WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – As the NFL descended upon West Palm Beach, Fla. for the NFL Annual Meeting, Executive Vice President of Football Operations and General Manager Andrew Berry met with a small group of local reporters on Sunday.

He discussed several topics, including the No. 2 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, the quarterback position, free agency acquisitions and more.

Here are the main takeaways from Berry's time with the local media.

Impact of pro days and draft prospect visits

The Browns are moving through the different stages of the draft evaluation, which included pro days at different collegiate programs and workouts for different draft prospects. Berry said all the visits over the last handful of days were positive ones.

"You use the visits for maybe different purposes depending on who the prospect is," Berry said. "Obviously with quarterbacks, you want to spend as much time as possible. Some of that might be to get to know their support system. Some of that might be to get a sense of where they are from a baseline standpoint with their football knowledge coming into the league. And some of it may be physical. You may want to see them make a number of different throws that maybe they didn't do as much on. So, it really just depends on the prospect. But a big part of it's just getting to spend time with the individuals and that was certainly fruitful over the last couple of days."

After all the visits are concluded, Berry said they will take all the information they've gathered throughout the different touch points of the assessment process – including the Senior Bowl, combine, pro days, top 30 visits and Zoom calls – as they prepare their draft strategy.

Yet, Berry said that after all of their visits wrap up, he doesn't believe they will have a clear decision made immediately. He trusts in the process of using all the time allotted to them to make their decision.

"I think by that time we'll have a pretty good sense in terms of how we view the individuals as both players and people, but I wouldn't maybe undersell the amount of time that we start thinking through draft strategy," Berry said. "You can walk a number of different paths with that pick – whether you pick a quarterback, a non-quarterback, trade up, trade down, looking at all those different scenarios and then seeing how the draft could possibly sequence from there. And then ultimately how good you feel about those outcomes both in the short term and how it sets the franchise up in the longer term."

Outlook on the No. 2 pick

As the Browns continue through the assessment process with pro days, individual workouts and top 30 visits and wrap up their evaluations, Berry said they will move into the next stage of the process – draft strategy. Cleveland has a total of 10 picks in the 2025 NFL Draft, including the No. 2 overall pick.

Part of the draft strategy is considering all options at No. 2 – both from a player perspective as to who could be available for them to choose from, as well as options of moving the pick. Yet, Berry candidly shared that while anything is possible at this point in the draft process, it is "unlikely" that the Browns would trade up to No. 1 in the 2025 NFL Draft.

Berry also doesn't necessarily believe the choice at No. 2 has to be a quarterback.

"I would say we're still working through it. There's a bunch of players that we like at the top of the draft," Berry said. "We continue to do our work on them, and I would say including quarterbacks. So, that's part of what next week and the next couple weeks are about, figuring all that out. The good thing is we still have time. We have a month. It's a big decision, so there's no sense in rushing it. We're going to use all the time that we have to make the best decision for the organization."

Vision for the quarterback room

As the roster currently stands, the Browns have one available quarterback in Kenny Pickett – who they acquired in a trade with the Eagles at the start of the new league year on March 12. While QB Deshaun Watson continues to rehab from his re-injured Achilles tendon, he will miss time during the 2025 season. That timeline is still unclear, but Berry reiterated Watson will miss "a significant portion of the season."

In the meantime, they are rebuilding their quarterback room – which started with the trade for Pickett. Berry said the Browns sought out the trade with the Eagles for Pickett. He was a player they were interested in the 2024 offseason when the Steelers traded him to Philadelphia. When the opportunity surfaced again this offseason, Berry took the chance. Cleveland sent QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson and a 2025 fifth round pick to the Eagles in exchange for Pickett.

Now a member of the Browns, Pickett will have the chance to compete for the starting quarterback job.

