It’s been a busy but quiet work period for a new Cleveland Browns coaching staff and a team in transition. The race to make significant offensive improvements and prepare for April’s NFL Draft is about to grab the spotlight.

The NFL Scouting Combine begins this week. The NFL’s player movement period starts in two weeks, on March 9. The combine is about collecting draft information and getting up-close looks at some of the most talented and interesting prospects. But the entire league spending almost a week in Indianapolis leads to a lot of conversations about trade scenarios, impending contract decisions and free-agent landing spots.

Big business gets done, even if the results of private Indianapolis conversations don’t become public for a couple more weeks.

Ahead of the combine, I thought a mailbag would be the best way to lay out what we might know about Cleveland’s intentions and goals. It also allows us to acknowledge that there’s a lot we don’t know about its priorities and options.

Even though the Browns are going to use contract restructures to create enough space to be active in free agency, we don’t know how many top-of-market players at positions of interest to the Browns will actually hit the open market.

Once we see the first set of player moves and hear from the new coordinators, it will be easier to answer some of the more complex questions about how the Browns will approach the offseason. It’s still February, and many of the decisions made at quarterback in free agency and the draft will shape what we see in the summer and fall.

On with the speculation! Questions have been edited for length and clarity.

Going with the philosophy that elite players win in the NFL, shouldn’t the Browns take the absolute best player available at No. 6, regardless of position? I get the offense (O-line in particular) is a dumpster fire, but if the far-and-away best player is a defender, I think you have to go with talent over need. — Brant

In the big picture of the Browns probably being a multi-year rebuild and just needing to add as many difference-making players on affordable contracts as possible, you’re right in thinking the sound plan would involve keeping an open mind and targeting the best available player, regardless of position. But the journey back to respectability cannot begin with even the thought of ignoring the first roadblock: With so many needs across the offense, your fair point ends quickly.

This is not a normal situation. Four years after the worst trade in decades emphatically closed the door on a window of contention and left a bunch of bad money on the salary cap, the Browns have almost no returning experience on the offensive line and head to March with bottom-five situations at quarterback and wide receiver.

Deshaun Watson, the centerpiece of the aforementioned trade, will be on the team in 2026 because Cleveland can’t afford to take on his current salary-cap number of around $80 million to cut him. The Browns instead must push half of that forward to keep him on the roster.

Cleveland needs at least three starting-quality offensive linemen and at least two explosive receivers. The Browns have a truly unique weapon in tight end Harold Fannin Jr. and a gifted running back in Quinshon Judkins, who’s coming back from a major injury. But they have no sure answer at quarterback and not much depth anywhere.

An entire offensive line group is headed out the door. If the Browns had to play a game this Sunday, their offensive tackles would be KT Leveston and Dawand Jones, and that’s only assuming that Jones — who’s only signed for one more season — would have medical clearance to play. All three of his previous NFL seasons have ended with him on injured reserve. It’s unlikely but not totally crazy to think the Browns could draft offensive tackles at both No. 6 and No. 24 in the first round.

Short of a surprise deletion from the defensive roster in the coming weeks, I can’t see a way that any of the team’s first three picks could be used on a defensive player. This front office has completely wrecked the offense and was somehow afforded the chance to fix it. Finding explosive players for the offense has to be the full focus, and I believe it will be. It has to be.

Lots of things are in play when it comes to the next two months: trade positioning, the possibility of angling toward 2027, a young offensive tackle prospect eventually moving spots and — we can neither forget nor underplay — uncertainty at the game’s most important position.

But there’s no way a defensive player can be considered at No. 6. If Caleb Downs is really good enough to have seven interceptions as a rookie and help build the new stadium on his days off, then Cleveland should trade the pick to the highest NFC bidder and load up on more top 60 selections for the next two drafts. The Ohio State Football Factory has another blue-chip robot coming off the assembly line next year, and he’s a wide receiver.

I’m absolutely open to discussing receiver versus offensive tackle early in the draft and how the Browns should allocate their free-agent budget if any good offensive player 26 or under actually hits the market. The Browns started their 2024 draft with defensive tackle Mike Hall Jr. and guard Zak Zinter. They finished that year with Bailey Zappe and Dorian Thompson-Robinson at quarterback, throwing to Kaden Davis and Blake Whiteheart. And the front office is still in place two seasons later.

Does it really make sense to consider or pursue Malik Willis? He has thrown fewer professional passes than Shedeur Sanders, which is wild to me. It feels like the best possibility is to keep someone like Sanders on an incredibly affordable rookie deal. — Mike K.

