Rumor: Browns and Broncos in talks over No. 1 pick

Cleveland Browns general manager John Dorsey may be looking for an offer he can’t refuse for the No. 1 overall pick. Will Denver Broncos general manager John Elway take the bait?

Cleveland Browns general manager John Dorsey announced on Thursday that the team is “open for business” when it comes to trading the No. 1 overall selection in the 2018 NFL Draft.

That statement is quite possibly a smokescreen or just a way for Dorsey to have a laugh while watching everyone scramble to decipher any hidden meanings in his statement.

It could also be a challenge to the league’s other general managers that, if they want to make an offer that would greatly benefit the Browns, then Dorsey would be willing to listen.

Well, according to Chad Forbes at NFL Draft Bites, Denver Broncos general manager John Elway may have said “challenge accepted” as the Browns and Broncos are reportedly talking about the possibility of the Browns sending the top pick west to the Broncos.

While there are no further specifics on the details of a potential trade, Forbes does point out that the deal will hinge on where quarterback Kirk Cousins lands in free agency, which makes a lot of sense.

Both the Browns, because of their copious amount of cap space, and the Broncos, because they are more in a “win now” position, have been linked to Cousins, who is expected to quickly become the league’s highest-paid player once free agency opens on March 14.

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If the Browns were to somehow open the bank and sign Cousins, then the No. 1 overall pick will not be necessary to select a quarterback, which opens the door for a trade with Denver.

The same, obviously, is true of the Broncos – persuade Cousins to join a better team for less money – and the urgency to move up in the draft and select a quarterback is gone.

Even if Cousins signs somewhere other than Cleveland or Denver, it is going to be hard for him to ignore the Minnesota Vikings, it is possible that the Browns and Broncos could still work out a trade.

The question is what would it take for Dorsey to accept a deal with the Broncos?

Denver currently has the No. 5 overall selection in the first round along with selection No. 40 in the second round. The Browns would certainly swap No. 1 picks this year and that second-round pick would have to be part of the compensation. That would give Dorsey the No. 4 and No. 5 selections in the first round, plus four picks in round two – No. 33, No. 35, No. 40 and No. 64.

Not a bad way to start your first draft in Cleveland, and while there will still be a quarterback available at No. 4, it would be a huge gamble by Dorsey that the quarterback the Browns really want is still there.

If Denver is desperate enough, Dorsey might be able to squeeze a 2019 first-round pick out of the deal, but it would have to take more than just draft picks for this to be something that Dorsey would consider. (Although the idea of Dorsey trading the No. 1 overall pick is a spicy one, only to see the anti-analytics crowd hurt themselves trying to explain why it is a smart move.)

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For now, this is all just fun talk while everyone waits for free agency to open in a couple of weeks.

Dorsey wants to make his mark on the Browns and has the opportunity to do that come draft weekend. Trading the No. 1 overall pick might not be the type of headline-making move he envisions, however.