That the Cleveland Browns want desperately to move out of the second-overall selection in the 2016 NFL Draft is no longer a question. What remains a mystery is just what kind of compensation they're seeking or would be willing to accept in exchange for a draft pick that's now the most sought-after in the draft process after the Los Angeles Rams secured the first selection from the Tennessee Titans for the keys to this year's draft and next.
With Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta looking at a reclamation project the likes of which even Browns fans, so used to burning the franchise down to the studs and starting fresh, would find daunting, moving out of the second pick in exchange for further draft resources makes ample sense.
But what the Browns are apparently seeking in exchange for the selection probably isn't going to leave many of the Cleveland faithful with a positive outlook on the still-young Hue Jackson-Brown-DePodesta era, and will likely have at least a few of the NFL's veteran personnel men scratching their heads and muttering to themselves about Brad Pitt and "Moneyball."
Per a report, the Browns aren't seeking the highest pick possible in return for the No. 2 overall selection - they want as many mid- and late-round picks as possible.
Now, the surprising aspect of this isn't that they want those mid- and late-round picks. The Browns have holes at nearly every level of their roster. Brown and DePodesta made it clear with their approach to NFL free agency that they believe this a tear-down job.
Everything - down to the foundation and, yes, even the studs - needs to go, needs to be replaced by young, hungry, hand-picked draft selections who bring not just talent, but the right kind of talent to the new-look Browns.
Accumulating picks to jump-start that process makes sense.
What doesn't - or at least what should probably carry more weight for the franchise, at least in the eyes of the rest of the NFL - is securing as high a first-round pick as possible via whatever trade down scenario they go with.
That way, they add a blue-chip prospect - presumably - along with that boatload of later round picks.
And considering what the Rams gave up to secure the first pick and the rights to Jared Goff or Carson Wentz - the 15th overall pick in this year's draft, two second-round picks (43 and 45) and a third-rounder (76) in 2016, as well as the Rams' first- and third-round picks in 2017 - it will probably be pretty close to a boatload, at least a canoe-full.
But as DePodesta showed when he was just a kid fresh out of college with the Oakland Athletics, he's willing to go against the grain in order to follow his own vision of building a winning team. Adding as many picks as possible isn't exactly revolutionary, but eschewing a high pick - quality - for more picks later - quantity - is a new approach and, according to accepted NFL knowledge of the notoriously unknowable draft process, ill-advised.
Whether that approach ultimately works in the NFL as it did in the MLB - for a big-money team like the Red Sox, of course, not DePodesta's cash-poor Athletics - remains to be seen.
But it's sure going to be interesting to watch unfold, as the NFL's legion of pundits pull their hair out, slowly working themselves to an inconsolable state over every strange decision, every outside-the-box move the Browns, Brown and DePodesta make.
