The Browns have been through five drafts with Andrew Berry guiding the ship as general manager. That’s enough of a body of work to make a determination as to his fitness for duty in that position.

Many AB backers contend that judgment should continue to be withheld because the Browns have drafted just twice in Round 1 during Berry’s tenure. It’s true that they’ve drafted in the first round only two times since 2020.

And it can be debated endlessly who should be without a seat now that the music appears to have finally stopped on the Deshaun Watson experiment, and yes that was a use of three firsts, and yes the GM would get credit if Watson had rediscovered his Houston form in Cleveland, and on and on and on and on.

But what is often left out of these back-and-forths is that how adept GMs stamp their mark on the league is by identifying value in later rounds. First-round picks are supposed to be career NFL players. Hitting on those is expected.

You shouldn’t walk across the factory floor to an ovation of cheers and party kazoo honkers for simply showing up to work on time. It’s expected.

The Rams drafting Puka Nacua at the end of Round 5 is an example of getting four rounds of additional value out of a pick, because everyone can now see he was worthy of a first. And that should be celebrated.

Amon-Ra St. Brown was selected in the fourth by the Lions, which is three rounds more value than his draft position would indicate. This is the goal. And not only are first-round picks not needed to do it, it can’t be done at all with firsts.

There is no round before Round 1, so “outdrafting” that round isn’t possible — just don’t miss. And finding unexpected value later which is positively disproportional to the draft position is how success is defined by NFL front offices.

This praxis is quantified in my “Rounds Over Expectation” chart that I put together every year after the draft.

Now let’s look briefly at Berry’s history and see if he has the acumen to be trusted to get it right in the draft moving forward, in Part 3.

—@PoisonPill4