NFL Network’s Charles Davis: Why the Browns Should Trade Up in the NFL Draft

Rich runs Charles Davis through the list of teams sitting on multiple first-round picks. The Jets at the top of the second round, the Browns at six, the Dolphins, the Cowboys, the Giants at five and ten. Of all of them, Rich asks, who actually needs to push in and trade up?

Davis does not hesitate. The Cleveland Browns.

His reasoning is not draft-board math. It is civic. Cleveland just brought back Deshaun Watson into a swirl of questions. They installed Todd Monken as the new offensive voice. Their biggest news cycle of the offseason has been Myles Garrett skipping voluntary work, which Davis dismisses as a non-story. The fan base needs a jolt. Trading up is the jolt.

Rich pushes for the target. Davis leans into the structural problem at six. The Browns can sit and probably walk away with the receiver and offensive lineman combo they need, but the version of that pairing they actually want requires them to move. They cannot get both top-of-the-board options if they stay still.

Which one goes first? Davis says the consensus is the lineman. Then he relays a line from longtime Browns reporter Tony Grossi that lands the segment. If there is one city in the NFL that is fine drafting blockers and tacklers, it is Cleveland. Browns fans handle it. Even with Carnell Tate sitting there as the Ohio State receiver story wrapping itself around pick six, Grossi's read is that another tackle would not break the city.

Rich pivots to the part of the conversation Davis lives for. Who is the kid nobody is talking about? The small-school pound-the-table guy.

Davis says he built a list of fifteen names this year, the kind of list where producer Mark Tannehill can pinpoint a Thursday-night pick before it is announced because he knows Charles' guys by feel. The one Davis is locked in on: Cole Wisniewski, safety, Texas Tech. Linebacker at North Dakota State first, moved to safety, became an All-American with eight interceptions, got hurt, came back, transferred up to the Big 12. Davis loves the angles. Loves the coverage instincts. Loves that Wisniewski was smart enough not to run a forty he was never going to win, and instead let the tape carry him.

Then Davis drops the detail that sells the whole scouting report. Wisniewski's father was a high school math teacher. The angles make sense now. The DNA is in there somewhere.

Rich closes by telling Davis he never wants to do a draft without him. Coming from the guy who has done more drafts than anyone on the desk, that is the button.