CLEVELAND — The Browns picked Spencer Fano with the ninth overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft on April 23, 2026, betting on the Utah tackle to help remake a line that changed again this spring. Head coach Todd Monken said Fano will play left tackle, the position where he started 11 games in college.
Fano’s path to Cleveland started long before draft night. After the 2026 NFL Scouting Combine wrapped up the first weekend of March, he visited the Browns at CrossCountry Mortgage Campus, met new position coach George Warhop and got a closer look at the old-school style Warhop brings to the job. Fano also took practice reps at every spot on the offensive line during the pre-draft process, a sign of how the Browns viewed his versatility even as they planned to use him at left tackle.
For Fano, the visit made an impression. “I feel like that alone, I thought it was pretty cool and I could see myself being here,” he said, adding, “I’m so excited.”
The Browns needed more than excitement. Their offensive line had already been reworked in free agency, and the front office was looking for a player it believed could fit a new group fast. Monken said Fano’s traits separated him in that search. “His character was first, I mean, the way he’s wired,” Monken said. “His athleticism, his toughness, I mean, when you want to start off the first year of your regime, you talk about what you want: character, toughness, athleticism, he has it all.”
Monken added that Cleveland’s expectations are high, but he thinks Fano will set an even higher bar for himself. “I think the expectations that we will have for him won’t even match that he has for himself,” he said.
Fano’s own reaction to the pick cut through the usual draft-night polish. “I just gotta be honest, one of my first thoughts was I don’t have to play Myles Garrett on Sundays,” he said. That line said as much as any scouting report about why Cleveland liked the fit: a young tackle who had already faced enough pressure at Utah, and enough scrutiny in the pre-draft process, to understand what comes next.
The Browns did not just draft a lineman. They drafted one into a reshaped room, with a new coach, a new plan and a clear job waiting at left tackle. The question now is not whether Fano will get a chance. It is whether he can turn a strong pre-draft impression into immediate protection for a team that has spent the spring rebuilding in front of its quarterback.
