Inside Cleveland Browns’ NFL Draft room, where trade calls keep phones ringing and high-speed databases whir

BEREA, Ohio — It’s 8:38 p.m. on Thursday in the Cleveland Browns’ draft room and general manager Andrew Berry stands up, grabs a water bottle, then sets it down to take out his phone.

It’s the first night of the 2026 NFL Draft, and the Browns have already traded the sixth overall pick to the Kansas City Chiefs for picks 9, 74 and 148. Now two more NFC teams are calling with offers they hope will compel Cleveland to move down, yet again, from pick nine.

The first team relays its offer to Ken Kovash, the Browns’ vice president of player personnel process and development. Kovash, along with assistant general managers Glenn Cook and Catherine Hickman, are designated phone operators for Browns trade considerations. And the Browns have a lot of trade considerations.

The second NFC team’s general manager calls Berry directly. Would the Browns move off No. 9 and risk losing one of their top targets?

“Depends what’s on the board — what are you thinking?” Berry asks.

He scribbles in his notebook: “I’ll think about it once we get on the clock.”

Both trade offers enter a Browns database that assesses their value. An analysis appears on the third of five large screens canvassing the Browns’ draft room walls. Each of the five displays gives Cleveland’s executives a different lens into the high-stakes decision-making process upon which they’re embarking. Each display is programmed to update within five to 10 seconds of every pick in the draft.

“OK, obviously we got some trade activity,” Berry tells a room full of his vice presidents, scouts and team ownership. “Everyone’s still trying to do cut-rate market pricing, so I’m not optimistic. If we pick at 9, it’ll be Spencer first … ”

Berry pauses to type furiously on his phone, still standing in an otherwise seated room. To his right, team owner Jimmy Haslam confers with head coach Todd Monken. Berry’s eyes move from display to display, his arms folded. Then his phone lights up from his left side and he smiles.

It’s good to smile in high-stakes and high-pressure moments. It’s good, too, to covet an offensive tackle first and foremost in this draft.

Because at 8:48 p.m., the New Orleans Saints select Arizona wide receiver Jordyn Tyson with the eighth overall pick, making official the Browns’ chance to begin the run on offensive tackles. Berry turns to national scout Zach Ayers: “This was your orange dot, buddy. Tell us what we like about Spencer Fano.”

From the two rows of scouts’ chairs near the entrance to the draft room, Ayers begins to explain why he designated the Utah offensive tackle an “orange dot,” which in Browns scouting parlance means Fano has elite character and makeup.

“We’re getting the best tackle in this entire draft,” Ayers says. “This kid’s rare combination of athleticism, quickness, strength, and his ability to excel on pass protection is truly something special. He’s an excellent run blocker. He’s gritty, he’s tough, he’s rangy. And the most important thing: This is the best person in the entire draft. This is one of the highest-character guys I’ve done in the 10 years I’ve been on the road. And whatever goal or expectation we have of Spencer as a person, his goals and expectations are going to be higher than ours.

“This guy fits us beautifully.”

West Coast Area scout Josh Cox follows.

“The twitchiest, quickest offensive tackle in the draft,” Cox says. “He excels in pass pro. Great feet. And in the run game, you see the athleticism show up there as well. He can open his hips, he can pull—”

RING RING.

Cox continues as the landline phone on the boardroom table rings.

“This dude is so versatile—” RING RING. “I mean, he’s a slam dunk.” RING RING.

Berry reaches for the phone while instructing his colleagues “Let’s hold for a second please.” The room dissolves into laughter over the rapidly changing realities of the NFL Draft during which scouts can celebrate the newest roster member during the mandatory four minutes a team must wait to submit its first-round selection … only to then encounter an opponent giving a last, best shot to reverse that outcome.

Berry isn’t compelled.

“That wouldn’t really work for us,” he says into the phone. “I appreciate you, though. All right, best of luck.”

After hanging up, Berry brands the offer: “Not enough.”

With a general manager as comfortable trading as Berry is, they believe him.

