the best way to go about it.<\/p>\n “(We) see (Barber) as a tackle to start, obviously has some flex. We think he could move inside.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Browns selected OT Austin Barber with the 86th overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. Cleveland parted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[118416,197,32193,114995,196,508,198,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-874185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-2026pick86","9":"tag-adpartnerdraft_coverage_article","10":"tag-austin-barber","11":"tag-draft-2026","12":"tag-draft-coverage-article","13":"tag-draft-tracker-card","14":"tag-featured","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116464885705396811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874185","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=874185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}