Kendall Lamm got his first start as a Cleveland Brown in the Week 14 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. Playing right tackle for an injured Chris Hubbard, Lamm more than held his own. His performance should merit strong consideration for a change at the position for the rest of the season.

Lamm played as well as he ever has in his NFL career. I got to cover Lamm during his days in Houston, where he was demonstrably worse at left tackle than Browns fans could imagine Greg Robinson being.

I went through and tallied all 54 offensive snaps Lamm played against Cincinnati, counting wins and losses on reps. Most plays don’t have a winner or loser for offensive linemen, and the total reflects that.

Run game

There were 25 runs with Lamm at right tackle. On those snaps, the Browns gained 147 yards on the ground.

Lamm had six clear wins and seven clear losses. However, three of those losses came in the first five attempts, when the entire team was struggling to block the Bengals. Another of Lamm’s losses came on Kareem Hunt’s TD run, where Hunt ran around left tackle.

Once he got into the flow of the game, Lamm’s run blocking perked up. Five of his six wins came in the two scoring drives spanning the third and fourth quarters.

Pass game

This is where Lamm proved better than Hubbard has played. In 29 pass protection snaps, Lamm got clearly beat just twice. He allowed one single pressure on Baker Mayfield. There were two plays where I wouldn’t quibble if someone claimed he lost the battle, but his action on those plays did not impact the outcome.

The wins were tough to come by in the passing game; Lamm had just three. But for the Browns, simply not losing the rep is better than what Hubbard has offered much of the season.

Overall

Lamm has always had the athleticism, even in his struggling days in Houston. Matching the athleticism with the technique and awareness has been the issue.

He started slowly–understandable for a guy who hasn’t played since Week 1 and hasn’t played on the right side in this offense before. Once his feet and hand usage got synced up, he looked promising. There is still a decided lack of anchor strength, and his hands were slower than I’d like to see in pass protection. But Lamm played well enough to earn another start over the chronically struggling Hubbard, who plays with neither discernible confidence nor power.