Yahoo Sports embedded with the Browns for the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft, observing and listening to the Browns as they levied their 2026 draft capital into 10 rookies, two 2027 fourth-round picks and one former first-round veteran in offensive tackle Tytus Howard. The Browns agreed to six trades during draft weekend alone (plus prior trades involving the capital) thanks to a scouting and strategy process designed to root real-time decisions in evidence and reason rather than emotion or panic. In the first round, the Browns accepted one trade and turned down at least half a dozen other offers.

The result: The club that ranked 31st in scoring offense and passing offense last season secured a starting left tackle and starting receiver in the first round — only to double back in the second with a receiver and safety they believe are also starter quality. Luck helps in any draft. Also helpful: the Browns’ assignment of value diverging from their counterparts on some players in this class.

“In recent years, it’s felt like the draft has gone very efficiently across the league where early on boards are maybe more similar than they’d been in the past,” Berry told Yahoo Sports. “This year was a little bit different.”

How decision-making, maneuvering led Browns to Spencer Fano

As the NFL Draft crept closer, the Browns’ top decision-makers debated dozens of scenarios and preferences.

They considered how to weigh risks against upsides and how to value production against traits. For a team that won just five games last season and three the year before, how should Cleveland value talent against addressing needs? Browns talent evaluators assigned numerical grades and color equivalents to prospects reflecting the scouting staff’s 2,914 reports. They assigned players colors to discern difference makers with the chance to be the best at their position from potentially Pro Bowl-caliber starters and  quality, solid starters from rotational players, backups and developmental players. Anchored by those grades, the Browns set goals.

“Around player quality, positional selections, resource management and then honestly even just operation in the room,” Berry said. “And we were able to hit the five goals that we outlined.”

Determining how to maximize the value of every draft pick — which is to say, to leverage draft picks to acquire rookies, veterans and additionally useful picks — dictated in-depth debates among a group that blends perspectives from longtime scouts to cutting-edge strategists. Berry has hired scouts with more than 25 years’ scouting experience like Jimmy Raye III and Chris Polian, as well as 12-year NFL general manager Tom Telesco who recently joined the Browns as a consultant. Vice president of research and strategy Andrew Healy’s MIT economics PhD shapes the Browns’ analytical bend while vice president of football research and strategy Dave Giuliani integrates perspective from playing baseball at Stanford while earning his economics degree.

Holding two first-round picks — which the Browns, and five other teams, all have — created an unusual level of flexibility for the Browns this draft. Think about exchanging coins for a dollar: The more quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies you have, the more likely you are able to procure exactly 100 cents. The Browns’ bevy of mid- to late-round picks functioned similarly, creating more avenues to execute fair trades.

For pick six, the Browns considered pre-draft offers from three teams that were “heavily interested” in trading up, pending their target player still being on the board.

Desiring Fano aligned best with the Chiefs’ offer. After the Commanders extended five-time Pro Bowl offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil and the Saints spent their 2025 first-round pick on offensive tackle Kelvin Banks Jr., Cleveland worried less about tackles leaving the board at seven and eight. The Chiefs confirmed they were not targeting a tackle in the trade-up. Berry and Chiefs general manager Brett Veach agreed to a trade framework.

“There’s a lot of trust between the two front offices, which always helps with these trade conversations,” Berry said. “We felt like we were able to move down from six to nine, get one of our top three targets…[and] pick up some extra draft capital that we could both use and deploy to maneuver around the board.”

Maneuver the Browns do.

As the Las Vegas Raiders select quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the New York Jets take edge rusher David Bailey and the Arizona Cardinals draft running back Jeremiyah Love, the early board falls just as the Browns anticipate. Enough defensive talent remains to maintain trade interest from the Chiefs, who need a cornerback after losing their top two corners, via trade and free agency, to the Los Angeles Rams.

So when Tennessee selects Ohio State receiver Carnell Tate fourth overall, a chorus of “whoa”s breaks out but Browns executive vice president and partner JW Johnson recognizes: “That probably helps us, right?” Berry nods.

