One of the most fascinating parts of the NFL Draft is how teams go about selecting players. It's a refreshing development that not all teams follow the same blueprint. Some teams opt for size above all. Other teams have an affinity for once-in-a-generation athletes, even if they're still considered raw as football players. Another common strategy is seeking out players whose performance in college stood out, even if they don't possess the enticing measurables.
Ultimately, there's more than one way to peel a banana. There's no one strategy that edges out all others. A sign of a cognizant general manager, however, is recognizing the state of their roster and attacking the draft accordingly. When you go to the grocery store, you don't just keep stocking up on the thing you have at home. You get the things you're missing.
Over the last two dreadful seasons in particular, fans have come to observe a lack of oomph among the current Browns, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Make no mistake, any player who's stepped foot on an NFL field is in the top 0.001% of athletes in the world. The Browns, though, have been missing those difference-makers who stand out among the crowd.
The 2026 Cleveland Browns draft class is among the league's most athletic
Consider the message received. Relative Athletic Score (RAS) has become a popular metric in recent years. Cultivated by Kent Lee Platte, it is summarized like this:
"[RAS is] a metric that can easily and intuitively gauge a player’s athletic abilities relative to the position they play and provide tools to contrast and compare based on known measurables."
With this tool, we can compare each Browns draft pick's athletic profile against nearly four decades of prospects at the same position. RAS is graded on a 1–10 scale, with 10 representing an all-time elite athlete at that spot (think Calvin Johnson or D.K. Metcalf). We applied those scores across the entire 2026 draft class to get a league-wide picture. When the dust settled, the results were striking.
The Browns had seven of their 10 draft choices qualify for an RAS grade due to NFL Combine participation. The group garnered an average score of 9.39, which ranked second in the entire league behind only the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. If you didn't think Andrew Berry heard about his team's lack of explosiveness, he just gave everyone an emphatic counterpoint.
Headlined by quarterback Taylen Green (9.99 RAS) and offensive tackles Austin Barber (9.81) and Spencer Fano (9.79), the Browns not only filled positions of need, but they did it with rare specimens. Gone seem to be the days of Andrew Berry's prioritization of enormous tackle prospects with suspect movement ability.
The future of the Cleveland Browns appears to be premised on athletic offensive line play, a turn of events that should be music to Browns fans' ears. These prospects are the kind of players sought by the league's best offenses that almost unanimously hail from the Kyle Shanahan coaching tree. If it took hiring a 60-year-old head coach to get with modern times, so be it.
In any case, the Browns added dynamism in droves over the three-day NFL Draft. It remains to be seen whether it translates to wins on the field, but for now, the excitement is more than justified.
Add us as a preferred source on Google