2026 Nfl Mock Draft 1 0 Why The Browns Promising 2025 Draft Hasn T

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Nov 15, 2025, 2:33 PM

2026 nfl mock draft 1 0 why the browns promising 2025 draft hasn t

The latest Cleveland Browns loss to the New England Patriots pushed the team inside the top five picks. The Browns are currently slotted for the fourth pick in the draft. The organization has to walk a tight rope the rest of the season. The team must win enough games to keep their jobs, but doing so takes them out of the race for a top pick and an opportunity to draft a top quarterback. The Browns still have a long road ahead of them to the end of the season. However, many people are looking for the light at the end of the tunnel.

The college football season is nearly done. Conference play is in full swing, as many universities across the country prepare to take on some of their most hated rivals over the final month. Some universities are preparing to make a push for the college football playoffs, while others are wondering if they’ll be the Cinderella story. The most unlucky are playing hard for personal pride and draft status. As the college season wraps up, we’ll be putting this series in overdrive as we extend from the first three rounds to five rounds. The goal of this series isn’t to wish-cast future Browns players, but to highlight some of the best prospects heading into college football Saturday.

This mock will be an exercise on the day two options, assuming the top quarterback prospects go before the Browns pick. Spencer Fano entered the season as the consensus top tackle in the 2026 NFL draft. The true junior is a great athlete at 6-foot-5 and over 300 pounds. Fano is known for his quick foot speed and nasty demeanor. Unfortunately, Fano hasn’t played up to the hype this season, but he’s still holding onto his top spot. He isn’t playing with the same level of athleticism or aggressiveness this season.

He looked slow against Texas Tech’s duo of future-NFL designated pass rushers in David Bailey, a potential first-round pick, and second-day pick Romello Height. Fano still has time to bounce back, and he has a top-25 matchup against the University of Cincinnati this Saturday. Fano must kick up his level of aggression. The top offensive linemen in the NFL love to finish plays strongly. Fano has all the tools to join the upper echelon of top run blockers in the NFL. He has the range and strength to build a run game around.

However, he hasn’t played up to that level. He continues to struggle with pass blocking. He doesn’t get to his landmarks quickly enough. He gives up the outside track too easily at times. The young tackle needs a lot more refinement before he’s ready for the NFL. After a surprising 11-6 run in the 2023 NFL season that saw the Cleveland Browns return to the postseason, they took a massive step back last year, landing back in the basement of the...

That mark gave them one of the worst records in the entire league and granted them the second-overall pick in the 2025 draft. While they didn't actually use that selection, they did take advantage of it, trading down to five with the Jacksonville Jaguars and netting an extra second-rounder and Jacksonville's 2026 first in the process. For a team with a lot of holes on its roster, the Browns need as much draft capital as they can get in the near future. That made the class they ended up coming away with this past spring extra confounding. They got off to a strong start, taking defensive tackle Mason Graham and linebacker Carson Schwesinger with their first two picks. After that, they spent their next five selections on offense: running back Quinshon Judkins (no.

36), tight end Harold Fannin Jr. (no. 67), quarterback Dillon Gabriel (no. 94), running back Dylan Sampson (no. 126), and quarterback Shedeur Sanders (no. 144).

Following Deshaun Watson's re-rupture of his Achilles tendon during rehab last winter, the Cleveland Browns knew they'd have to identify a new starting quarterback for the 2025 NFL season. They brought in four different candidates to vie for the vacated QB1 spot: free agent Joe Flacco, trade acquisition Kenny Pickett, fifth-round draft pick Dillon Gabriel, and 144th-overall selection Shedeur Sanders. It seems that Head Coach Kevin Stefanski and the Browns staff don't have much confidence in their rookie gunslingers, having named Flacco the Week 1 starter, despite Gabriel and Sanders putting up impressive preseason... However, there's still hope that one of Cleveland's young quarterbacks can overtake Flacco on the depth chart at some point during the campaign. We certainly believe and know that 2026 NFL mock drafts are pointless, so here is 3 of them, sort of The dust is settling on the 2025 NFL draft with undrafted free agents reportedly signing with teams throughout Saturday evening.

The Cleveland Browns have a seven-player draft class this year, but also added a first-round pick in 2026 and a fifth-round pick in 2027 through trades during this weekend’s event. While most are still buzzing (good or bad) about the selection of QB Shedeur Sanders and others are locked into scouting reports on the Browns undrafted free agents, the annual march of “way too... For years, ESPN’s biggest pageview article was always the year-ahead mock draft that came out right after a draft was completed. We 100% know that there is a level of pointlessness to these, but also know that many fans really enjoy thinking ahead to what could be. It is one of the biggest reasons we love the NFL draft. Cleveland having the extra first-round pick in ‘26 will also make mock drafts, and watching the results for the Jacksonville Jaguars next year, even more exciting.

