NFL Executives Rank Cleveland Browns Defender #1 Player at His Position

This training camp, the Cleveland Browns will be searching for answers at quite a few positions on their depth chart. Most notably, there's still not a runaway favorite for their 2025 QB1. Hopefully, one of Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel, or Shedeur Sanders will separate himself from the pack by dominating in training camp and preseason and lock down the job.

The Browns will be looking for some standouts to fill a few different holes aside from quarterback, too. They'll especially be searching for an offensive weapon to stick out. Outside of Jerry Jeudy, Jerome Ford, and David Njoku, Cleveland deeply lacks reliable playmakers to make life easy for whoever will start under center for them come Week 1. The opportunity is there for someone like Quinshon Judkins, Diontae Johnson, or Harold Fannin Jr. to earn a prominent role in the offense.

Thankfully, they have much less to worry about on the other side of the ball. The Browns are bringing in a solid secondary that can hold its own. It also helps that they feature arguably the strongest front seven in the entire NFL. Cleveland should be able to regularly shut down running games and disrupt passing attacks next season, led by Myles Garrett, who NFL executives, coaches, and scouts just voted the game's best edge rusher for the second year in a row.

ESPN's Jeremy Fowler recently released his list, which polled notable figures around the league on the top players at each position, and Garrett dominated the survey. One NFL coordinator gave him high praise:

"There's a short list of guys you have to shift your fronts to, and Garrett is the first person you think of when it comes to how much of your game plan he occupies. Every single second on the field you know what he's doing, or what he might do next."

Not only has he been the cream of the crop on the edge, but he could still be getting better, said one of the coordinators who was interviewed:

"He has significantly refined his overall game over the years. A good tackle used to be able to give him problems, but that's less and less the case now. He's more consistent with his pass rush."

Myles Garrett might already be at the pinnacle of his position, but no one would be surprised if he became even more unstoppable. That's a scary thought for the rest of the league.