CLEVELAND, Ohio — During the NFL Combine last week, general managers took to their various podiums and showed the true nature of the season.
Silly season, that is.
Yes, any GM with a top pick that spoke made the same points clear with slightly different rhetoric.
They’re open to trading up.
Or trading down.
Or, craziest of all, even staying put.
But don’t take it from me, take it from the front offices themselves.
“I think all those discussions are too early,” Browns GM Andrew Berry said. “I guess I’m open to anything that would help us, would improve the team, but none of those decisions have been made.”
Patriots VP of Player Personnel Eliot Wolf said it all, perhaps the most succinctly.
‘We’re open anything," he said. “We’re open to moving down, we’re open to moving up, we’re open to sitting there and picking.”
Giants GM Joe Schoen last year inquired about moving up via a trade with the Patriots. Instead, he stayed put and wound up with receiver Malik Nabers. What about this year?
“We’re open to everything, move up, move back,” Schoen said. “Again, it’s an exciting time of year. We’re starting to put that together now, put the puzzle together. We’re going to look at all options to improve the roster going into 2025.”
What about a team like the Raiders? Vegas currently holds the No. 6 overall pick and could use a QB.
So could they be looking for the right opportunity to trade up to try and acquire one of the top two QB prospects in Miami’s Cam Ward or Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders?
“I don’t know, we’re just getting started her,” said new Vegas GM John Spytek. “I wouldn’t rule out anything. I mean, I try to be an open-minded person, and if it makes sense for the Raiders, we’ll do it. If it doesn’t, we won’t.”
Mission accomplished for all these teams in terms of establishing a sense of vagueness and meaningless rhetoric about their draft plans, so as not to let out state secrets.
After all, it’s in the best interest of all these teams to keep their cards close to the vest — or really, downright hidden. Plans not leaking gives them the best chance at the player they want to still be available, without another team jumping ahead of them.
It also, in theory, would give them the chance at the best possible haul via trade if other teams think they are open to anything, rather than desperate to move a pick.
Currently, there are a lot of questions and intrigue over the possibility of the top six teams specifically doing some shuffling.
As of now, the Titans have the first pick, followed by the Browns, Giants, Patriots, Jaguars and Raiders.
Four of those teams — the Titans, Browns, Giants and Raiders — could definitely use a quarterback, which adds to the mystery with a class that is deemed one of the weaker ones in recent years. Ward seems to be separating from the pack due to his elite arm strength, but Sanders is still likely to be a top pick [even amidst some anonymous criticism that has rolled in in recent days following the Combine](https://www.cleveland.com/browns/2025/03/the-browns-and-shedeur-sanders-how-one-mans-brash-is-another-mans-treasure.html).
At the top of every team’s draft board will also be Penn State edge rusher Abdul Carter and Colorado cornerback/wide receiver Travis Hunter, both of whom could be immediate impact players.
As far as the Browns are concerned, for the time being, it does not seem likely that they would trade up to get a quarterback. This isn’t really surprising, considering over the last five years, the Browns have shown repeatedly they would rather trade down and acquire more picks, getting more chances to hit on prospects, than trade up.
But given that it remains unlikely they make that jump, we can assume they are comfortable with multiple options at 2, as opposed to only feeling strongly about Ward or Sanders. With that second overall pick, a team will have plenty of options available to it — just still not _every_ option because of that pesky top pick.
And we know that this week, the Browns are hosting all four top prospects for top-30 visits — Sanders, Hunter and Carter on Wednesday, and Ward on Thursday.
As far as quarterback specifically, we know the Browns will also be aggressive in free agency, as that goes into high gear next week with the official negotiating period beginning on Monday.
“We will always be aggressive," Berry said. “We’re really fortunate this year that we have a great opportunity with the number 2 pick and 11 overall, but if there are opportunities on the veteran market or the trade market or whatever that piece, that’s something that we’ll certainly attack and explore.”
It all just proves the overarching lessons at this time of year: Expect anything, be surprised by nothing, and trust very little that is leaked. No one will know any team’s true intentions until April 24.
This silly season, just take it all with a grain of salt and laugh along the way.
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