The Cleveland Browns got off to a strong beginning to the NFL Draft.
Getting an additional first-round pick and trading up in the second round was a huge win for the front office, and they put those selections to great use.
Then, in a shocking turn of events, they took Dillon Gabriel with the No. 94 pick, even though he was projected to be taken in the fifth round by most analysts.
The Browns reportedly met with Gabriel multiple times throughout the course of the pre-draft process, and they were higher on him than many teams.
According to team insider Tony Grossi, they had him ranked ahead of Jalen Milroe and even Shedeur Sanders, who was the sixth quarterback on their board:
“Yet the Browns had [Dillon Gabriel] ranked fourth on their draft board, per a source. They had him behind Ward, Jaxson Dart and Tyler Shough, who were already taken, and ahead of Jalen Milroe, who was taken two spots earlier by Seattle. Shedeur Sanders, who was in the midst of a historic free fall, was sixth on their board after Gabriel and Milroe,” Grossi wrote.
Dillon Gabriel is undersized, older, and a left-handed quarterback, and all of those red flags are very difficult to ignore.
It’s not that he can’t be an NFL-caliber player or didn’t deserve to be taken, but most analysts believe that getting him in the third round was a bit of a reach.
Even if they weren’t that high on Sanders, there was value in taking him in the fifth round, but that only made the Gabriel pick even harder to explain.