CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Browns' first two picks Thursday night most excited a certain segment of fans and media eager to compare any hope in the moment to failures of the past.

A quarterback and a cornerback in the first round in 2018? That sounds familiar. Didn't the Browns take a cornerback in the first round in 2014? Didn't they flame out?

Boom. Proof. This stunk.

Wrong.

The Browns had numerous ways to get these two picks right. Sam Darnold and Bradley Chubb seemed to become the consensus among fans, maybe only because it was the scenario most often presented in mock drafts.

Darnold and Chubb would have worked. Josh Rosen and a trade down from No. 4 would have worked. Saquon Barkley and Josh Allen, which would have been hated by some and exalted by others, might have worked.

Baker Mayfield and Denzel Ward. Yeah, that definitely could work.

If you're looking for a harder take than "many things might be good," here it is.

Comparing to Mayfield and Ward to Johnny Manziel and Justin Gilbert (try a Twitter search, it's out there) is self-sabotage for fans unwilling to accept a reasonable plan of attack that didn't exactly match their draft boards.

Writing that comparison is unfairly leading a tortured fan base down a path of unnecessary misery that isn't based in reality.

You've heard the Mayfield-Manziel comparisons for months, so let's start with Ward. Taken at No. 4 from Ohio State's cornerback factory, he was drafted higher than any corner since Charles Woodson went No. 4 in 1998. To me, that's a little high. I think Bradley Chubb or a trade down from No. 4 would have brought the Browns better value. But GM John Dorsey said the offers he received never in his mind tipped the scales.

"I had numerous phone calls," Dorsey said. "There were probably a half dozen or so that may have wanted to come up there. At the time, I always talk about when you place a value on a player and then you place a value on the actual trade mechanism and you try and see which value is higher.

"It never panned out to be. The player was always higher than the value that was being offered."

That's their evaluation of Ward. And he's not a mistake. Maybe a slight reach for a corner just short of 5-foot-11. But a smart, humble kid from Northeast Ohio who has long arms and ran 4.32 in the 40 at the NFL combine isn't a mistake.

General manager Ray Farmer barely vetted Justin Gilbert when picking him No. 8 four years ago. Dorsey and this front office were all over Ward, so much so that Ward had some level of expectation that this pick might be coming.

As for Mayfield and Manziel, the Browns ignored their own quarterback study that pointed them toward Teddy Bridgewater in 2014 to instead catch a tumbling Manziel late in the first round, picking him at No. 22. Somehow, the cheers then that soon turned hollow are affecting how some feel about Mayfield, based only on a height comparison and vague notions of impropriety. Yet if Manziel never existed, or had flamed out for another team, the opinions of many in Cleveland might be different.

"When he comes and sits here and talks to you all (Friday), you guys will see how mature he is and how handles himself," Dorsey said of Mayfield.

Fans have to be open to that conversation, to see these picks as something other than a repeat of past mistakes made by another front office. Dorsey, a veteran football guy, was welcomed as a solid hire. Now, because your mock draft said Darnold-Chubb, you're comparing him to the worst moments from the era of the inexperienced Farmer?

This isn't a guarantee that the picks will work. But we're even further from a guarantee of failure.

If Mayfield hadn't gone No. 1 he likely would have been picked at No. 3 by New York. Ward was projected by most in the top 10.

Falling into your frustrations after Thursday night is a choice. It's not a necessity. There are those around the NFL who liked the choices of two productive college players at premier positions.

Thursday was supposed to be a new beginning for the Browns, and it was. Don't let anyone turn you away from that, because some will try. This isn't 2014. In 2018, the process was better, the players are better and the hope is real.