Before the draft, 12 users of the Dawgs By Nature community submitted their own mock drafts as a "contest" of sorts. I went off the scoring system that The Huddle Report uses, where you get 1 point if the player you picked was drafted at least somewhere in the first round, and you get an additional 2 points if you matched that player with the team that chose them. The results are after the jump...

Continue reading this post »

One of the top, but not surprising, stories of the NFL Draft was the fall of DE Da'Quan Bowers, a player who was once projected to be the favorite to go to the Cleveland Browns at No. 6 overall:

Da’Quan Bowers’ shocking (and financially devastating) slip down the NFL draft board because of a knee injury was in all likelihood a business decision. It’s not that teams didn’t want him; Bowers has all the skill, size and intangibles to be good. Teams simply didn’t want to pay him. If you’re going to invest $30 million or more, you want to know what you’re getting. Link

That might have been the case in the first round, but by the time the second-round rolled around, money should not have been an issue. With the 37th overall pick, the Browns ended up selecting DE Jabaal Sheard. 14 picks later, at No. 51 overall, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers finally selected Bowers. It just seems so tough to gauge what Bowers' status is, but for all 32 teams in the league to pass on him for so long, there had to be a significant amount of doubt in his current health status.

With that said, would you have preferred it if the Browns had taken a shot on Bowers at No. 37 overall rather than taking a "healthy" Sheard? The poll is after the jump.

In a rather humorous story relayed by Peter King in his Monday Morning Quarterback column, the Cleveland Browns reportedly called DE Cameron Jordan on Saturday instead of TE Jordan Cameron. The excerpt from King's column is after the jump, along with how King felt about the Browns' first-round trade.

Continue reading this post »

The grades have been rolling in for the NFL Draft. This morning, SB Nation's NFL section graded the picks for the AFC and the NFC. The lowest grade given in the AFC was a B-, which leads me to believe the scale was set a bit too high. On top of that, it was a bit puzzling to see the Browns receive a mediocre "B" on a generous scale:

Cleveland Browns: B
Dick Jauron's philosophy in Chicago was to build his defense around the massive interior triangle of Ted Washington and Keith Traylor at defensive tackle, and Brian Urlacher at middle linebacker. First-round pick Phil Taylor, in teaming with Ahtyba Rubin, gives Jauron similar size at defensive tackle; now he just needs his middle linebacker. Greg Little and Jordan Cameron are perfect system fits offensively, and they'll get years out of seventh-round pick Eric Hagg, as well.

The description itself sounds alright; maybe they did not take into account the fact that the Browns added some picks in 2012. The comment about Hagg was a bit confusing too; we'll be fortunate if we get a season out of the guy just by virtue of him being a seventh-rounder.

"The Sunday Five" is a loosely-titled piece where I talk about five NFL- or Browns-related topics related to this past week. Earlier today, I had my traditional edition of The Sunday Five. This special edition covers five random thoughts I had about how things went down for the Cleveland Browns during the three days of the draft.

When we did our SB Nation writer's mock draft over at Mocking the Draft, in the first two rounds I ended up taking DT Marcell Dareus and DE Adrian Clayborn for the Browns. I would have preferred it if the Browns could have come away with both of those players, but as expected, Dareus was gone by by the time Cleveland was on the clock at No. 6 overall and Clayborn was taken in the first round. Alas, I mock drafted too ideal of a draft to be true. As I'll touch on after the jump, that didn't stop Tom Heckert and company from following a similar strategy that I did.

Continue reading this post »

You thought the Cleveland Browns were finished in the fifth round after drafting CB Buster Skrine? They weren't. The Browns traded both of their sixth-round draft picks (No. 168 and No. 170 overall) to the Minnesota Vikings. With that pick, the Browns drafted OT Jason Pinkston out of Pittsburgh. I think Pinkston was a tremendous value pick for the fifth round, as I originally projected him to go in round 3 or round 4.  He is also teammates with Jabaal Sheard, the defensive end the Browns drafted yesterday in the second round.

While Tom Heckert has stated that Tony Pashos is projected to be their starting right guard, Cleveland was lacking youth on the right side of the offensive line. They don't necessarily have "studs" all of the sudden, but Shawn Lauvao and Pinkston give them some options for the future on the right side of the line. Even if just one of those guys works out to be a starter, it'll be a big "win" for Cleveland. After the jump is a scouting report on Pinkston from Mocking the Draft.

Continue reading this post »

This will be the final open thread for this weekend's draft festivities. The Cleveland Browns still have three picks remaining -- two in the sixth round and one in the seventh round.

With the 137th pick in the fifth round of the 2011 NFL Draft, the Cleveland Browns selected CB Buster Skrine out of the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. Skrine was one the players the Browns had met with personally and scouted at his Pro Day, so the selection should not come as much of a surprise. We're getting at the point in the draft now where you hope guys can contribute later down the depth chart, and that is what Skrine can offer.

Skrine is definitely known for his speed. He is listed as having a 4.37 time in the 40, but he was also unofficially timed at 4.29 for one of his runs at the scouting combine. Assuming Eric Wright is brought back, this allows the Browns to have a true fourth cornerback without having to rely on Mike Adams shifting out of the safety position. Here is the scouting report from Sideline Scouting on Skrine:

Continue reading this post »