{"id":13471,"date":"2017-03-09T16:00:49","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T21:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=13471"},"modified":"2017-03-09T17:07:40","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T22:07:40","slug":"kevin-zeitler-sign-cleveland-browns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2017\/03\/09\/kevin-zeitler-sign-cleveland-browns\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Kevin Zeitler To Sign Five-Year, $60 Million Deal With Cleveland Browns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Offensive guard <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/Z\/ZeitKe00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Zeitler<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0will sign a five-year, $60 million contract with the Cleveland Browns, according to ESPN&#8217;s Adam Schefter. The new pact carries with it $31.5 million in guarantees and makes Zeitler the highest paid guard in NFL history. Zeitler spent the first five years of his career with Cleveland&#8217;s in-state rival, the Cincinnati Bengals.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Cleveland plans to give Kevin Zeitler a five-year, $60 million deal that includes $31.5 million guaranteed, per source.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AdamSchefter\/status\/839924559419670529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 9, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Report: Kevin Zeitler To Sign Five-Year, $60 Million Deal With Cleveland Browns<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Zeitler was possibly the most sought after offensive lineman and certainly the most highly regarded guards in free agency this year. The Bengals have a number of key players who are free agents this year, but many people believe that Zeitler is the most important. He may be quite literally profiting from the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/M\/MackAl20.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alex Mack<\/a><\/strong> effect. Mack&#8217;s impact on the Falcons\u00a0entire offense may have helped the NFL to see the true value that an interior offensive lineman can have.<\/p>\n<p>Zeitler has been a regular starter since his rookie season in Cincinnati anchoring down the right guard position and his league wide acclaim has grown over those years. At 6\u20194\u201d, 320 and only 26\u00a0years old, Zeitler is only getting started. He is equally effective both as a run blocker and a pass blocker. As a run blocker, he is strong and physical and athletic enough to pull effectively. As a pass blocker he has only given up one sack in the past two seasons combined.<\/p>\n<p>The Waukesha, WI native played at Wisconsin from 2008-2011 where he was a consensus All-American while clearing a path for Wisconsin tail back <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/B\/BallMo00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Montee Ball<\/a><\/strong>. A product of Wisconsin Lutheran High School, Zeitler was a highly touted recruit. He earned all-conference, all-region, and all-area honors multiple times and was ranked the thirty-ninth guard product in the country according to Rivals.com.<\/p>\n<p>He was acquired by the Bengals with the 27th\u00a0pick in the 2012 NFL Draft. Zeitler himself was surprised to be drafted in the first round, but the Bengals were afraid he may not get out of the first round and moved up in the draft in order to select him.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/611156286\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/611156286?et=tJCQdwOYQ8F48jf6TuStCQ&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=BU1bdgmoh40CyHQdj0L3NhxwvQQQ_BzCYSlYSOFK828=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Offensive lineman Kevin Zeitler enjoyed a productive tenure in Cincinnati. The former 27th overall pick is arguably the best guard in this free agent class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1768,"featured_media":13917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,36],"tags":[330,264,61,1462,40],"class_list":["post-13471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-browns","category-nfl-news","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-cleveland-browns","tag-football","tag-kevin-zeitler","tag-nfl"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1768"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}