Grading the Cleveland Browns draft class for 2022

Overall Grade

Let’s look at what the Browns did in this draft.

• Skipped over better prospects to accumulate mid-round picks, which usually don’t last past their first contract.
• Drafted three defensive linemen to aid depth, but none who jump out as starters.
• Drafted two wide receivers to aid depth, but none who jump out as starters.
• Ignored safety but drafted another corner.
• Traded away the team’s best tackler in the secondary.
• Acquired more mid-to-late round draft picks in the process.
• May have found some late-round gems.
• Drafted a kicker.

I mean, when it’s spelled out it’s not a great draft. It could’ve been. Had the Browns taken Skyy Moore or Alec Pierce at No. 44, then gotten guys like Martin Emerson or Perrion Winfrey, then I would have a much different view on this draft.

Just because you take a player at a position of need doesn’t mean you picked the right player. Let’s think back to 2011. The Browns needed a wide receiver and Julio Jones was on the board. They traded down because, like Andrew Berry, that regime valued draft picks over players. So they traded down and took Greg Little in the second. They knew better than everyone else in the NFL, after all. They had Little higher on their boards than Jones.

Did the Browns just do the same thing with David Bell? Don’t say this isn’t the same situation, as Berry took Jedrick Wills, who is average at best, over Tristan Wirfs, a top 10 linemen. I don’t need another example, as that one was his first pick and is continually being wheeled out to show that Berry isn’t perfect and far from successful at drafting. In fact, the Browns are still trying to find one starter on the defensive line in three drafts.

Berry has taken four defensive linemen in three years, and none of them look to be starters. Will he get a fourth draft to finally find a starter?

In fact, outside of Greg Newsome and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, how many of the guys that Berry picked can you say are looking like second-contract type players? Even those two are unknowns because they could always fall off or become injury-plagued. I’ve been very high on past Berry drafts but the trading down was a mistake in my opinion and since this is purely my opinion, I’m going to flex that.

This draft looks like it sucked. I was wrong about the first two of his drafts, proclaiming how good they looked, and they are anything but. So I’m going to go with my gut and just say this is a disappointing draft.

David Bell may stick around but he was a fourth-round pick and should’ve been a second receiver taken. He should not have been the reason the Browns felt comfortable in trading out of the second and passing on some of the studs still there.

I’m not just going to give them an ‘F’, however. We’re going to do this like you would get a GPA. Each pick was assigned a letter grade and we’re giving each letter grade a point value. Just like in school, A’s are four points, B’s are three, C’s are two, D’s are one, and F’s are zero.

The Browns had nine picks, with 17 points overall when all the grades are added up. That’s a 1.88, which on the GPA scale is a D+. If this grade upsets you, then make sure those players I was hardest on proves me wrong.

Draft Class Grade: D+