Cleveland Browns: Top 20 All-Time first-round draft picks

Cleveland Browns top first-round draft picks All-Time No. 1: Jim Brown, FB, Syracuse

While Joe Thomas surely moved up the ranks recently, he still can’t take the No. 1 throne. That will belong to running back Jim Brown unless some young quarterback takes the helm and returns the Browns to prominence — and wins a couple of titles along the way (looking at you Baker).

Brown came into the NFL in 1957 and immediately made an impact. He had the record for most rushing yards in a game by a rookie and it took four decades for that to be surpassed.

It was no shock he would end up winning the Rookie of the Year Award that season, but that wasn’t the only hardware he would take home. Brown also won the NFL MVP Award as a rookie and followed that up in 1958 and 1965 with the same honor.

The accolades didn’t stop there as the bruising back made the Pro Bowl in each of his nine seasons and had eight placements in the First-Team All-Pro and one as a Second-Team. Brown also led the league in rushing in eight of his nine years in pro football.

To this day he leads Cleveland with 12,312 yards rushing and 106 touchdowns on the ground. Making that feat even more impressive is the fact that Brown accomplished all this before the NFL moved to a 16-game season.

Simply put, he was beyond special and it would be hard to think of any player ever surpassing him as not only the best first-round pick for the Browns, but even as their best player ever.