If the Browns think Willis is a starting-quality quarterback with top-level mobility after posting three quality starts over two seasons in Green Bay, the answer is emphatically yes.

There are layers to a potential pursuit of Willis and any next step in the quarterback room. Although my gut feeling is that the Browns will most likely stick with Sanders and then look in a later wave of free agency or the second round of the draft to fill out the 2026 room, the more I’ve examined the overall quarterback landscape, the more I’ve come to believe that if Cleveland wants Willis, it’ll be on a short list of real suitors. The Browns can easily structure a contract that includes $35 million to $40 million of guaranteed money over multiple seasons.

Do the Browns want Willis? Given the other options and what new coach Todd Monken did in Baltimore with the dynamic Lamar Jackson, they might (and likely should). We just don’t know whether Willis would actually want the Browns’ situation over his other options.

As for the overall concerns about his lack of true experience, that’s certainly part of the evaluation. Monken, general manager Andrew Berry and anyone else involved must evaluate every potential quarterback option before really talking through the cost, upside and risk involved with all of their preferred and realistic options.

I’m comfortable calling Willis a realistic option and believing the Browns will at least request a seat at the table — unless they truly believe Sanders is a long-term starter.

So much of the offseason roadmap probably touches that last part. Do the Browns truly have high hopes for Sanders? And regardless of that answer, what do they plan to do in the first 10 days of March at other spots if the plan doesn’t include Willis?

Maybe the plan is just to add non-QB pieces and bet on the 2025 and 2026 draft classes to perform at a high level ahead of either Sanders winning the job or another quarterback search in 2027. Or, maybe the plan is to have Willis (or Mac Jones via trade) take the job and try to ride the defense to better things in 2026 while developing a young core.

In either case, the Browns need a veteran receiver and experience on the interior of the offensive line while adding at least one rookie offensive tackle. If Willis is in the plans, I’d expect the team to be more aggressive in the veteran wide receiver market and maybe look to find an experienced tackle via trade.

In the latter scenario, the team is more likely to try to talk guard Joel Bitonio into playing another season and to re-sign linebacker Devin Bush.

What are the chances that Watson starts again next season? — Michael A.

I consider that only an absolute last resort and worst-case scenario.

Given that the Browns had five starting quarterbacks in 2023, four in 2024 and three last year, I know it would be silly to rule out anyone or anything. But for dozens of reasons that include his past disappointing play, what will be 22 months away from the field by September and 2026 being the final year of the most painful and expensive contract in franchise history, there’s just little chance anyone involved sees that as a winning situation.

There will probably be a coordinated and embarrassing media push to make him seem like a real option, but I don’t see it happening.

The level at which Watson and the Browns would need to play in 2026 for him to be considered a true success just seems unattainable based on anything we’ve seen about the Browns’ long road to recover from their commitment to him.

Will the Browns drafting a QB in the middle rounds spell the end for Dillon Gabriel? It would make sense to me to target guys like Carson Beck or Drew Allar. — Todd W

If the Browns don’t get Willis (or Jones, or Tanner McKee via trade), then, at least externally, the draft discussion will pivot to the group that starts with Ty Simpson and Garrett Nussmeier and then later goes to Taylen Green, Cole Payton and Allar. The medical checks for Simpson and Nussmeier this week are huge for the shaping of this draft class — and several teams’ draft boards.

I expect Gabriel to be traded. But I don’t know if there’s any real market for him. And if there isn’t, the Browns can wait until the summer. If Sanders is replaced in early March, it’s probably not completely wild to assume he could also be traded. Would there be more than a couple of real suitors? I don’t know.

How many rookie offensive linemen are too many? — Michael R.

Among the Week 1 starting five, two is probably a healthy maximum. But you generally have to use high draft picks to find the best tackles, and the Browns have painted themselves into quite a corner. Among the nine who eventually make the 53-man roster, I think the Browns will have three rookies and maybe more first- or second-year linemen in the practice squad pipeline.

One quick but semi-important note: Bitonio and the Browns pushing back the void date on his contract isn’t necessarily a sign that he is undecided on whether to retire or continue playing. I don’t know what his decision will be, but the new March 10 deadline allows the Browns to explore different scenarios through March 9, when priority free agents will agree to terms and trades can be finalized.

The March 11 start of the league year is when deals can be processed, and only after the new league year begins can void-year contracts be designated for post-June 1 cap savings. So, the newly agreed-upon date gives the Browns the best shot to properly allocate their cap spending regardless of whether Bitonio decides to retire, come back to the Browns or even move on.