There’s a point in every NFL draft when the real action begins, not necessarily with the first pick. And this year, the no. 1 slot feels preordained. With Cam Ward shouting out “Titan up, chat” during a Fortnite livestream and ESPN’s Adam Schefter reporting that Tennessee has already turned down trade offers for the top pick, there’s not much suspense around what the Titans will do. Which means that the draft really starts at no. 2 with the Cleveland Browns.
It’s been a minute since the Browns were major players in the first round. This will be the first draft choice Cleveland has made in Round 1 since 2021, the year before it traded three first-round picks (and more) to Houston for quarterback Deshaun Watson. That decision has shaped the team’s trajectory ever since, almost entirely for the worse. The past three seasons in Cleveland have been defined by little meaningful on-field success, a lot of drama, and an organizational delusion that Watson, embattled, oft-injured, and years removed from consistent high-quality quarterbacking, would ever live up to the substantial price the Browns paid for him. Even last fall, when Watson was playing some of the worst football by a Cleveland quarterback this century, the team stood by him. They kept him as their starter until he tore his Achilles tendon in Week 7. Only this spring have the people in charge finally begun to acknowledge this failed gambit.
“We took a big swing and miss with Deshaun,” team owner Jimmy Haslam told reporters at the NFL’s annual meeting last month. “We thought we had the quarterback; we didn’t, and we gave up a lot of draft picks to get him. So we’ve got to dig ourselves out of that hole. [The trade] was an entire organization decision, and it ends with Dee and I, so hold us accountable.”
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If you can get past the slimy half-admission that this failure rests on Cleveland’s owners and the fact that Haslam recognizes this as a mistake only in the context of poor on-field performance, as opposed to the ethical and moral calamity that was Watson’s initial signing––I understand if you can’t!––that was a meaningful moment from Haslam. The Browns still owe Watson $92 million that is fully guaranteed over the next two seasons, and they expect him to be on their roster in 2025. But based on his injury, Haslam’s comments, and Cleveland’s interest in other quarterbacks throughout this offseason, the team seems done chasing its sunk cost. For the past three years, the Browns have gone backward by propping up Watson, and now it sounds like they’re finally ready to stop.
For everyone else in the league, what the Browns do with the no. 2 pick on Thursday will serve as the first real decision to impact the rest of the draft. For Cleveland itself, the pick is something of a clean slate.
So, what will the Browns do with their fresh start? Their choice will likely say more about the options available to them than the specific chord they’re trying to strike as they move away from the Watson era, but it seems as though Cleveland may be trying to operate in a slightly less quarterback-centric manner.
“Obviously, quarterback’s the most important position. [But] I think the biggest thing that we’re thinking about going into this draft is really just adding good players and good prospects, not overthinking that way,” general manager Andrew Berry said in his predraft press conference last week.
That’s not to say they haven’t done their research on quarterback prospects ahead of this draft. The Browns, along with the Giants, were one of the teams Schefter reported had attempted to trade with Tennessee to move up, presumably with the intent of drafting Ward. Earlier in the draft cycle, Cleveland was also frequently linked with Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders as a possibility for the no. 2 pick.
There was even speculation after the Browns signed Myles Garrett to a massive contract extension in March that the front office had shared its plans to draft a young quarterback, presumably Sanders, with Garrett to get him on board with the team’s future. “Any team that’s going to go far needs a quarterback and one that’s young, can learn, is willing to be patient with the process,” Garrett told the team’s radio network in March.
Currently, the only quarterbacks on Cleveland’s roster other than Watson are veterans Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco, who don’t exactly fit the type of player Garrett described. Sanders does and, funnily enough, projects as the type of quarterback who would fit in Kevin Stefanski’s system far better than Watson ever did.
But Sanders’s stock in general has fallen, and his college teammate Travis Hunter, a two-way star who hopes to play both receiver and cornerback in the NFL, seems like a much more likely pick for the Browns. Penn State edge rusher Abdul Carter is the other non-quarterback prospect besides Hunter who would be considered worthy of such a high pick, but there’s far more buzz around Hunter, who has been mocked to Cleveland by my colleagues Danny Heifetz and Diante Lee, as well as The Athletic’s Dane Brugler and ESPN’s Mel Kiper.
In his predraft press conference, Berry spoke glowingly about Hunter, comparing him to MLB two-way All-Star Shohei Ohtani.
“It’s a little bit like Ohtani, where when he’s playing one side, he’s an outstanding player,” Berry said. “If he’s a pitcher, he’s a hitter, he’s an outstanding player. You obviously get a unicorn if you use him both ways.”
As Lee noted in his mock draft, it’s hard to say whether the amount of buzz going around about Berry’s love for Hunter is genuine or a smoke screen, but it suggests that the most likely outcome is that Cleveland will either select Hunter or trade the pick to someone else who wants to. Assuming the Browns would draft Hunter primarily as a receiver, choosing him would instantly give what’s been a tired offense some needed explosiveness. If the Browns trade the pick, consider it an admission that they have a lot of draft capital to recoup after the past three years.
Berry also said he’d “use the whole shot clock” in determining the Browns’ direction Thursday night. It’s entirely possible Cleveland could get a player like Hunter and address the quarterback position later on in the draft, with a more developmental prospect like Jalen Milroe or Jaxson Dart. There is a chance that Sanders could even fall as far as no. 33, the first pick of the second round, which also belongs to Cleveland.
But the player who most closely fits Berry’s described goal of simply adding talent is Hunter, and barring any huge surprise, the Browns should be able to get him. He’d be a first-round talent of the caliber that Cleveland hasn’t had the chance to draft in years, a fitting selection now that the Browns have paid their dues (in draft capital, at least) in the Watson trade.
There’s no single pick that can make up for all that lost time and sunk cost: Watson cost the Browns six draft picks, including those three first-rounders, plus a lot of money wasted on veteran “win-now” players who won’t be a part of this hopeful next era. This roster is weak. A young quarterback entering this offense right now would deal with poor tackle play and limited playmaking options. A player like Hunter can’t make up for all that lost time on his own, but it’s a good place to start.
