About USA TODAY Sports’ 30 Days to the NFL Draft series, which started March 25: Every five days, we will focus on a unique aspect of the 2025 draft, which is April 24-26.
Three years ago was the start of a lesson. It was a long lesson. It took years to learn. But it may have finally sunk in.
The lesson was that a team needs to be careful with its draft picks. It needs to understand their value. What they represent. They are a form of currency. They are the future. They are not to be trifled with.
The Cleveland Browns have learned this lesson in the most painful of ways. The most humiliating. The ugliest of ways. That lesson is particularly relevant now because we can officially say now (though unofficially before) that the team’s trade for Deshaun Watson is among the worst trades in the history of American sports.
The Browns got Watson and a 2024 sixth-round pick. The Texans got a 2022 first-round pick, 2023 and 2024 first-round picks, a 2022 fourth rounder, a third-round pick in 2023, and a fourth rounder in 2024.
‘We spent a tremendous amount of time exploring and investigating the opportunity to trade for Deshaun Watson,’ Browns owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam said in a statement in March 2022. ‘We are acutely aware and empathetic to the highly personal sentiments expressed about this decision. Our team’s comprehensive evaluation process was of utmost importance due to the sensitive nature of his situation and the complex factors involved. We also understand there are still some legal proceedings that are ongoing and we will respect due process.
‘It was pivotal that we, along with (general manager) Andrew Berry and (coach) Kevin Stefanski, meet with Deshaun to have a straightforward dialogue, discuss our priorities, and hear directly from him on how he wants to approach his career on and off the field. He was humble, sincere, and candid. In our conversations, Deshaun detailed his commitment to leading our team; he understands and embraces the hard work needed to build his name both in the community and on the field. Those in-depth conversations, the extensive evaluation process, his dedication to being a great teammate and devotion to helping others within the NFL, within the community, and through his charitable initiatives provided the foundation for us to pursue Deshaun.
‘We are confident in Deshaun and excited about moving forward with him as our quarterback and supporting his genuine and determined efforts.’
At the time, there were people inside the league who liked the trade. However, suffice to say there were a number of team officials who believed the Browns were making a huge mistake in giving up so much draft capital.
The primary mistake the Browns made (yes, there were several) was overvaluing Watson’s worth. Duh. The other was not respecting the value of such high draft picks.
It’s true you can find Hall of Fame players in the lower rounds of the draft. Tom Brady was a late-round pick. Those first rounders, however, can be the warp core of your franchise. If you hit on them, things can change generationally. It’s difficult to hit on them but a franchise needs to at least give itself a chance to do so.
What did the Texans do with those picks? As an ESPN story from last year noted, the Texans didn’t draft perfectly, but they got some good players with those picks (or some combination of the Browns’ and their own) like defensive end Will Anderson Jr., who was Defensive Rookie of the Year, and Tank Dell, a solid young receiver.
The NFL draft is an almost impossible thing for teams to decode. It becomes that much harder when you do what the Browns did.
Hopefully, lesson learned.