2025 NFL Mock Draft: Shedeur Sanders, welcome to Cleveland

The Cleveland Browns need a quarterback. They have the second pick in the 2025 NFL Draft — a draft with two clear cut quarterback prospects that have risen above the fray.

Seems clear cut, right? But the Browns have several problems to address after following up Joe Flacco’s 2023 playoff run with a three-win campaign and the league’s worst offense. Cleveland has to surround that quarterback with playmakers and boost a once-proud defense. But thanks in large part to Deshaun Watson’s immovable contract — owner Jimmy Haslam handed him an unprecedented $230 million fully guaranteed after trading three first round picks for a player accused of more than 20 counts of sexual misconduct dating to his time as a Houston Texan — the franchise enters the offseason an estimated $30 million over the 2025 salary cap.

Keeping the second overall pick means not trading back and amassing the inexpensive assets that can guide the Browns from this place in salary cap hell. It also means putting a blue chip quarterback in a portfolio loaded with penny stocks. And that’s before getting to the fact one of the most outspoken personalities in football — a guy who could easily take aim at Cleveland’s myriad flaws and management issues — happens to be one of those quarterback’s very involved father.

Despite all this, Shedeur Sanders? YOU are a Cleveland Brown.

In this still entirely too early mock 2025 NFL Draft.

Let’s see how the first round shakes out. Since it’s barely February, no trades in this lineup just yet. Let’s see which rookies make sense and where.