2025 NFL Draft Rumors: Texans, Browns, Williams

We entered the 2025 NFL Draft in unprecedented waters as all 32 teams were set to have their own first-round pick for the first time since the AFL-NFL merger. In fact, when the Tennessee was put on the clock, all teams still had their own first-round pick. Before that, the closest the draft had come to starting without any first-round trades was in 1993, when the Chiefs traded their first-rounder to the 49ers for Joe Montana just five days before the draft.

While Cleveland and Jacksonville were the first teams to ruin that pristine first round with a trade, the Texans and Rams were the only teams to trade completely out of the first-round. In fact, all nine of Houston’s draft picks were the results of trades. We already discussed how the team looked to move back up into the first round for Ohio State wide receiver Emeka Egbuka, but on Fan Duel TV’s UP & Adams show with Kay Adams, Texans general manager Nick Caserio detailed that they were initially attempting to move up into the top half of the first round but weren’t able to find a partner, so they looked to move down.

“We tried to move up a little bit,” Caserio told Adams. “It didn’t really work out. At about the 18, 19, 20 range, we started to get some calls about our pick, so we were putting the information up on the board.”

“We had actually three different trade scenarios that were on the board at one time,” Caserio continued. We had trade scenarios, we were prepared to pick a player…and then we were on the clock, and a pick before, I think when Minnesota picked at 24, and after they picked, we were able to consummate the trade with the Giants, so we scooted back there to the second round and then had the second pick there to start Friday.”

Here are a few other draft rumors from the days following the 2025 NFL Draft:

• In a Q&A earlier this week, Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated dropped an interesting tidbit about the Browns‘ potential first-round strategy last Thursday night. We’ve covered Breer’s earlier report that Cleveland attempted to get back into the first round for Oregon offensive tackle Josh Conerly Jr., but he has since reasoned that the team was potentially looking for Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart late in the first round. Ultimately, it was the Giants that made the move back into the 25th overall spot for Dart, but there’s a chance the Browns may have done so if New York hadn’t acted when they did.
• Ohio State defensive tackle Tyleik Williams found himself getting drafted at the tail end of the first round by the Lions at No. 28 overall. Shortly after the draft, Williams told Justin Rogers of Detroit Football Network that he believes the Bills would have taken him two picks later if Detroit hadn’t. Buffalo had considered defensive tackle a serious position of need ad **[DaQuan...