How the Cleveland Browns Aced the NFL Draft. Again!

The Cleveland Browns walked out of the 2026 NFL Draft with the cleanest weekend of any front office in the league, Rich argued on his show, stacking a trade-down at the top of the first round, two wide receivers in the second, and a tackle in the third while still pocketing a pair of fourth-round picks for next year's draft.

"The Cleveland Browns, you got to give it up," Rich said. "What they did in this draft to go from six down to nine and they still took the guy they would have taken at six in Spencer Fano. And then they cash in their first round selection they got from Jacksonville for Casey Concepcion. And then in the second round they get Denzel Boston. They got two wide receivers who are terrific. And then they go and take Emanuel McNeel Warren in the second round with another second round choice."

Rich flagged McNeel Warren as the steal of the weekend on Daniel Jeremiah's board, noting the lineman "was sitting on Daniel Jeremiah's best available draft board for about an hour. They snagged him at 58. He was up there at 15 on DJ's draft board." Cleveland then added Florida tackle Austin Barber in the third round, the pick acquired in the same package that let Jacksonville move up to take Mansoor Delane.

The through-line for Rich was last year's much-debated trade with the Jaguars, the one that sent Travis Hunter out of Cleveland's reach. He argued the Casey Concepcion pick "closes the books" on that swap.

"With the Jets asking their fans to believe in yet another rebuild, you still have to turn those picks into humans," Rich said. "And last year the Browns fans are like, 'What did you trade out of the second spot? You could have had Travis Hunter.' We'll see what Travis turns into now that he comes back from his knee injury."

Rich ran the full ledger from that one trade: Mason Graham, Quinshon Judkins, Dylan Sampson, this year's first that became Concepcion, and the picks Cleveland sent on. "They turned in the option to choose Travis Hunter, and we had fun with the Miz many times," Rich said, recalling the Bengals-affiliated photo of Miz reacting to the original trade.

The one corner he refused to concede was the quarterback room. "I'm still going to always scratch my head over Dylan Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders," Rich said. "And we'll see who's the starter this year. I still think it's Deshaun Watson. But you got to give it up to Cleveland, man. And Andrew Berry, he was moving around the draft board, moving around, and with the new head coach, okay, you got the offensive mindset. Well, we got two new pieces on the offensive line and we've got two new pieces at the receiver position. We got the running back. And by the way, I didn't even mention Harold Fannon or last year's defensive rookie of the year that they drafted."