PALM BEACH, Fla. — Jimmy Haslam stressed Monday that the Browns won’t go chasing ghosts at the quarterback position.
If there’s a quarterback worth the No. 2 pick — possibly Shedeur Sanders — they’ll take him. But if they deem him not the answer, they’ll pass and maybe take a developmental QB later. Browns GM Andrew Berry and coach Kevin Stefanski have both stated that they haven’t finalized their decision yet and will use the full shot clock, perhaps all the way up until April 24th.
“If you had the No. 1 pick, you could say, ‘OK, we know what we’re going to do,‘” Haslam told a small group of Browns beat writers at the NFL Annual Meeting at The Breakers here. “When you’re No. 2, you don’t control your own destiny. I think Andrew told you all last night, he did not see us trading up. So it would be great if we could get the quarterback, but we’re not going to force it. We’re going to be patient, and we’re going to try to accumulate as many really good football players as we can.”
The Browns will fly to Colorado on Thursday for the school’s NFL showcase, featuring Sanders and his top target Travis Hunter, who plays both ways full-time as a receiver/cornerback. They’ll take Sanders to dinner to get to know him better, but won’t draft him if he’s not a fit. So far, it’s all been positive, but they’ll let the process play out.
“I think the message is if the right person’s there, we’re going to take him,” Haslam said. “If not, we’ll figure it out for a year or two until we get the right person. And I just keep (saying), we need good football players. There are good football players in this draft and we’ve got to make sure we get the right ones for us.”
So fans shouldn’t necessarily get their hopes up that the Browns are drafting a QB at No. 2?
“We’ll see,” Haslam said. “There are lots of different options. We’re going to do what’s best for the team.”
Does he believe that a sure-fire non-quarterback such as a Hunter or Penn State defensive end Abdul Carter trumps a quarterback with question marks? That’s not to say they’ve determined they’re unsure about Sanders, but if they reach that point, would they take the almost-guaranteed transformational player?
“I think that’s fair to say,” Haslam said. “I mean, despite the fact that we haven’t been very successful, we understand and value the quarterback position. We just haven’t got it right, and that’s the simple matter.”
Haslam admitted he doesn’t know why Berry said he’s unlikely to trade up to No. 1 with the Titans to draft Cam Ward, who’s gained steam as the clearcut No. 1 QB in this draft.
“I asked him the same thing,” Haslam said. “We had dinner together last night and he just said, I don’t really see that happening.”
He did acknowledge that Berry has to get it right this draft, with the Browns coming off an “unbelievably disappointing year” and having 10 picks to restock the roster.
“Andrew understands how important the draft is this year,” he said. “He’s got to nail it, but he understands how important it is. Everybody in our organization does.”
He noted that with five picks in the top 103, “the draft is huge for us. Huge. OK, we’ve got the second pick, the 33rd pick, the 67th pick, 93 and 103. So five of the top 103 picks, and we need to get good players for all the obvious reasons. We’re excited about the draft, but we got to get it right, and we spend a lot of time working on it and we’ll continue to do so.”
He stressed that he won’t hold Berry and Stefanski unduly accountable for this season if the franchise QB isn’t there.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “We have high confidence. Andrew needs to do better in personnel, Kevin needs to better at coaching, but we have high confidence in those two guys. We really do.”
Haslam is on board with the Browns starting former Steelers first-round pick Kenny Pickett, who’s gone 15-10 in his career, this season if it comes to that. Berry and Stefanski have both talked him up this week.
“If they feel good about it, we do,” he said. “He’s had a winning record as a starter, and he took a team to the playoffs. So, his first year as a rookie, he looked really good. We’re going to do everything we can to put him in a position to do well with us. We have not met Kenny yet, so we look forward to doing so in two or three weeks.”
He also noted that fan favorite Joe Flacco is in the conversation as another veteran bridge QB.
“It doesn’t mean we’re going to do anything, but he’s in the conversation,” he said.
Given the uncertainty at quarterback, Haslam is realistic about the expectations for 2025.
“In terms of the cap, we don’t have unlimited space, so that’s going to limit you in free agency,” he said. “We do have a lot of draft picks. They’ll be rookies and it takes a year or two, but we’re going to try to win this year. We’re not expecting another 3-14 year and our expectations are high. But you all know, the NFL is tough. It’s hard to win games. We know that better than anybody else, but we’re going to really get after it this coming year. I mean, nobody wants to go through what we did last year.”
Even if they wait a bit for their franchise QB to appear.
**Football Insider newsletter free trial:** Take a minute and [sign up for a free trial](https://link.cleveland.com/join/6fe/newsletter-football-insider-sign-up-emailform) of our Football Insider newsletter, featuring exclusive content from cleveland.com's Browns reporters.