FanDuel currently has the Browns in the group with the lowest expected win totals in 2025, 5.5, while the Jaguars are sitting at 7.5. Despite a strong draft, Cleveland’s win total expectation is appropriate given the struggles last year and questions at the quarterback position. The Cleveland Browns are thinking long-term. As they prepare to open their 2025 season against the Cincinnati Bengals, rumors are already swirling around their 2026 draft strategy. Per Bleacher Report’s latest mock (via ESPN’s Tony Grossi on September 6, 2025), the Browns will likely skip on quarterback and instead “target defense and O-line with two first-round picks” in 2026. .@TonyGrossi says he's willing to trade the Browns two 2026 1st round picks and a 2027 1st round pick to move up for a rookie QB in the 2026 NFL Draft 😯

Do you agree? pic.twitter.com/xgEV9zR9Tp — ESPN Cleveland (@ESPNCleveland) September 3, 2025 The Browns enter 2026 armed with not one, but two first-round picks, their own and the Jacksonville Jaguars’, a powerful combination. Expectations are mounting that the front office will avoid trading them away to chase a quarterback. Technically, rookie Tyler Shough is the Saints' starter for the rest of the season.

When New Orleans goes on the clock in the 2026 NFL Draft, Shough will almost certainly become the latest high-round pick whose team uses an even higher-round pick 12 months later in the hopes... The Panthers did it in 2011 when they took Cam Newton No. 1 overall, and the Cardinals did it eight years later when they selected Kyler Murray with the top pick. And as we sit here, nine weeks into the 2026 season, the Saints are staring that first-overall selection in the face. There will no doubt be discussions in the building about trading down and what such a draft haul might do to reset this roster, but if the organization feels that Fernando Mendoza or Ty... Former Titans GM Ran Carthon and I talked about this last week on "With the First Pick," our NFL Draft podcast:

In my Mock Draft 2.0, I have just three QBs going in the first round -- and one via trade; after trading down from No. 2 to No. 5 last April, the Browns move up from No. 6 to No. 2 in this excerise for a quarterback. And much like the conversation surrounding Shough, it's fair to assume that neither Dylan Gabriel or Shedeur Sanders (or any other QB currently on Cleveland's roster) will be penciled in as the 2026 starter...

The Titans currently own the No. 1 overall pick, but because they selected Cam Ward last year, they will look to trade down. The Jets have so many resources to pull the trigger to move up for the top choice. The Jets obviously need a quarterback. Justin Fields had a great Week 1, but completed only three passes against the Bills. Fields has gotten worse ever since, save for the Cincinnati win.

The Jets need to start over, and they can do that with this prospect. Ty Simpson has won some big games and has thrived with his superb ball placement. He’s an intelligent quarterback who throws with great timing and anticipation. Also, if you’d like to support the site, check out my book! It’s available on Amazon, and it’s called A Safety and a Field Goal. You can buy it here.

It has some NFL Draft-related topics, so like I said, if you want to support the site, this is a great way to do it! The Browns used two 2025 draft picks on quarterbacks, Dillon Gabriel in round three and Shedeur Sanders in round five. Despite the two selections, Cleveland might've traded for their franchise quarterback on draft day, even though he isn't on the roster yet. By moving down from number two to five overall in a trade with Jacksonville, the Browns picked up another first-round pick in 2026. The Deshaun Watson era was a huge swing and miss, as acknowledged by ownership, and this was the first offseason where they truly looked for solutions after Watson with his twice-torn Achilles. Unfortunately, the 2025 quarterback class was nothing close to the year prior, and there wasn't anyone enticing enough to take in the top five.

That isn't the case next year, however, as the 2026 quarterback class initially looks pretty strong on paper. In an article by ESPN's Matt Miller, he made an early 2026 NFL mock draft that has the Browns with the number one pick. He has them taking Clemson's Cade Klubnik while comparing him to Baker Mayfield because of his combination of arm strength and mobility. It isn't completely certain who will be available in the 2026 class, but potential names that have been getting buzz include Texas's Arch Manning, Penn State's Drew Allar, South Carolina's LaNorris Sellers, and LSU's... Klubnik is firmly in the mix with this bunch, but most of the hype has gone towards Manning or Allar (Allar mostly because of his ties to Northeast Ohio). With their second first-round pick, Miller projects the Jaguars' pick will be 12th overall.

2026 Nfl Mock Draft 1 0 Why The Browns Promising 2025 Draft Hasn T

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