Then Berry jokes: “I feel bad for the little girl who gave me the note.”

A Brook Park Elementary student, at the Browns’ service event a day prior, had approached Berry as soon as he entered the school gym. With a hat tip to “Draft Day,” the 2014 movie centering the Browns’ draft process, she gave Berry her vote for the local college star: “Carnell Tate NO MATTER What!!!!!”

She’ll have to settle for two other receivers the Browns select with their top-40 picks.

After the Giants select Ohio State linebacker Arvell Reese at five, Berry confirms the trade over his cell phone with Veach while vice president of football administration Chris Cooper calls in the terms of the trade to the league.

On the digital draft board at the front of the room, projections update to reflect the odds each remaining player will be available at pick nine rather than six. Monken gives Berry a congratulatory pound. Berry finally sits.Within 20 minutes, Berry is telling Fano over FaceTime that “we think you have the potential to be a franchise left tackle for us” and Monken is joking about offensive line coach George Warhop “wearing us out” until the Browns drafted Fano. Haslam tells his scouts of Ayers’ and Cox’s pitch: “I was sold on him, but you pushed a little further.”

“Now,” Berry said, “comes the hard part.”

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High-tech, real-time displays guide Browns during draft

In the Browns’ draft room, high-back leather chairs frame a square, dark wooden table. But the walls present the main event: five digital draft displays and a magnetized depth chart of the current roster.

Look to the right upon entering the room, and you’ll see a wide screen featuring each NFL team in alphabetical order, their draft picks listed with the overall pick number to the left and the pick number in each round flanking names to the right. Every team’s top positions of need are listed. The position abbreviations fade, with a strikethrough, after the team addresses a need.

The seven-column, league-wide draft board comes next, beginning with Round 1 on the left. A neon green border flashes the pick currently on the clock, as well as every later pick on that team’s docket. Cleveland’s picks are shaded orange — which is to say, the group of picks shaded orange at the beginning of each draft day does not exactly resemble the picks shaded orange at the end. For the fifth straight year now, the Browns have begun their trade activity with their first-round pick.

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Continuing down the wall, screen three flashes trade possibilities. What picks should Cleveland offer each coming team if they want to move up? How does the incremental cost shift position by position, as the Browns assess the odds that their most-coveted players will last on the draft board? Algorithms calculate values in real time as Cook, Hickman and Kovash field calls and input offers.

The system helps the Browns discern value more objectively. It helps approve one of the 10-plus floated trades Thursday night, some more realistic than others. The Browns decline offers to trade up and down from 24, thanks also to the next display: their draft board.

That spreadsheet, spanning center stage for Berry, Monken and Haslam to face head on, stacks players at each position based on evaluations from the scouting department guided by the two men who sit just in front of it: director of player personnel Adam Al-Khayyal and director of college scouting, Max Paulus. Colors distinguish between tiers of players, even as some players at different positions earn placement in the same tiers. Notably, no player’s grade is assigned a round. The Browns do not equate their talent tiers to rounds as many teams do, in a league in which position supply and demand influences draft order each year just as film and traits do. A clock reminder ticks down on the top left corner, announcing how long in each first-round slot (down this year from 10 minutes, to eight) remains.

And a draft dashboard rounds out the surround-table screens, displaying details of the last 15 picks, the next five, recent trades and again, the time left on the clock. Can’t be too safe.

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Each time that the five displays update to reflect the latest draft pick’s input, director of football information systems Brad DeAngelis can exhale. He has printed copies of all materials in case of an outage. But while he did warn everyone in the room at 8:02 p.m. not to open attachments due to an NFL-wide phishing concern, the Browns avoid hacks and system outages through the round.

Their high-tech draft systems are booted up as Johnson circles the room before the draft starts to give fist pounds, citing his pregame ritual. And the systems are ready as the Browns watch the broadcast in Pittsburgh — where Steelers edge rusher T.J. Watt and defensive tackle Cam Heyward join commissioner Roger Goodell on stage, as if the Browns need any further reminder that they best bolster their offensive line.

