Trade Pitch Flips Browns Pro Bowl QB to Lions for Draft Pick

The Cleveland Browns are on the precipice of a dilemma in the QB room, though not one of the typical problem-causing sort.

Cleveland has four legitimate signal-callers on its roster, but eventually will have the space for only three. That surplus equals a valuable August trade asset for the second summer in a row.

Given the play of second-year quarterback and 2023 fifth-round pick Dorian Thompson-Robinson through training camp and the preseason to this point, the most likely candidate to swap uniforms is former Baltimore Ravens Pro Bowler Tyler Huntley.

Michael Lewis of the Ultimate Cleveland Sports Show on Monday, August 12, mentioned the Detroit Lions as a sensible trade partner for Huntley considering their situation behind starter Jared Goff.

“Huntley is no slouch. I don’t think he’s going to win 10 games as a starter, but this is a guy who has a Pro Bowl on his resumé … who’s proven he can win in the NFL,” Lewis said. “So you’re telling me if you’re Detroit … [and] you’re looking around and you’re saying, ‘We’re one Jared Goff injury away from this team — that’s as talented as the Detroit Lions are this year, that was one or two plays away from making the Super Bowl last year — we’re all of the sudden gonna have to rely on Nate Sudfeld?” Like, no chance. Okay, well … maybe Tyler Huntley makes more sense.”

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Tyler Huntley Has Day 3 Trade Value, Could Increase

Cleveland landed a fifth-round pick from the Arizona Cardinals last summer in exchange for QB Josh Dobbs, and Huntley’s haul should be similar.

Lewis suggested a seventh-rounder, or perhaps a sixth, though the right team in the wrong situation — say a contender that sees its starter suffer an injury or realizes it has zero viable options behind its QB1 — might be willing to go higher.

“[Huntley] is probably one of the 60 best quarterbacks in the world right now,” Lewis continued. “And there’s gonna be some team that looks at their backup quarterback situation and goes, ‘Meh, he’s not as good as Tyler Huntley.'”

The Browns have no reason to rush, as the team doesn’t need to submit its 53-man roster until the end of August. And barring an injury to Huntley, time will only increase his trade value or see it hold its current line.

Huntley is also playing on a one-year deal worth just $1.3 million, which makes him cheap enough that literally any team could find the salary cap room to add him to the roster.

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Dorian Thompson-Robinson Also Potential Trade Candidate for Browns

Lewis also floated the possibility of Thompson-Robinson as a trade candidate for the right price.

That’s a harder sell given he is entering only his second season and is a player on whom Cleveland spent one of its rare draft picks in recent years, albeit in the fifth round. Thompson-Robinson also played excellently against the Green Bay Packers during the preseason opener on August 10, completing 14-of-18 passes for 134 yards.

“I looked at it and was like, ‘Tyler Huntley, you ain’t got this one,'” Garrett Bush of the Ultimate Cleveland Sports Show said Monday. “To be truthful, [Thompson-Robinson], he was throwing a better football than Jameis Winston.”

Despite Thompson-Robinson outperforming him in the first game of the preseason, Huntley is a good enough third-string option that if a QB-needy team came knocking with a third- or fourth-round pick in hand, it would probably prove an offer on which the Browns would need to jump.

A key component to all this is the fact that starter Deshaun Watson is entering a make-or-break third year on a monster of a guaranteed contract and has started just 12 games across two seasons after missing 11 contests due to a shoulder injury in 2023.

The Browns won’t carry four QBs into September — at least not these four, as none would linger long on a practice squad — but must consider the likelihood that whoever their third quarterback is may have to start multiple games in 2024. Recent history suggests that either injuries or bad play will sideline Watson at some point, just like last year when Cleveland started five different players under center before the playoffs began.

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