Veteran Quinton Jefferson agrees to 1-year deal with Browns, adds defensive tackle depth

There was a question whether or not the Browns were going to do anything else with their defensive tackle group after an initial wave of deals that brought back Maurice Hurst II and Shelby Harris. The answer turned out to be, yes.

Cleveland agreed to terms on a one-year deal with veteran defensive tackle Quinton Jefferson, a league source told the Beacon Journal. He spent this past season playing for the New York Jets.

Jefferson would, in theory, be the replacement for the departed Jordan Elliott in the defensive tackle rotation. Elliott, a 2020 third-round pick of the Browns who started 31 of the last 34 regular-season games, agreed to a free-agent deal with the San Francisco 49ers Tuesday.

The Browns have agreed to deals to bring back their own free-agent defensive tackles in Hurst and Harris, although neither had been officially announced by the team as of Thursday morning. They also return their big-ticket free-agent acquisition from last March, Dalvin Tomlinson.

Those three, plus Jefferson, would give the Browns four proven veteran defensive tackles. Siaki Ika, who was taken in the third round of last April's draft, also saw action late last season and could provide a fifth option.

The 6-foot-4, 291-pound Jefferson will turn 31 on March 31. He has played in 103 career regular-season games since being a fifth-round draft pick of the Seattle Seahawks in 2016.

Jefferson started all 14 games he played with the Jets last season, with six sacks, 13 quarterback hits, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery and 34 total tackles. That was his only season in New York after a career that took him from Seattle (2016-19) to the Buffalo Bills (2020) to the Las Vegas Raiders (2021) before going back to the Seahawks in 2022 ahead of his Jets tenure.

The University of Maryland product has 26.5 career sacks in the regular season, and another three in eight career playoff games. He's also forced four career fumbles and recovered four.

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Quinton Jefferson agrees to 1-year deal with Cleveland Browns