The Cleveland Browns have waived defensive tackle Travis Bell from injured reserve, ending a brief and injury-shortened stay in Northeast Ohio just as the 2026 regular season begins.
The move, first reported by Chris Easterling of The Akron Beacon Journal on Thursday, opens a roster spot after Bell spent the start of the year on IR following an eye injury suffered early in the preseason.
He never appeared in a regular-season game for Cleveland and now becomes a free agent who can sign elsewhere if another club wants a veteran interior body.
Bell’s path to this point has been typical of a late-round defensive lineman fighting for a foothold. Chicago selected him in the seventh round of the 2023 draft, making him the first player in Kennesaw State history to hear his name called.
The six-foot, 310-pound nose tackle from Montgomery, Alabama, signed a four-year rookie deal but did not survive final cuts. The Bears brought him back to the practice squad, and Atlanta later signed him to the active roster. He appeared in two games for the Falcons that season and finished with two tackles before being waived in December.
Cincinnati claimed him, but he was inactive the rest of the year and later cut coming out of 2024 camp. Short practice-squad stops with Chicago and Minnesota followed, and the Vikings eventually released him after the next training camp.
Cleveland signed him in early August after he helped the Louisville Kings win a UFL championship. The Browns waived running back T.J. Harden to create the roster space.
Bell’s opportunity evaporated when he was limited to one preseason appearance by the eye injury. Cleveland waived him with an injury designation at the 53-man deadline; he went unclaimed and reverted to injured reserve.
Waiving him from IR now allows the team to move on without an injury settlement hanging over the books and gives Bell a chance to find work on another practice squad or as a midseason depth signing.
At Kennesaw State he was a durable presence, playing 54 games and finishing among the program leaders in sacks and tackles for loss. That production, plus a surprisingly quick 40-yard time for his size, is what convinced Chicago to draft him. The NFL has been less kind.
Two career tackles in two games remain his only official regular-season production. For a player still only 27, the next landing spot will likely look familiar: a practice squad, a short-term injury replacement, or another spring-league detour.
The Browns, meanwhile, continue to shuffle the bottom of their defensive line as they try to stay healthy through the first weeks of the AFC North schedule.
