The Cleveland Browns have had a very good run over the past 12 plus months under Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefanski. The team won 11 games, won a playoff game, and solidified Baker Mayfield as their franchise quarterback.
Three huge goals checked off in one season.
This offseason has been more of the same. Quality players added in free agency with only a few departures of note while still holding on to enough cap space to make a major move or to role over to make sure they can sign some of their core players to extensions.
There is a popular Simpson’s clip that is used when situations are going well like this. For the Browns, “Everything’s Coming up Browns!”
That trend continued as the NFL draft unfolded in Cleveland this year. The Browns drafted a top-flight corner to join Denzel Ward and watched as Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, a player they considered with their top pick, slid down the board. The Browns pounced with a small trade-up and added two high-end defensive prospects to a defense that was revamped in free agency.
Thor Nystrom of NBC Sports Edge came out with his rankings of teams’ returns from the draft and undrafted free agency. Nystrom defines what they were looking at:
We will rank in two different metrics: Overall talent acquired, and Return on Investment (how much talent was acquired in relation to how much pick equity was spent).
The Browns ranked ninth in ranking total talent acquired but only spent the twentieth amount of draft capital to acquire that talent. Combined, the Browns ranked third overall in return on investment behind Seattle and Kansas City.
Important to note that the Seahawks and Chiefs had two of the lowest amounts of assets to spend in the draft, along with Houston, while the Browns had a full allotment of draft assets for a team who made the playoffs.
Not surprisingly, the Browns drafting of Owusu-Koramoah was considered great value. Nystrom also had Marvin Wilson ranked 77th overall and the Browns signed him as an undrafted free agent.
Tommy Togiai and James Hudson were also considered good values where they were selected.
On the negative side, Richard LeCounte III is ranked as the Browns biggest reach while Demetric Felton was also a slight reach, based on his rankings.
In the end, the Browns got a very high return on investment especially considering that they had a full allotment of picks, unlike the two teams ranked ahead of them.
Everything is coming up Browns.