Teven Jenkins: Browns place guard on IR with back injury
THE FACT. Cleveland placed guard Teven Jenkins on injured reserve Saturday with a back injury, per NFL.com and NBC Sports' Pro Football Talk. Pro Football Talk described it as the corresponding move for activating running back Dylan Sampson off injured reserve, and the Browns also elevated defensive tackle Sam Kamara from the practice squad.
THE VERDICT. An injured reserve stint means Jenkins misses at least four games, and interior line losses show up first in short yardage and at the goal line. Redraft: nothing to do with Jenkins himself, but mark down Cleveland rushing efficiency against Tennessee. Sampson comes back into that same backfield on the same day, so treat his return as a volume story rather than an efficiency one. DFS: fade Browns run-game pieces in cash lineups this week.
The Jenkins loss is real, but fading the Browns run game in cash feels like the wrong read to me. Judkins came off the Week 7 injury report entirely, and he has been handling 73 of Cleveland's 155 carries plus nine of their red zone carries. That is 47 percent of the ground game and better than half the goal line work, line or no line. Tennessee is giving up 122.5 rushing yards a game and six different backs have already scored on them. Efficiency fades in cash, sure, but touchdown equity on that kind of volume is exactly what I am paying for.