I really don’t like what I’m about to do. I make my intentions pretty clear as I write this column and I do my best to make them consistent. But I want to judge the Browns’ draft and they’re not even to camp yet.

Maybe it’s not so much the draft itself that I want to judge – it’s more the stance that they’re taking and how we morons are reacting to it.

Going into April’s daft, the Browns “needed” help at wide receiver, running back, right tackle, and maybe defensive line/secondary, with the eternal question mark remaining at quarterback. As we all know, they selected Trent Richardson and Brandon Weeden in the first round, then Mitchell Schwartz in the second, and now the addition of Josh Gordon with another second. So if you’re keeping score at home, that’s a running back, a quarterback, a right tackle, and a wide receiver, with the third-rounder being a defensive lineman.

When the schedule came out this year, the Browns were pegged to have another bad season. Like…really bad. They’re projected to be the underdog in something like 14 out of 16 games. No one expects a bunch of rookies to come in and turn this team around. Yet people are making judgments about how Tom Heckert has drafted very nicely and is setting the team up for some major improvements.

My question is simply this: Who cares? Even if the team miracuously turns in a monster season, clicks on all cylinders, and becomes a – gasp! - playoff team, there’s no way of knowing what sparked it. For as terrible as last season was, if you changed the outcome of about five plays, the Browns could have had eight wins. It’s a fickle game.

Every year we see teams go from contender to total bust in the span of about ten weeks. And every year we see a relatively unchanged crappy team begin to turn it around and surprise everyone with some big wins. Sometimes it’s on the heels of adding some big-time players (the Lions, for example), sometimes it’s a coach (49ers), and sometimes it’s just weird luck (having your starting quarterback/guy who has thrown for 45,000 yards go down with an injury on your struggling team, only to be led on a 12-year run of relative dominance by the backup whom no one expected to produce).

My point is that it looks liek Heckert has done well this offseason. It looks like some solid things are in place and it looks like the Browns are moving in the right direction. But that doesn’t mean this will be a good season. It doesn’t mean it’ll be a bad season either. There is just too much to take into account over the course of a football game – let alone an entire season – to point to one day and say, with conviction, that it was the difference. Even if that day was when multiple players were added to the roster.

For all we know, it could be the release of Armond Smith that ultimately spurred the Browns to get Richardson, which led them to get a lineman, which led them to utilize the supplemental draft, which leads them to cut Alex Smith, meaning there won’t be a handoff to him on the goal line, which then turns a loss into a win, building some positive momentum.

Lord knows I could be more wrong than I’ve ever been. However, I’m a very firm believer in the butterfly effect being a real thing in the world of sports and not just a terrible movie in the rest of the world.

So maybe I’m not judging them way too early. Maybe I should be able to rest my head comfortably this evening because I’ve relatively abided by my own rules. But it’s more because I’m already aware that it takes a lot of outside forces to create a successful football season. Especially for a team that is consistently unsuccessful.

Go Browns.

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Time will tell with the Browns’ 2012 draft class, but it looks like there is some serious potential. With running back Trent Richardson, quarterback Brandon Weeden and right tackle Mitchell Schwartz, the team is already potentially looking at three immediate starters. Beyond that, the Browns are looking at plenty of projects, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see a few more players become contributors.

Calling them contributors doesn’t mean they have to be starters. Depth players are just as important, especially for the Browns. If a player is getting on the field with regularity, that’s a contributor.

Here’s a rundown of the Browns’ 2012 draft class:

Round 1: RB Trent Richardson

Round 1: QB Brandon Weeden

Round 2: OT Mitchell Schwartz

Round 3: DT John Hughes

Round 4: WR Travis Benjamin

Round 4: LB James-Michael Johnson

Round 5: OT Ryan Miller

Round 6: LB Emmanuel Acho

Round 6: DT Billy Winn

Round 7: CB Trevin Wade

Round 7: RB Brad Smelley

I’ve written about a number of talking points this offseason at Dawg Pound Daily. I’ve talked about the draft before it happened. I’ve talked about the new quarterback. I’ve talked about the freakish running back. I’ve talked about leaving it in the hands of the front office. I’ve talked about the Combine, the previous season, and Robert Griffin III. I’ve even talked about Hines Ward, fer cryin’ out loud. On top of all of that, I even wrote about how there isn’t much to talk about this offseason.

So now, in contrast to all of that, I’d like to talk about something incredibly simple: the Cleveland Browns.

Being a Browns fan is the tie that binds. It’s the reason that you’re here in summer and reading about what some guy you’ve never met has to say about the team (Except, of course, for the few of you I’ve met. Hi mom!). It’s the reason you go to games and hug strangers on the rare occasion the Browns get in for six or have a great stop on defense. It’s the reason you can be in another city, thousands of miles from Cleveland, and start talking to a stranger about whether or not Colt McCoy’s injuries cost him or if it was just not the right fit.

Being a Browns fan is like being part of a strange club. You pay money (in some way) to join, then get your heart crapped on by guys you’ll never meet but idolize anyway, and then repeat every year until you have kids and realize that some things are more important; that is, until your kid is old enough to watch the games comfortably with you.

It’s about knowing that everyone has a price, but also knowing that no one is ever going to offer the price that you’d require to give up your loyalty. It’s also about seeing someone give up their loyalty to the city/team at their price and then irrationally hating them forever.

Being a Browns fan doesn’t have rules. It doesn’t mean you can’t root for Team X in a certain game – you can, you’ll just have to justify it to the rest of the fans. Usually this is best done by saying “It’s not like the Browns are going to show up, take over for Team Y, and then win it on their own, right?” and then giving that person a beer/brat.

It’s about justifying things that seem unjustifiable, like going to an NFL game at all, for instance. After all, why do people still go to games? How is it not more fun to get ten people in front of a big TV, drop a total of $40 – or five beers at a stadium – and get food and beverages galore? Am I taking crazy pills? I know there’s something primal about chest-bumping a stranger after a touchdown, but come on, I’m not ever paying more than face value for an NFL ticket.

Being a Browns fan breeds thousands of created-then-ignored blogs about the team and infinitely more discussions about next to nothing. It takes a special kind of person to deal with it, the kind whose parents allowed them to be born within 75 miles of Cleveland.

You see, it’s not like we’re some different race where we can just say “You don’t get it” to other people, because the only reason we root for the team is because it’s where we’re from. There’s simply a sense of unity when there’s something to rally around. Mediocrity doesn’t create unity – it’s either good times or bad that bring people together.

We’ve been rallying together over the bad times in Cleveland for long enough, especially Browns fans, but I don’t need to go into detail on that. Instead, try thinking back to a Cleveland Indians playoff game from 1995-1999. Hopefully you were lucky enough to go to one, and even luckier, able to see a winner. Think back to the pure jubilation outside of Jacobs Field after that game. Can you even speculate how many strangers you celebrated with?

I, for one, vividly recall my grandmother opening the sunroof on her car and waving her index finger wildly and shouting “We’re number one! We’re number one!” after a victory over the Red Sox. People were reaching into the window to high five us. It was mayhem. It was chaos. It was heaven.

I want to bond with you again. I’m tired of shrugging and commiserating. I want to smile with you, Cleveland.

Go Browns.

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