The Browns did not make any public pronouncements about their quarterback depth chart after last week’s minicamp practices, but it appears they have started to put one together behind the scenes.
Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com reports that Deshaun Watson came out of the minicamp as the favorite to be the team’s starting quarterback in Week 1. Watson and Shedeur Sanders both got first-team work in those practices, but Watson reportedly wound up with more reps with the starters.
Watson did not play at all in 2025 after tearing his Achilles, but he has a lot more experience than Sanders, Dillon Gabriel or rookie Taylen Green and that appears to be carrying a lot of weight for the Browns.
The team is installing a new offense under head coach Todd Monken and Watson has a longer history of learning different schemes over the course of his career. The rest of the Browns’ offense is also skewing young and the team values his ability to get those players in the right spots.
There’s about six weeks left in the offseason program and Sanders will have a chance to change the outlook, but Cabot writes that the second-year player “will have to dazzle the coaching staff to land atop the depth chart heading into training camp.”
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The Saints are meeting with a potential addition to their secondary on Tuesday.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that free agent cornerback Martin Emerson is visiting the team.
Emerson was a 2022 third-round pick by the Browns and he missed the 2025 season after tearing his Achilles during training camp. He started 34 of the 51 regular season and playoff games he played while in Cleveland.
Emerson had 204 tackles, four interceptions, a sack, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery in that action.
The Saints drafted defensive backs Lorenzo Styles and TJ Hall. Kool-Aid McKinstry, Quincy Riley, and Isaac Yiadom are their top returning corners.
With the 10th overall pick acquired from the Bengals in the Dexter Lawrence trade, the Giants selected tackle Francis Mauioga. There’s a chance he wouldn’t have been available.
Via Jori Epstein of Yahoo Sports, two NFC teams tried to trade up to No. 9 with the Browns.
Cleveland had moved down from No. 6 to No. 9, in a trade that allowed the Chiefs to move up and select cornerback Mansoor Delane.
The Browns didn’t get an offer that made them abandon their chance to take tackle Spencer Fano in the ninth spot, but the effort made by the unnamed NFC teams underscores the risk of acquiring a pick before it’s on the clock. Two NFC teams were speculating on who the Giants planned to select, and they were trying to beat them to him.
Just like the Eagles did, when jumping from No. 23 to No. 20, one spot in front of the Steelers, for receiver Makai Lemon.
That’s how the draft works. Teams want who they want, and they’ll often move up to get him before someone else can. In the end, the Giants didn’t get leapfrogged. But two other teams in their conference tried.
The Browns are signing fullback Michael Burton, Tony Grossi of TheLandonDemand.com.
Burton, 34, spent the past two seasons in Denver.
In 2025, he played 16 percent of the offensive snaps in 17 games. He is also a core special teams player, seeing action on 62 percent of the Broncos’ special teams snaps last season.
Burton entered the NFL in 2015 as a fifth-round selection of the Lions.
In 10 seasons, Burton has appeared in 147 games with six different teams. He has played 1,369 offensive snaps and 1,814 on special teams in his career.
Todd Monken used a fullback on 41 percent of the Ravens’ offensive snaps last season.
The Browns selected wide receivers with two of their first three draft picks, but General Manager Andrew Berry said that isn’t going to change Jerry Jeudy’s role in the offense.
Berry took KC Concepcion with the team’s second first-round pick and then added Denzel Boston early in the second round, which he explained as moves that were made to complement Jeudy and will have “zero impact” on the veteran’s status in Cleveland.
“He’s our bell cow,” Berry said, via Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. “With receiver rooms, you can have maybe a ball dominant player or you can essentially build a basketball team with different skill sets. We prefer the second approach. Now don’t get me wrong. I’ll take Calvin Johnson if he’s out there, but we feel like we have a nice well-rounded room with speed, [yards after catch], contested-catch ability, separation. So we’re really pleased with the youth and talent in that group.”
Jeudy and Cedric Tillman were the only Browns wideouts to catch more than 20 passes last season, so there was plenty of room to upgrade the position group without cutting into Jeudy’s role at the top of the depth chart. If Concepcion and Boston make a quick transition to the NFL, it should also help the Browns’ eternal struggle to find consistent production from their quarterbacks.
The Browns have added another quarterback to the roster, and their new sixth-round pick immediately brings intrigue.
Former Arkansas quarterback Taylen Green, who ran a blazing 4.36-second 40-yard dash at the Scouting Combine and set the record at his position in the vertical leap, joins Shedeur Sanders, Deshaun Watson, and Dillon Gabriel.
“I’m a dawg and I’m competitive,” Green told reporters on Saturday, via Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to win, whatever it takes to get that first down, whatever it takes to score. Honestly, if that’s laying my shoulder down to get a first down or if that’s hurdling somebody, I’m going to make sure I’m going to put my team in the best place to win and have the opportunity to do it.