The trade proposal tool works later when Kovash gets a trade call from a later-Round 1 team during the Carolina Panthers’ window at 19, Haslam circling the table to view the top available players up close. And the tool holds as Cook fields still another swap request at 10 p.m., just after Berry nearly ends his recommended response to a call before adding an emphasized “please.” Monken chuckles at Berry’s niceties while Al-Ayyal continues a steady stream of tips on what positions teams on the board will draft. Johnson correctly reports a pick in advance as well.

“Well done, J-Dub,” Berry responds, knowing that intel and strategic clues can only help the Browns.

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Multiple NFL teams praise Browns’ selection of ‘explosive and twitchy’ KC Concepcion

With the Cowboys on the clock for the 23rd overall pick, Berry begins to announce the Browns’ plan for 24: “All right, here’s where we are —” He changes his mind.

“Well, am I going to jinx this? We’ll wait.”

Dallas has five of eight minutes left when Berry receives his seventh of 10 draft room calls on the night. “No, no,” he tells the caller, before alerting the room that unless the Cowboys take wide receiver KC Concepcion at 23 or the Browns receive “an offer we can’t refuse,” Concepcion — a very popular name in Browns’ predraft meetings — will be theirs at 24. Like he had with Fano, Berry continues the Browns’ new tradition of ceding the floor to the scout who did background work on the player.

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“KC is an explosive and twitchy athlete who’s got elite separation quickness,” national scout Chris Buford tells the room. “He’s a versatile player that not only can play in the slot, but also on the perimeter. He can score touchdowns on first, second, and third down, and even on fourth down as a punt returner. He’s a playmaker that has explosive playmaking ability any time this guy touches the ball. On top of that: This guy’s tough, highly competitive. He’s one of the highest-output players that they have at A&M in terms of his overall practice habits. I think this guy’s going to fit in very nicely as a Cleveland Brown.”

Berry asks Monken if he wants to add anything.

“Absolutely not,” the head coach says, generating laughter. “He did great. Awesome.”

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The Browns FaceTime Concepcion as they did Fano, Buford introducing him to Berry, who reminds Concepcion what he told him during the draft process: “I hope you’re a Brown. If you’re not, I hope you’re in the NFC because I don’t want to play against you.”

Concepcion emphasizes to Monken that “I’m ready,” to which Monken responded: “I know you are … [and] we’re fired up.”

Berry gathers the room at 10:19 p.m.: “Let’s watch the board because there’s a chance we may not be done.”

The group is still focused but beginning to relax. One round of laughter erupts when Ayers’ chair betrays him, sounding like it’s hiding a whoopie cushion. Another relieved chuckle comes when DeAngelis announces the Titans traded back to 31 to take Keldric “Faulk,” the competing sounds of the room making Faulk’s name sound instead like … sudden disappointment that their next target is gone.

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Again, it is good to laugh.

The room considers additional trades, Berry directing Cook on one call: “Tell him our deal or no deal.” Ultimately, further rides up and down the board will wait until Friday.

Before the Seahawks draft running back Jadarian Price to end the round, an NFC general manager texts Berry: “We were trying to move up for KC. Good pick.” And Al-Ayyal receives a message from an AFC team saying that “if they’d traded back, they would have taken KC.”

In the interim, an NFC general manager texts Berry: “We were trying to move up for KC. Good pick.” And Al-Ayyal receives a message from an AFC team saying that “if they’d traded back, they would have taken KC.”

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Monken reaches his fist to Berry for a pound.

“Good job,” head coach tells general manager.

Berry claps.

What does talent upgrade mean for Browns QB question?

By weekend’s end, the Browns’ roster — and particularly their offensive cast — is deeper. Last Tuesday’s voluntary veteran minicamp feels like a bygone era. Reinforcements are on the way.

An offensive line that last year ranked 20th in pass-block win rate and 24th in run block win rate, per ESPN’s metric, will now welcome a first-round tackle in Fano, a third-round tackle in Florida’s Austin Barber and a fifth-round center in Alabama’s Parker Brailsford — atop the free agency and trade additions of Howard, left guard Zion Johnson and interior lineman Elgton Jenkins.

