We’re just a couple of days away from the 2026 NFL Draft kicking off on Thursday, and it’s set to be three key roster-building days for the Cleveland Browns. 

Cleveland has two first-round picks at Nos. 6 and 24, and there’s plenty of noise around the team looking to make a trade back from its selection. 

With just a couple of days to go until the draft, I’m going to take a look at a few predictions I have for Cleveland’s draft. 

The Browns are making a trade in the first round 

Where there’s smoke there’s fire the saying goes. That’s normally true, but Browns GM Andrew Berry showed he can play the fiddle well with how he approached the No. 2 pick and hyped up Travis Hunter. It’s a new year and I think the Browns are once again going to trade back from their first overall pick. 

To be clear, I’d like the Browns to stay put and take Ohio State WR Carnell Tate with their first pick. But I think the value of trading back is going to be something the Browns don’t want to pass up. I believe the Browns will find on their board they can get a similar player to one they’d take at No. 6, a few picks back while gaining additional draft capital. 

Anything is on the table and we have an unpredictable draft ahead for the league in general. 

Cleveland will not fill both offensive tackle and wide receiver needs in the first round 

Jeremy Fowler had an interesting report around the Browns and them possibly going a different direction than their two needs with the first two picks. Just because the Browns have two first-round picks, I don’t think it means we’re seeing a wideout and offensive tackle selected necessarily. 

Cleveland still has pick No. 39 in what is a deep wide receiver draft through the first two days, and there are quite a few offensive tackles through the top 50 players in this draft. If Cleveland has a player not one of those spoons high on their fall into them, they’ll be a Brown. 

A quarterback will be drafted by the Browns at some point 

Cleveland winning the last two games of the regular season last year bypassed any chance at leading Fernando Mendoza. The Browns are unlikely to take Alabama QB Ty Simpson and Deshaun Watson or Shedeur Sanders look destined to battle it out for the starting job in Todd Monken’s first season. 

Taking Dillon Gabriel was a shock last year and it was Kevin Stefanski getting his quarterback. I could see the Browns trying to move away from Gabriel and bringing in a Day 3 quarterback to take a shot on. Carson Beck is someone Monken is familiar with from Georgia and Drew Allar is a former five-star recruit from Northeast Ohio who is set to be around later in the draft.

Don’t be shocked if the Browns take a quarterback, but wait until Day 3 to do so.