WWE Superstar The Miz Predicts Shedeur Sanders Lead Browns to the Super Bowl

A year ago, a photograph of The Miz captured the exact moment a Cleveland sports fan's heart broke. He had just learned the Browns passed on the chance to trade up and draft Travis Hunter. Angelo Dawkins took the picture to troll him.

The Miz returned to the show this week, in advance of WWE Backlash on Saturday, to argue that the joke aged badly for everyone but him.

"One year later, the trade is done," Rich noted, and the Browns came away with a haul that includes Mason Graham and Quinshon Judkins.

The Miz wanted to be honest about where his head was before the draft.

"This was the first year that I actually said this, and probably like ever," he said. "The Browns aren't going to the Super Bowl this year. We should tank and we should go for Arch Manning."

The draft changed his entire outlook.

"After this draft, we're going to the Super Bowl," The Miz said. "I don't think you understand what happened with this draft. Andrew Berry, I applaud you. The Cleveland Browns got four first-round graded players. Four."

He even walked back his Travis Hunter heartbreak, crediting Berry for valuing the future over the player The Miz badly wanted.

The one missing piece, by his own accounting, is quarterback. And here The Miz drew a hard line.

"I know a lot of people are going, oh, Watson might be back," he said. "We don't need him. I don't want him. I want Shedeur."

His pitch for Shedeur Sanders was about more than the arm. The Miz said he watches Sanders embrace Cleveland as his community, doing the small things around town that fans notice.

"Whenever someone comes into Cleveland, you have to represent Cleveland," The Miz said. "I feel like he's been doing that."

Rich offered a smile and a counter. The Browns have poured capital, money, and years of public grief into Deshaun Watson. With one season left to evaluate that investment, Rich said it would be too enticing not to start Watson in Week 1.

The Miz had a metaphor ready.

"I think you got a flat tire and you just need to put it in the trunk and get that new tire in," he said.

Pressed on what Sanders is missing, The Miz answered in one word, three times. Experience. Then he turned it into a question.

"Why aren't we giving him the experience?"

He leaned on Cleveland history to close. The city loved Baker Mayfield, traded him for a quarterback The Miz described as broken since he arrived, and has been paying for it ever since. Sanders, raised by a father who trained him for stardom, knows the pressure of being a franchise quarterback.

Rich called the Super Bowl prediction delusion. The Miz accepted the word, then rejected it.

"That's the level of delusion I have," he said, before catching himself. "It's not delusion."

He has a standing invitation to be proven right.

"You just wait until next year," The Miz said. "We're sitting here talking again, and I am bragging that the Cleveland Browns are the Super Bowl champions."