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An anemic passing attack now has Concepcion from the first round and Washington receiver Denzel Boston from the second to flash complementary speed and size. And the fourth-ranked defense in 2025 upgrades beginning with Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, who some predicted could leave the board in the first round. The Browns thus traded up back into the second round to select the Toledo safety at 58 overall.

The Browns also selected Alabama linebacker Justin Jefferson at 149, Cincinnati tight end Joe Royer at 170, Arkansas quarterback Taylen Green at 182 and tight end Carsen Ryan at 248.

Consider the group a balance of quantity and quality.

“We don’t want volume for the sake of volume because the reality of it is most starters come in the top-50 picks in the draft, so we do care about that quality,” Berry said. “But volume allows you to have more lottery tickets and it also gives you more maneuverability up and down the board.

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“We had the quality going into it. I wanted to make a number of selections as we continue to get the roster younger. And so I think we were able to navigate that sweet spot well.”

The question that will linger, as it does over every team in the league without a high-caliber player who’s produced consistently and recently, is the Browns’ answer at quarterback. Shedeur Sanders and Deshaun Watson split first-team reps at minicamp last week, Sanders receiving more snaps than Watson. But do the short- and long-term answers at quarterback lie either in their 2025 fifth-round pick or the returning-from-Achilles-tears quarterback whom the Browns once spent three first-round picks, a third-rounder and a fourth to acquire? (The Browns’ 2025 third-round pick Dillon Gabriel is also on the roster but did not receive first-team snaps in last week’s minicamp practice open to reporters.)

The Browns weren’t ignoring the position in the draft so much as understanding the value of the draft relative to their evaluations and expectations of the board. Particularly after the Rams selected Ty Simpson 13th overall (and Haslam exclaimed to a surprised draft room, “Andrew knew that a week ago!”), the Browns joined 31 other teams in eschewing quarterbacks for the next 51 picks.

Next, the Browns will evaluate how Sanders, Watson and Co. perform with an upgraded surrounding cast.

“The way that we looked at our longer-term planning is No. 1, we want to see the players in that room operate under what I would say is like a healthier ecosystem for the position,” Berry said. “And then two, I think it also plays into prospect quality, where you have to select them, and which quarterbacks you have access to. I know going into this year, the thought would be that the ’26 class would be really strong at that position. It wasn’t as strong as probably most around the league anticipated. So you want to stay adaptable with that, and you don’t want to force it if it doesn’t necessarily line up with where your resources are positioned in a current year.

“So we really focused, and particularly when Ty went off the board, we really focused on just the infrastructure around it, and we were really pleased with the players that we selected.”

Browns decision-makers were pleased that they were able to get four of their highly discussed players in the top two rounds, and they were pleased that the board fell far more favorably to their preferences over the weekend than it did during a series of preparatory simulations they ran earlier in the week — which, in fairness, were about preparation rather than prediction.

“When we do the scenarios or the simulations, we’re really trying to tease out preferences or like how you respond emotionally and strategically when things don’t go the way that you hope,” Berry said. “So I always joke it’s like, look: Everybody feels down and uneasy after the simulations, but it rarely ever goes, for lack of a better term, that poorly [on draft weekend]. It’s usually better than that. But I’ll be honest, this past weekend, especially early on, we did not think that, particularly with Emmanuel … that one really surprised me in a positive way.”

The Browns hope their 2026 and 2027 performance can surprise positively, too.

They’ll bank on whoever starts at quarterback feeling more comfortable with this upgraded offensive line and pass-catching group, and they’ll bank on Monken’s track record of offensive flexibility maximizing their new talent.

The five digital displays, thousands of scout and executive evaluations, and countless hours in strategizing meetings landed the Browns where they wanted to be entering May. Before September, more work awaits.

“I’m jacked,” Monken told Fano from the draft room. “We’re jacked.”