As we enter the NFL off-season with the scouting combine starting soon and NFL free agency starting next month, the Cleveland Browns will focus on building a competitive team in 2026. The roster has a ton of holes that need to be addressed, and how the team goes about addressing them will be intriguing. In terms of the NFL draft, the Browns have enough draft capital this year as the team will have two first-round picks and a few extras later in the draft.
Wide receiver and offensive tackle, or vice
versa, has been the assumption from many. However, what if the team chose to go the route of BPA (best player available) and took a highly regarded safety at #6?
Ohio State SAF Caleb Downs is considered to be one of the best players in this draft. Downs, who originally started his career at Alabama before transferring to Ohio State, was the best player on an elite Ohio State defense. Downs’s versatility in the secondary makes him a Swiss army knife. He can play both safety positions, play the slot, and you can put him in the box as well.
Elite at both run defending and great ball hawking skills is why many experts believe he is one of the top safety prospects in this draft.
Positional value is slowly starting to become less important as teams are starting to shift their focus to drafting the best player available. If a team has the ability to draft the best player that’s available, they will draft that player instead of over-drafting a player at a position of need. As mentioned, Cleveland has pressing needs on the offensive side of the ball, but if the team addresses half of those needs in free agency (which is possible, but not for certain), then the team can go the BPA route.
Putting Downs on an already elite defense could make a good secondary into a great secondary. Pairing Grant Delpit with Downs could have the Browns having one of the best safety duos in a long time. GM Andrew Berry has been known to think outside of the box, and choosing to draft one of the best players at #6 is something most fans should consider a possibility.
How would you feel about Caleb Downs being the Browns first pick in the 2026 NFL draft?
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