As they try to bounce back from a dismal 3-14 season — which came just one year after they won 11 games and qualified for the playoffs — the Cleveland Browns have a problem. They have no quarterback.

At least, they have no viable one. As he enters the third season of a five-year, $230 million contract, polarizing seven-year veteran Deshaun Watson will miss “significant” time after undergoing a second surgery on his Achilles tendon in January. Then there’s 10-year veteran Jameis Winston who started seven games for Cleveland in 2024, but is so clearly not in the Browns’ plans that he is openly visiting other teams in search of a job.

Last week, the Browns acquired Pittsburgh Steelers 2022 first-round draft pick Kenny Pickett in a trade, but after two sluggish seasons with the Steelers and a year backing up Jalen Hurts with the Philadelphia Eagles, it seems doubtful that the Browns are willing to hand Pickett their starting QB job.

In Draft, it’s Sanders or No One For Browns

Of course, Cleveland holds the second overall pick in the 2025 draft. But the quarterback class this year appears thin. With the Tennessee Titans, at No. 1, also in need of a quarterback and expected to select Miami Hurricanes signal-caller Cam Ward, that leaves Cleveland with Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders.

But NFL insiders are now reportedly looking at Sanders with a skeptical eye, wondering whether he merits a first round pick at all, much less the No. 2 overall pick.

“There are going to be a lot of teams that look at him as a second- or third-round pick based on his physical skill set,” said Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated in a recent interview. “For him, it’s going to be about finding the place that looks at him differently and sees him differently and says, ‘This guy is a fit for us in particular.’”

That place may be Cleveland. But one NFL analyst who focuses on Cleveland believes that the Browns should spend a fourth round draft pick to take “an intriguing talent” from the New England Patriots — last year’s Patriots sixth-round pick out of Tennessee, Joe Milton III.

“I floated the idea of trading for Milton last week,” wrote 850 ESPN Cleveland Browns analyst Tony Grossi in his Sunday “mailbag” column. “One drawback would be the cost. Sources closer to the situation than me expect the asking price of the Patriots to be a third-round pick. I’m not sure I’d make that deal, but I would definitely inquire to see if some conditions could be negotiated to make the deal more equitable.”

Patriots Reportedly Asking 3rd-Round Pick For Milton

Grossi said that sources close to the Patriots have indicated that New England’s asking price for Milton — who possesses what experts call the NFL’s “strongest arm” — will be a third-round draft pick.

But for Grossi, a better deal for Cleveland is “a fourth-round pick in 2026 that improves to a third if Milton plays a certain percentage of offensive snaps.”

Milton is regularly observed launching 80-yard bombs in training sessions, and in his lone appearance last season, in Week 18 against a Buffalo Bills squad that admittedly consisted mainly of second-string players, Milton unleashed the second-fastest throw ever recorded by an NFL quarterback, 61.7 mph — and he did it after scrambling away from three pass rushers and sidearming the ball from the sideline.

Grossi said that though he has “floated” his proposal that the Browns address their quarterback deficiency with a trade for Milton, there is “no evidence whatsoever the Browns had interest in doing so.”

In the second year of his four-year, $4.2 million rookie contract, Milton represents an economical alternative under center for the Browns.