"With Kenny, a young player, we spent a good amount of time with him during the pre-draft process when he came out," Berry said. "Feel like he's a good decision maker. He does a really good job of protecting the ball. He's very mobile and we think that his relative strengths are something that fit well with the offense that we're putting into place for this upcoming year. We do think that there's a pretty credible path for him to continue to improve and take a step forward and I think you've seen that with players that they get into maybe new or sometimes maybe better environments for their particular path and their career."

Berry said they will continue to build out the quarterback room over the course of the offseason. They still have options to do so through adding a veteran quarterback, drafting a young quarterback or both.

"I think that we're probably just a bit more narrow in our focus in terms of the type of veteran that we think would fit where we are from a roster perspective and where we want that quarterback room to be," Berry said. "I think something could happen before the draft. I wouldn't rule it out that it could happen after the draft. I think that's fair as well, but I wouldn't necessarily pin it down to any one timeframe."

As the organization works to fulfill the vision for the quarterback room, Berry said they would more likely skew younger in their additions to the roster to match their long-term goals for the position.

Yet, if the Browns bring in a young quarterback in the draft, it doesn't necessarily mean they will start from the beginning. Berry believes when the rookie will play in his rookie season is all dependent on the individual player and the situation of the team.

"I think that every rookie, they kind of acclimate differently," Berry said. "I wish there was a formula or an easy solution to, these are the type of guys that hit the ground running, these are the guys that stub their toe and then they figured it out year two. But unfortunately, that's not the case. Look, I'd love for a rookie quarterback to come in and make a seamless transition. But we also have to make sure that the room is situated where if that individual doesn't, they're not necessarily forced into action."

Free agency moves

As the Browns prepared for the offseason, one of the areas Berry said they changed their thought process was the idea of creating competition and opportunity – especially with the volume and quality of the picks they have in this year's draft.

"There are certain roster spots where we want to make sure that we create opportunity and competition for youth on the roster," Berry said. "Whether it's for players internally to expand their roles or players that we will bring onto the roster in the next month or so to play."

Yet, they also had certain areas on the roster they needed to address. Through the first initial wave of free agency, the Browns signed five new players and re-signed two. They added to the roster LB Jerome Baker, DT Maliek Collins, G Teven Jenkins, OT Cornelius Lucas and DE Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, as well as re-signed CB Tony Brown II and LB Devin Bush. The sixth addition during free agency was the acquisition of Pickett in the trade. Berry said each of those players were signed or traded for specific roles on the roster.

"Some of the veterans, whether it's Maliek Collins and Joe, trying to help continue to boost our pass rush, especially on the interior," Berry said. "Whether it's bringing back Devin Bush who played really well for us at both mike and will. Whether it's being opportunistic with Teven Jenkins or signing Cornelius Lucas to be a swing tackle. Those are real and they're important pieces."

Berry added heading into free agency, they didn't plan on being in the market for a player like Jenkins, who is entering his fifth NFL season and has played in 45 career games with 38 starts at left tackle, left guard and right guard. Yet, Berry said when they saw the opportunity, they jumped at the chance to add talent and depth to their offensive line.

"We felt like this was a 27-year-old, very talented player, obviously has played a number of quality snaps at guard," Berry said. "He's played tackle before. We always believe in investing in the line of scrimmage. We always believe in being deep in the O-line and it was just as simple as like, this is too good of a player and too good of value to pass up. Let's add him to our roster and then we'll figure it out from there."

Injury Updates

Berry provided updates on two players who sustained injuries during the 2024 season – LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and DT Mike Hall Jr. Owusu-Koramoah, who suffered a neck injury in Week 8 of the season and missed the remainder of the season, continues to make progress.

"He is progressing, which is a positive," Berry said. "I'll be honest. It is still a little bit nebulous in terms of what that timeframe looks like. So, we really are trying to deal with it week to week and month to month."

Berry said Hall, who sustained a knee injury in Week 18 and was carted off the field, had surgery on the knee following the end of the season.

"He's coming along really well," Berry said.