After Bevy of Huge Trades, Can We Finally Trust the Browns to Get It Right?

This is what we know: The Browns own the offseason.

They often own the offseason because they are terrible during the regular season. They've gone 1-31 the past two years. You cannot spell "losers" without "Browns." Well, you can, but you get me.

This is what we suspect: As the Browns again dominate the offseason, thanks to a bevy of trades including swapping a third-round pick with Buffalo for quarterback Tyrod Taylor, the team may be setting up to draft Penn State running back Saquon Barkley.

We don't know exactly what the Browns will do. The organization is doing a nice job of keeping its draft plans secret. But around the sport, the past 24 hours of insanity in Cleveland have led some team executives and coaches to believe that the Browns are going with Barkley at No. 1 overall.

Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press

Again, we do not know, but several executives said in interviews late Friday they believed this was the direction the Browns were going.

"Right now," said one team official, "the Browns run the NFL."

Those are words that have rarely been spoken. Been at least since the 1600s.

The reasons teams think the Browns will take Barkley are simple. First, across the sport, there's a feeling that Taylor is far more talented than he's give credit for. They think, in the right situation, Taylor could be an excellent quarterback.

The Browns also traded for first-down machine Jarvis Landry. Put Taylor, Landry and Josh Gordon together (assuming Gordon can stay on the field) and you'd have a Voltron-like offensive monster.

Second, since the Browns pick first and fourth, they can get Barkley, maybe the most explosive player in the draft, and a quarterback like USC's Sam Darnold.

Again, we don't know what the Browns will do, but I can tell you some of the people who draft for a living believe strongly this is the direction the Browns are headed.

Darron Cummings/Associated Press

There's one other thing you need to know. There is a great sense of admiration from teams in the league over what the Browns are doing. They see it as the team desperately—but smartly—trying to change the culture in the organization.

They see a Browns team fighting to change things for the better, like a desperate player who has struggled for his career, and is making one last push to end the rut.

Still, can we trust Cleveland? It is, after all, Cleveland, and the Browns have been Clevelandy for so many years that there is still plenty of time for them to screw this up in the most Clevelandy of ways. Like, using a top pick to draft a kicker.

When it comes to quarterbacks, and drafts, no one defines putrid like the Browns. So, yes, there's a good chance that Cleveland will Cleveland this up.

One thing a team official told me Friday was do not discount the fact that now that the Browns have Taylor, they can take that first pick and trade it for several picks.

Giving up that pick, though, would be incredibly dumb, but the Browns have passed on prime opportunities before. They passed on Deshaun Watson not once but twice.

The other issue with any notion that Cleveland would take a running back first is that John Dorsey, the team's general manager, is considered a smart, but also old-school football man. Many in the sport consider it extremely wasteful to spend a No. 1 overall pick on a back. That's probably why one hasn't been taken there since Ki-Jana Carter in 1995.

The Browns could decide to go quarterback first overall and swing a trade to move into the second or third spot for Barkley. Some teams also cautioned they were hearing the Browns wanted to take a quarterback first, and move into the third spot, and take North Carolina State defensive end Bradley Chubb.

(Now comes my usual caveat that all teams this time of year lie their asses off.)

Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

What isn't a question is the Browns, for now, are the most aggressive team in the draft. They got Taylor. The Browns also gave Miami a fourth-rounder in 2018 and seventh-rounder in 2019 for Landry, one source confirmed to me. Indeed, that is pretty cheap for a quality player like Landry, who is just 25 years old and in Miami had 400 catches (more than any other player in his first four seasons), 4,038 yards and 22 touchdowns in four years.

The Browns also traded DeShone Kizer to the Packers for cornerback Damarious Randall.

What happens now? The Browns will likely still make moves. We're seeing a team, in many ways, fight for its soul.

They have been so bad for so long, it's easy to mock them. And the Browns deserve it.

But they are trying. Damn they are trying. 

Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @mikefreemanNFL.