Before finalizing their NFL Draft night trade back from six overall to ninth overall, the Cleveland Browns GM Andrew Berry had one notable request for Kansas City Chiefs GM Brett Veach.
Leading up to last week's NFL Draft, there was a feeling that Cleveland Browns GM Andrew Berry was cooking up another draft-day trade back like the one he pulled off with the Jacksonville Jaguars last April.
As it turned out, that intuition proved correct as Berry wound up shipping the No. 6 overall pick to the Kansas City Chiefs in exchange for the No. 9 overall pick, plus 2026 third and fifth rounders.
The move paved the way for Cleveland to still land the player they wanted at six, selecting Utah tackle Spencer Fano to finish their o-line overhaul. As straightforward as it all seemed, apparently, Berry made one final request for Kansas City GM Brett Veach before agreeing to the deal.
Via Breer's Monday Morning QB column:
With the groundwork laid, Veach’s offer came after the Giants took Reese, putting Cleveland on the clock. It’d include the top-100 pick (No. 74) that Berry coveted, plus a fifth-round sweetener (No. 148). The trade-off on the draft value chart—the picks Browns were getting add to 1,602 points, the sixth pick is worth 1,600—was just about perfect. But Berry asked for one thing to push the deal past the goal line. He wanted to know whether Kansas City would be taking an offensive or defensive player.
Veach answered defense. Berry agreed to the terms. The Browns have their left tackle.
It's hard to really know how often teams negotiating trades up and down the draft board ask for some intel on the player the team moving up may be interested in.
Obviously, teams are under no obligation to do so, but in this case, Berry was able to pry it out of Veach. That information helped him get a better sense of who would be available when they were picking at nine, using context clues about the Commanders and Saints needs at picks seven and eight to have a pretty good sense Fano would still be there.
Berry always talks about "maximizing the value of his picks, and he did just that with No. 6 overall. The Browns still got their guy in Fano, who, according to Breer would have been the pick at six if they had stayed put, but also added some valuable draft capital as well.
Over the course of the entire weekend, Berry executed a whopping six trades up and down the board. The additional picks he acquired from the Chiefs were ultimately used in two of those trades. Pick 74 in the third round was sent to the New York Giants in a trade down, which eventually turned into a trade back up to draft Florida tackle Austin Barber 86th overall. The fifth round pick, No. 148, was traded to the Seattle Seahawks for a 2027 fourth rounder.
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