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Cleveland Browns Select Top Qb To Revitalize Offense In 7 Round 2026

Bonisiwe Shabane
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cleveland browns select top qb to revitalize offense in 7 round 2026

Shedeur Sanders is 1-4 this season in five starts for the Browns, but he's shown flashes of his talent. Michael Reaves / Getty Images It’s almost Christmas, which means it’s time to argue with your brothers, uncles and cousins about the sad state of the Cleveland Browns and what might be next. As always, we’re here to help. We’re taking a slight detour from screaming matches about the current quarterback to bring you a list of names and scenarios that will shape the path to the team’s next signal caller. Who will be quarterbacking the Browns on Christmas in 2026?

Here’s a list of options, roughly in order from most likely to least likely, but mainly laid out to make you better equipped to talk about the team’s possibilities while sharing and spreading holiday... If you want to stay in and scream at us via the comments section, well, that’s an option, too. In any case, thanks for reading and following through another season, and we’ll see you soon for yet another round of offseason quarterback mania. Maybe this next one will come with a side of complete organizational change. The Cleveland Browns have the fifth pick in the NFL draft heading into Championship Weekend. Last week's Rivalry Week was everything it was billed to be.

It was an enjoyable hate weekend, which saw some minor shakeups in the playoff rankings. College Saturday was a good reminder that there's good football still being played in Ohio. The Browns' loss to the San Francisco 49ers was embarrassing. It sent the Browns back to the top of the draft order. It also showed the areas the Browns need to improve if they want to compete against Super Bowl contenders.The Browns need an infusion of offensive talent. The team cannot generate points, and they're constantly putting the defense on its heels.

The Browns will need to overhaul their entire offense this offseason. All while managing the Deshaun Watson playing and cap situations. If the Browns are serious about tanking, they should play Watson to end the season. He's been a horrible quarterback since he got here. There's no way he has the running ability, his only strength in Cleveland, after tearing his Achilles twice in three months. The Browns need a cleanse at the quarterback position.

The team needs to invest a draft pick in one of the quarterbacks in the upcoming class. In this 2026 seven-round mock draft, the Browns will be highlighting the best players playing this weekend. Fernando Mendoza entered the season relatively unheralded. The redshirt junior started his career at Cal. He played most of his sophomore year and started every game of his junior season. Mendoza transferred to Indiana after watching Hoosiers' head coach Curt Cignettti turn them into playoff contenders.

Mendoza turned down a lot of money from much bigger programs to take Indiana from playoff hopeful to National Championship contender. Mendoza has flourished under Cignetti's coaching. He's the favorite to win the Heisman. The Cleveland Browns have fallen down the 2026 NFL draft order with Spencer Fano at the top of this Browns mock draft The current 2026 NFL draft order has the Cleveland Browns out of position for the top two quarterbacks of this draft cycle. The Browns could use the extra pick they have from the Jacksonville Jaguars to move up a few spots, but that would assume A) they wouldn’t be outbid by a team like the New...

Instead, for the first time in a while, our latest Cleveland NFL mock draft does not include a top quarterback. Last week, it was Dante Moore. The week before, it was Fernando Mendoza. With this Browns mock draft, you can assume whichever realistic quarterback you would prefer (Shedeur Sanders, Malik Willis, Geno Smith, Joe Flacco, etc). This week, we used Pro Football Network’s Mock Draft Simulator to assist in building Cleveland’s roster, mostly on offense: The best tackle prospect in this year’s draft helps solidify the line in front of any quarterback

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The connection between winning football games and draft position has always created interesting scenarios late in NFL seasons, but few situations are as fascinating as what’s unfolding for the Cleveland Browns... With just two games remaining in a disappointing season, Sanders finds himself in a peculiar position: play well enough to win, and he might inadvertently cost the organization its chance at drafting his replacement. As Browns beat reporter Mary Kay Cabot explained on the Orange and Brown Talk podcast, “Shedeur Sanders is down to two more chances to prove to the Cleveland Browns that they don’t need to... Currently, Cleveland sits in prime draft territory. “Right now they’ve got No. 3 overall and if they continue to lose, they could end up with No.

2. I don’t even know if they could end up with No. 1. I think there is a slight chance,” Cabot noted. The potential ramifications are significant. A strong finish by Sanders could dramatically alter the franchise’s offseason plans.

Host Dan Labbe highlighted this fascinating paradox: “If he beats the Steelers, if he beats the Bengals, he makes it a whole lot harder to draft that quarterback to replace him. So it could be sort of a win-win here for Shedeur Sanders if he figures this thing out.” The 2025 NFL season is just over halfway completed, and it is already draft season for most Cleveland Browns fans. It has been another disappointing season for Cleveland, leading to many questions about the future of the franchise. Is head coach Kevin Stefanski on the hot seat, or is his job secure for 2026? Who will be starting at quarterback to open next season?

Will general manager Andrew Berry be the one selecting players in the 2026 NFL Draft? There are a ton of questions to be answered for the Browns this offseason. But the biggest question for fans will be: what are they going to do with this offense? Switching play-callers and quarterbacks mid-season has harbored minimal improvement to this point. Rebuilding and revamping the offense must be a focus for whoever his heading the front office and coaching staff. That is a focus for Cleveland early in this 2026 NFL mock draft.

Shedeur Sanders may or may not have a real chance to prove himself as the future starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. But as a fifth-round pick, even if he plays fairly well to finish the season, it may not prevent the Browns from prioritizing finding their franchise signal caller atop the 2026 NFL Draft. If the Browns are selecting third overall, there is a very good chance they take a stab at a new quarterback. With the season that Fernando Mendoza is putting together for the Indiana Hoosiers, he certainly could be the first one off the board in April. The Cleveland Browns are… well, they’re lost. The franchise looked to be on the upswing as recently as 2023, when Kevin Stefanski won Coach of the Year, defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz won Assistant Coach of the Year, Myles Garrett won Defensive...

That squad made it to the playoffs — just the third time for the franchise since returning to Cleveland in 1999 — but fell short in the Wild Card Round. Then, 2024 went as off the rails, which is a not-so-unusual occurrence in the Dawg Pound over the last 25 years. Maligned quarterback Deshaun Watson got hurt (again), playing in just seven contests as the team proceeded to go 3-14. Though they re-signed Garrett to a market-setting deal, the offseason hasn’t otherwise been notable in Cleveland. They’ve signed some offensive line and front-seven depth on defense, but the transaction that made the most headlines was the team’s trade for backup quarterback Kenny Pickett. That’s not ideal for a franchise in desperate need of a facelift.

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