Cleveland Browns Load Up On Offensive Players In 2026 Mock Draft

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Nov 16, 2025, 12:38 PM

cleveland browns load up on offensive players in 2026 mock draft

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. The Cleveland Browns currently own the fourth overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft following their loss to the New York Jets, along with the 19th selection courtesy of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

In this seven-round mock draft, the team takes a swing at a franchise quarterback and spend their first six picks on offensive players. We'll be using NFL Mock Draft Database's simulator for this mock, and the rule is that for each selection, a player must be ranked at or below ten spots higher than the pick slot... This is to create some level of intrigue and variety with each selection, but to also add some degree of reality. Simpson's physical traits will be under scrutiny throughout the pre-draft process, as teams try to determine how high of a selection he is truly worth. However, his performance this year his difficult to argue with, as he's displayed excellent efficiency, throwing 21 touchdowns to only one interception. He's not elite in any area, but he's solid in just about all of them.

He has enough arm strength to make all the throws, accuracy to fit the ball into NFL windows, solid athletic ability to manuever around within the pocket and to create outside of it, and... Simpson is a one-year starter, which is certainly concerning, but the fact that he'll end up having a larger sample size to work with due to the College Football Playoff is a positive. He has a great chance this weekend to further solidify his stock, as the Crimson Tide face a top-10 defense in the Oklahoma Sooners. Simpson may not have the natural talent of a typical top QB prospect, but he's played great football this year, and if the Browns aren't picking first overall, they may not have much of... Billing Simpson as "better than nothing" is selling him short - he's a good prospect with an NFL future. Whether or not he's a true top-five prospect remains to be seen.

The Browns need the Jaguars to continue losing games, otherwise, picking in the 18-22 range isn't going to land then a top offensive tackle or wide receiver prospect. With Jordyn Tyson, Carnell Tate, and Makai Lemon off the board, Denzel Boston from Washington is the next man up. Standing 6-foot-4 209 pounds, he towers over the rest of Cleveland's WR room, offering them size they haven't had in a long time. He uses his frame to his advantage, hauling in 18 of 31 contested catches over the past two years. He's got 730 yards and eight scores on 52 grabs this season, including a 153-yard outburst against Illinois. 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. The Cleveland Browns largely chose to sit on the sidelines at the 2025 NFL trade deadline, as the only move they pulled off was a late-round pick swap that also sent seldom-used former first-round... Even though the team is 2-6, the windfall of picks received in the Travis Hunter trade and the solid defensive infrastructure have Cleveland in a position to possibly start over at the quarterback position...

The Browns have the ability to get this new quarterback multiple offensive linemen in addition to some pass-catchers that will be in town for the long haul. Round 1, Pick 6: Ty Simpson, QB, Alabama With Indiana's Fernando Mendoza starting to separate as QB1, teams who need a signal-caller will likely be choosing between Simpson, Oregon's Dante Moore, and South Carolina's LaNorris Sellers. Moore has the stronger arm and better deep accuracy, but Simpson is just as good a prospect. 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. The Cleveland Browns have won two games this season. They’ve won five of their past 25 games dating back to last season. Yet, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. For the second time in as many years, the Browns will have significant draft capital to replenish their roster with young talent. After the recent NFL trade deadline, the Browns have 10 picks in the 2026 NFL Draft.

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 lost in humiliating fashion to the New York Jets. The Browns shut down the Jets for the majority of the game.

Unfortunately, the Jets scored on three explosive plays. The score would be too much for the Browns to handle. The team now has the inside track on the second pick in the 2026 NFL draft. The Browns must find a way to pick in the top two selections. The Browns need to find a quarterback in next year’s draft class. The class is fraying, as quarterbacks Dante Moore of Oregon, Fernando Mendoza of Indiana, and Ty Simpson of Alabama will all decide whether to enter the NFL draft or return to college.

Cleveland Browns Load Up On Offensive Players In 2026 Mock Draft

People Also Search

The Latest Cleveland Browns Loss To The New England Patriots

The College Football Season Is Nearly Done. Conference Play Is

This Mock Will Be An Exercise On The Day Two

He Looked Slow Against Texas Tech’s Duo Of Future-NFL Designated

However, He Hasn’t Played Up To That Level. He Continues