The 11th annual SB Nation NFL writers’ mock draft is here, with bloggers from each of the NFL team sites making the pick for their respective teams. As always, we’re running two rounds, with three picks publishing each weekday.
2017 NFL mock draft: Myles Garrett to the Cleveland Browns at No. 1
The SB Nation NFL writers’ mock is back for the 11th year starting with the Cleveland Browns
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Chris Pokorny of Dawgs by Nature gets us started this year with the first overall pick belonging to the Cleveland Browns. Cleveland entered the offseason with more than $100 million in salary cap room, but hasn’t signed a pass rusher. That comes despite having just 26 sacks in 2016, the second-worst total in the NFL. That’s as good of an indication as anything on where this pick is going.
1. Browns: Myles Garrett, DE, Texas A&M
Pokorny: Despite the long-standing need for a quarterback, there is no doubt that the Cleveland Browns will select Myles Garrett. He has been rated as the top prospect for a while, and delivering at the NFL Combine solidified his status as a can’t-miss pick. Besides the need at quarterback, for which there isn’t a worthy prospect at No. 1 overall, it also aligns with a positional need for Cleveland.
The team significantly addressed the offensive side of the trenches in free agency by giving left guard Joel Bitonio a lucrative contract extension, making free agent right guard Kevin Zeitler the highest-paid guard in the NFL, and adding JC Tretter to man the center position. The team has yet to upgrade the defense that ranked No. 31 in the NFL in 2016 under former defensive coordinator Ray Horton. The team’s new defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams, has already been salivating over Garrett, who can inject a spark into the defense from Day One.
Analysis: Of the 64 picks that will take place in this mock draft, this is obviously the easiest one to execute. Garrett has been the top player in the draft since the start of the last college football season, and he fits one of Cleveland’s pick needs.
Top five players remaining
- 2. Jonathan Allen, DL, Alabama
- 3. Jamal Adams, S, LSU
- 4. Malik Hooker, S, Ohio State
- 5. Marshon Lattimore, CB, Ohio State
- 6. Solomon Thomas, DE, Stanford
Browns picks
- 1-1: Myles Garrett, DE, Texas A&M
- 1-12: (coming March 30)
- 2-33: (coming April 10)
- 2-52: (coming April 19)
Our next pick of the day is coming up at noon ET via David Fucillo from our San Francisco 49ers site Niners Nation.
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