What Are The Cleveland Browns Age Guardrails?
The guardrails examine how Andrew Berry has operated in the past and then project this forward. While he could draft an older player or someone less athletic than they have ever done before, it is a solid starting point for what he seems to prefer. That is why my work ranges from ideal to unlikely. When the guardrails are saying Andrew Berry has never done x before, it is counter intuitive to edit this before he actually does something. People have asked would I edit them based on the age of the draft class or NIL but this is also poor process, if it was a young draft class I wouldn’t edit them down, so why edit up for an old class.
One thing to remember: the guardrails don’t apply to quarterbacks and special teams players. If you want to get a good idea on what they might look for at quarterback research QBASE, this was developed by Andrew Healy. He was hired under Sashi Brown and currently works as the team’s Vice President, Strategy. Data around this used to be hosted on Football Outsider, it has now moved to ESPN.
Do The Age Guardrails Work?
I have studied the efficiency of the age guardrails, and you can view them here: 2020, 2021, 2022, do other teams use them?
With several years of evidence, I think if you are viewing the age guardrails as something negative then you aren’t looking at the facts and results that are in front of you. Another thing to be aware of is we all overvalue picks outside the first two rounds far too much and expect a hit rate that isn’t reasonable.
We are starting to see many players move towards being three contract players in Cleveland, this is only possible by drafting young.
The Cleveland Browns roster is also in a really strong position due to Jimmy Haslam’s spending commitment, so the idea that you ever need to draft starters is poor process. The players they are adding in the first three rounds should be viewed as what they can do in years two to eight more than year one. It is best to use free agency for this.
Ranking Andrew Berry’s Drafts
Here is an article looking at Andrew Berry’s drafting compared to the General Managers over the same period to look at how he has done. While many people expect him to hit 1.000 in the draft it is better to compare him to other teams to see how he is doing.
The Guardrails
The guardrails have been updated from what they were in 2024, and you can read this piece here.
Age Draft Day (Changed from week one previously)
Rounds 1-2
Ideal – 21.50 or less
Okay – 21.51 to 22.00
Unlikely – 22.01 or more
Rounds 3-4
Ideal – 22.00 or less
Okay – 22.01 to 23.10
Unlikely – 23.10 or more
Round 5-7
Ideal – 22.50 or less
Okay – 22.51 to 23.75
Unlikely – 23.76 or more
RAS
Rounds 1-2
Ideal – 8.00 or more
Okay – 6.00 to 7.99
Unlikely – 5.99 or less
Rounds 3-7
Ideal – 6.00 or more
Okay- 1.00 to 5.99
Unlikely – 0.99 or less
The Draft Board
The draft board is broken down by round. The number after each name is their age day one of the 2025 draft, green is saying they fit in terms of age, yellow is the okay range and red is an age they have never taken with that pick.
Those without an age I could not find, if you see them anywhere, please send their date of birth to me with the source of the data, too, so I can update it for next time.
The second column next to each player is their Relative Athletic Score, a metric developed by Kent Lee Platt to compare them to previous testing by players at the Combine and Pro Days. Here is his site, I will continue to update the chart and more metrics will be added as some players will only test at their Pro Day and not the NFL Combine.
In the left hand column I have added a list of the Cleveland Browns draft picks for quick reference.
The draft board I have used for this is Mock Draft Databases’ Consensus Big Board, so if you are unhappy your favorite player is in a particular place on the board, please send all complaints to them and not the comment section or my Twitter account. As we go along, their board will get more accurate as more experts submit a big boards.
Final Draft Board
For OBR VIP subscribers I will be doing a live version of this draft board throughout the draft marking off players once they have been selected so you can see who is available and been taken. The link to this will be posted within Insider Central.