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Browns Veteran DT Reveals Key Details That Led to Extension
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- Browns Veteran DT Reveals Key Details That Led to Extension
In the middle of a 5-2 season, the vibes around the Cleveland Browns are so high right now that the team is even handing out contract extensions.
That's what happened on Saturday night, one day prior to the Browns pulling off a thrilling 27-24 win over the Tennessee Titans , inking a two-year extension worth $30 million, including $23 million guaranteed.
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Following the team's win, Collins opened up about the extension talks and revealed that they had been going on well before the deal was inked over the weekend. Asked about the process, Collins joked that he called every week about trying to get a deal done, but that the team wanted to see how he looked in his return from a quad injury that cut his 2025 campaign short.
In recent weeks, Collins has done more than enough to prove that, even posting the first three-game stretch of his career where he recorded at least one sack.
Not only that, but Collins made it clear that there's nowhere else he wants to be and that if he has any say in it, he wants to retire with the Browns. He even sees himself coming back as a pregame guitar smasher for home games one day
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"I love the city of Cleveland, man. I love playing for the Browns," he said postgame. "I want to be up there one day banging that guitar too."
Collins was initially signed as a free agent in 2025 and has quickly become one of the most underrated moves of Andrew Berry's tenure. At the time, Collins was about to turn 30, which perhaps scared some teams away from wanting to invest in one of the league's best pass-rushing interior defensive lineman in football.
He has lived up to every bit of the two-year deal he first signed with the team, posting a career-high 6.5 sacks last season, before suffering that season-ending quad injury in Week 13. The injury sent him through a lengthy rehabilitation process that culminated in him spending most of training camp on the physically unable to perform list.
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He wound up being brought back to practice about a week before the roster cutdown deadline and was totally cleared for the start of the season. He's essentially picked up right where he left off last season and has been a critical piece of the Browns' defense once again, which is sixth in the NFL in total sacks through the first seven weeks of the season.
The Browns hope that type of production will continue with Collins in the coming years, with him and 2025 fifth overall pick Mason Graham anchoring the unit.
