With a pause in the NFL schedule, as new Cleveland Browns DE Jared Verse stated, a break that the team needed to ‘earn,’ teams find themselves with a chance to evaluate their rosters before heading to training camp. For the Browns, trading DE Myles Garrett squarely puts the future, not the present, as the primary focus. A great 2025 NFL draft, followed by an exciting 2026 selection process, is now the foundation of the team.
Cleveland has their entire draft class signed, full of top athletes that
Browns fans graded very highly. Overall, Cleveland’s 2026 NFL draft class got the highest grades of any team and is considered a “potential home-run class.”
All of that lauding came before the seven-person draft class showed up in Berea and put the pads on. After the rookie minicamp, OTAs, and mandatory minicamp, how do the Browns see their new class now? According to Albert Breer, all the post-draft hype is turning into real-life excitement:
And the hope, after the spring they just had, is that their double downs on two particular offensive positions will pay off in a very big way in big-time areas of need.
Breer notes that both rookie receivers, KC Concepcion and Denzel Boston, have “already flashed.”
With OT Spencer Fano as Cleveland’s first pick in 2026, it is easy to overlook third-round OT Austin Barber, but he also looks the part as a potential long-term starter on the offensive line:
As for Barber, there’s only so much you can tell with lineman before the pads go on, but he’s big, long and athletic, and has looked like he has everything a starting tackle needs. He’ll have to develop, of course, and the Browns will know more on how fast that might come along once the guys actually start hitting in the summer. But if Fano and Barber can be the team’s bookends going forward …
Right after the NFL draft, the hope around the Browns picks was palpable. Now, with training camp a month away, those prospects have seen the field and started to back up some of the hype surrounding them, especially the pieces drafted early on offense. Now, they’ll have to continue to show that skill when the pads go on.
What do you make of this report on a few of the Browns rookies?
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