Browns fans did a good job on the DBN Big Board, but not so much the Community Mock Draft

We held our annual NFL community mock draft for 2026, with some added emphasis to the Cleveland Browns. We like to do some retrospectives on how the community as a whole ended up doing, so let’s take a look at that now.

Below in the first three columns is how the actual first round (plus a few of the Browns later picks) went down. To preserve who a person intended a player to go to, I denoted if there was a trade and who the initial team in that spot was.

I also have a scoring system of sorts. The pick gets 2 points if the pick matched identically, and if the initial team stayed put. I added a 1.5 point category if the player was the correct pick at the exact spot, but the team itself had changed. If a player was still taken anywhere in the first round, you still got 1 point. And then for the Browns’ picks, if the player was picked and ended up being taken at any point by Cleveland, I still awarded 1 point.

Some notes from the results:

• Last year, even though the order of the selections wasn’t spot on, mock drafters still correctly had three picks going to the Cleveland Browns (QB Shedeur Sanders, RB Quinshon Judkins, TE Harold Fannin Jr.). This year, it wasn’t the mock draft didn’t quite align with reality, as fans originally had Cleveland taking EDGE Rueben Bain, OT Kadyn Proctor, OG Gennings Dunker, and CB D’Angelo Ponds, which left the wide receiver position out altogether.
• fjblessi (Raiders at #1), MC Browns Fan (Ravens at #14), and myself (Seahawks at #32) ended up nailing their picks exactly. That’s a lower-than-usual amount, as there are typically some more picks nailed at the top of the draft.
• Nonetheless, it was a fun exercise once again, and we had great participation this year! I look forward to you guys taking part in 2027.