My favorite: Dorsey and a contingent of scouts and coaches spent the week of March 19 visiting four quarterbacks—in order, Josh Rosen, Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield and Josh Allen. They dined with Rosen on Monday, worked him out Tuesday, dined with Darnold on Tuesday, etc. Dorsey never told a soul which quarterback he preferred, though he had a very good idea on March 22 after leaving Oklahoma that he wanted Mayfield. Back in Ohio, at the top of the quarterback list on the Browns’ magnetic draft board, Dorsey turned the magnetic rectangular quarterback nametags upright. And at the top of the QB list, while every other name on the massive board was horizontally magnetized, four vertical QB nametags were at the top.
Rosen one, Darnold two, Mayfield three, Allen four. From left to right.
“Right in the order we visited them, and I kept them in that position until the day of the draft,” Dorsey told me.
Dorsey is still getting to know a lot of the people in the Browns’ front office, and they are still getting to know him. Throughout his first five months running the football side of the franchise, Dorsey said, “I have harped on trust and honesty. What’s said in this room stays in this room.” Now, he just wanted a little privacy insurance. If he kept the quarterbacks in this vertical bunch, Dorsey would be the only one who would know what the 1-through-4 order was.
Late Thursday morning, about nine hours before the draft, he gathered the senior staff to tell them the order of the quarterbacks, and what he was likely to do with the top pick—take Mayfield. He kept the board covered until early evening, and shortly before the draft began, the room knew the QB order. And, of course, who the top pick would be.