The Browns enter the offseason with the NFL Draft's first and 12th overall picks, five selections in the top 65, and an abundance of opportunities to add talent to youth-laden roster.
That won't change how Cleveland goes about evaluating the best players from coast to coast and seeing how they might fit on the team.
"I think one of the biggest misconceptions about scouting is that 'OK, hey, based on your particular positioning, that may modify the actual process in a given year,'" Browns vice president of player personnel Andrew Berry told reporters Thursday at the Senior Bowl. "But ultimately when you go out as a personnel department or as a scouting staff, you're going to actually scout the country as if you have a blank roster, as if you're an expansion team before you've even got into the expansion draft.
"Ultimately, you want to go into the year as if you're need-agnostic, if you will, and ultimately our job is set a menu so to speak for the spring."
The Browns represented in full forced down in Mobile, Alabama, this week. Hue Jackson and his staff are coaching the Senior Bowl's South team while Berry and Cleveland's personnel department are carefully assessing the scores of players on hand.
"The Senior Bowl is really the first time you get to take a lot of the top prospects put them in a controlled environment and really quite honestly see how they do, see how they adjust and see how they compete against other top players in the country," Berry said. "It's a very valuable exposure for us because really we can control the setting."
Berry also made it clear the Senior Bowl is neither the beginning nor end of what's a long process of identifying and evaluating talent. Whatever this week brings is another piece to a larger body of work.
But it gives the Browns an extra look at what other teams might find later on during their draft respective processes.
"The biggest thing is you get to see these players interact with your staff much earlier in the process and second, they're speaking your language, so to speak, and using your terminology and running your offensive and defensive systems," Berry said.
"Usually that's a little bit more of projection in the spring, when you go work them out at Pro Days or in private workouts, but you don't really see it in earnest until they're in your building during rookie minicamp in May."
