The Cleveland Browns drafted Alabama C Parker Brailsford in the fifth round of the 2026 NFL Draft, and there were two very good reasons why they chose him instead of someone like Kentucky\u2019s Jager Burton or Duke\u2019s Brian Parker II. He\u2019s astronomically athletic, and he\u2019s a perfect fit for Monken\u2019s offensive system.<\/p>\n
His 116\u201d broad jump, 1.7 second 10-yard split, and 4.95 second 40-yard dash were all ranked in the 94th percentile or higher<\/a> in the 2026 class. On top of those impressive numbers, he can also bench 505 lbs., power clean 385 lbs., and squat 675 lbs.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The Browns basically saw him as a slightly smaller version of Tyler Linderbaum<\/a>, and they hope that he\u2019ll be able to lead and operate within Cleveland\u2019s offensive line unit the same way Linderbaum did for Monken in Baltimore<\/a>.<\/p>\n The way Brailsford\u2019s able to attack and anchor down against bigger defensive tackles shows how well he understands his body and capabilities. He knows that he can\u2019t just take a traditional set and \u201ccatch\u201d nose tackles like other centers, so he essentially jump-sets to negate momentum immediately.<\/p>\n Very few centers in the 2026 class can snap\/trigger like Brailsford can, and it consistently plays a massive role in how he\u2019s successful in pass protection.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an excellent example of it:<\/p>\n In the run game, he wins with a combination of pure strength and short-area quickness. He sort of plays with an \u201cif\/then\u201d mindset when it comes to blocking interior defensive linemen. If he can\u2019t displace the defender with core strength and leg drive, then he\u2019ll fire out and get his body between the ball and the defender to steer them away from the play. He was one of the few centers in college football who could routinely reach frontside 2\u2019s and 2i\u2019s due to his track discipline and lateral movement skills in the zone game as well.<\/p>\n Todd Monken has said multiple times already that he basically wants Elgton Jenkins<\/a> to play guard in Cleveland, so it at least feels like Brailsford has a chance to compete for the starting job as a rookie alongside Luke Wypler<\/a> in year one.<\/p>\n What are your thoughts on Parker Brailsford\u2019s potential year-one impact? Join fellow Browns fans in the comment section below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Browns drafted Alabama C Parker Brailsford in the fifth round of the 2026 NFL Draft, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2054],"tags":[4955,184,40030,86,85,54,2337,15906,7,38886,6,22842,7427],"class_list":["post-898598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-browns","tag-2026-nfl-draft","tag-baltimore","tag-brian-parker","tag-browns","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-browns","tag-clevelandbrowns","tag-elgton-jenkins","tag-football","tag-luke-wypler","tag-nfl","tag-parker-brailsford","tag-tyler-linderbaum"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116620976990167765","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898598","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=898598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}