“And I’m going to give all I have, all my might and all I got into it. So that’s why I want to let the franchise and let the fans know.”
He nevertheless knows he’s got his work cut out for him.
“It’s a deep quarterback room, and I’m just excited to compete and get out there and to learn,” Green said. “They’ve got . . . a lot of experience, especially Deshaun in the NFL. So I’m hoping to just take everything in and hit the ground running and just be excited and put my best foot forward and get to work.”
The immediate challenge is to focus on his footwork.
“That’s where it starts,” Green said. “It all starts with your feet and your eyes tie with it. So just being on the same timing with my feet to my eyes, being on the same timing with my footwork and my eyes. And like I said, like everybody knows, the turnovers just have to get down a little bit. So just having the same mindset as a team with the ball. Checkdowns are a good play also. So checking the ball down and giving it to my running back or my tight end and then let them get some yards as well.”
However it plays out, there’s no doubt Green intends to play quarterback. Even though the talk of moving to a new position won’t be going away.
“I’ve been getting those talks since I can remember when I was in peewee or when I was in middle school or high school,” Green said. “So I’ve always been used to the noise and all that. You have to tune it out and you’ve got to have a deep confidence and a deep belief in yourself.”
The Browns had enough confidence to make him a sixth-round pick. And it points to the very real possibility that one of the players currently on the roster at the position won’t be there when it’s time to cut the roster to 53.
The Fano family is heading to Cleveland.
After drafting Utah offensive lineman Spencer Fano with the ninth overall pick in the 2026 NFL draft, the Browns signed his brother, Utah pass rusher Logan Fano, as an undrafted free agent, according to cleveland.com.
The Fano brothers spent the last three years playing together at Utah and will now play together in Cleveland, at least in the offseason. Logan will have an uphill battle to make the roster.
When Spencer traveled to Cleveland on Friday to be introduced at the Browns’ facility, the rest of the Fano family stayed in Utah with Logan, hoping to hear his name called later in the draft. He didn’t, but when the Browns called after the draft, the Fanos got some good news that they’ll have a chance to stay together in the NFL.
Logan, who will turn 24 in June, is two and a half years older than Spencer. Logan spent a total of five years playing college football, and two of those years were lost to torn ACLs.
The Fano brothers are part of a big football family. Their cousin Karene Reid plays for the Broncos, and they have four uncles who played in the NFL.
The Browns drafted quarterback Taylen Green at the start of the sixth round on Saturday and General Manager Andrew Berry confirmed that Green will not be switching positions in the NFL.
Green’s size and athletic ability have led some to wonder if an NFL team would look at him as a receiver or tight end. Berry was asked that question at a press conference on Saturday.
“He’s playing quarterback,” Berry said.
Green’s selection came a year after Berry selected Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel, who remain on the roster along with Deshaun Watson. Berry said Green’s selection “doesn’t mean anything” for the other players and that the Browns plan to “roll with” all four quarterbacks this offseason.
Berry said the team’s preference is to have three quarterbacks on the active roster and a fourth on the practice squad, so they could keep the quartet into the regular season as well. They won’t be able to guarantee that Sanders, Gabriel or Green would pass through waivers if they don’t make the active roster, however, and other developments around the league could lead to other options when it comes to filling out the quarterback room.
Arkansas quarterback Taylen Green, who put on a show at the Scouting Combine, is heading to Cleveland.
The Browns selected Green with the first pick in the sixth round of the 2026 NFL draft, No. 182 overall.
Green had a 4.36-second 40-yard dash and 43.5-inch vertical jump, best ever for a quarterback. At 6-foot-6, Green checks all the boxes as an athlete, but his passing stats were mediocre in four years as a college starter, two at Boise State and two at Arkansas.
That raises the question of whether the Browns will ask Green to do more than just play quarterback, perhaps taking some snaps in the wildcat formation or helping elsewhere on offense. Cleveland drafted two quarterbacks last year, Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel, and also has Deshaun Watson on the roster.
The Browns say they see Green as a quarterback. For now, he’s the fourth quarterback on the depth chart.
The Giants traded back into the third round, picking up the 74th overall selection from the Browns.
New York added a receiver with the pick, choosing Malachi Fields out of Notre Dame.
Fields spent the 2025 season at Notre Dame after playing four years at Virginia. In his final collegiate season, he recorded 36 receptions for 630 yards with five touchdowns. He previously caught 55 passes for 808 yards with five TDs for Virginia in 2024. He also had 58 catches for 811 yards with five TDs in 2023.
The Giants sent No. 105 and No. 145 in this year’s draft, along with a 2027 fourth-round pick, to the Browns in exchange for No. 74.
