The Cleveland Browns entered the 2025 NFL Draft with the second overall pick and many thought the team was gearing up to take Colorado athlete Travis Hunter, who played both wide receiver and cornerback during his collegiate years. Well, curve ball alert -- The Browns traded the second overall pick to the Jaguars, who took Hunter.
Meanwhile, Cleveland moved down to the fifth pick and took Mason Graham. It's not a bad pick by any means and the Browns got a haul in exchange for moving down three spots but Hunter is a generational player and it stinks that he won't be suiting up for the Browns.
To make matters worse, the Browns ended up landing Shedeur Sanders in the fifth round and could have reunited the two former Colorado teammates. Sanders already has a shot to win the starting quarterback job in Cleveland but imagine how much better things could have gone for him had he been reunited with his buddy from his Boulder days.
Browns missed out on chance to reunite Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter
The Browns clearly had a method to all of the madness but if the plan was to try and grab Sanders later on (though they had no way of knowing he'd plummet as far as he did), why not at least have a familiar face for him already on the team? It's also not like Hunter isn't a proven prospect and that he wouldn't have made Cleveland a better football team so this makes passing on him hurt even more.
While there was no guarantee that the Browns would have still been able to get Sanders had they stood pat and drafted Hunter, they wouldn't have necessarily had to let him slide as far as he did and the two former Colorado teammates could have teamed up in a dangerous way in Cleveland.
Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Hunter is in Jacksonville and Sanders will be competing with a few other guys for the starting quarterback job.