CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Browns fans, your suffering was not in vain.

On the back of the worst stretch of football in Cleveland history, the Browns are assembling the most exciting group of legitimate football talent since the franchise returned. Odell Beckham Jr. was acquired Tuesday night for Jabrill Peppers, a first-round pick, a third-round pick and the collective football frustrations of a fanbase assembled over 32 weekends in 2016 and 2017.

The payoff has arrived. Let’s go. You earned it.

Bandwagon fans are welcome for the 12-4 Browns of 2019, because there’s plenty of room at this party. But if you’re new, this won’t be quite as sweet. If you agonized through the teardown and rebuild that set up John Dorsey to pounce this offseason, then you helped make this possible.

If you stuck with the Browns through blind faith, or in the real belief that a roster makeover was in order, then satisfaction should be washing over you. This is what it looks like when a plan comes together. This is what it feels like when that plan builds the best team in the AFC North, a true playoff favorite and a legitimate Super Bowl contender.

If anyone questioned whether fans would abandon this moribund franchise after it followed 1-15 with 0-16, well, you’re still here, right? Congratulations. Fans of other teams wish they were you right now.

This isn’t blowing smoke, because football is on fire in Cleveland. Want to temper the enthusiasm over the Browns adding Beckham, pass rusher Olivier Vernon and defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson so far this offseason? Take your hose and pour water somewhere else, maybe over by the people who thought drafting Baker Mayfield was a mistake or trading for Beckham was unrealistic. Enjoy the mud.

Over here, the grass is green and the sky is clear. It is absolutely legitimate for Browns fans to have as much confidence in their as team as any fans west of Bill Belichick’s sweatshirt or east of Sean McVay’s finely groomed beard.

As pointed out by NFL analyst Brent Sobleski, the Browns have an 11-player core all between the ages of 21 and 27: Baker Mayfield, Beckham, Jarvis Landry, Nick Chubb, David Njoku and Joel Bitonio on offense and Myles Garrett, Larry Ogunjobi, Joe Schobert, Denzel Ward and Damarious Randall on defense.

That’s real. Don’t let anyone talk you out of this exhilaration. Sports should be fun. In Cleveland, sports is football. And football is fun again.

Nothing is guaranteed, but the Browns have as much chance as any of the 32 NFL teams to build a consistent winner over the next five years. I wrote recently of Dorsey’s task -- to jump on this win-now window while Mayfield and Garrett are on rookie deals, and to plan for sustainable success for a decade. This is what that looks like. At the combine, Dorsey was asked point blank if the Browns were ready to go for it. He hemmed and hawed, and said no, which is a nice way to say that he lied. If you had any sense of what was possible this offseason, you knew he was lying.

Of course it’s time for the Browns to go for it. Dorsey just wasn’t going to tell you before the going got started.

Mayfield performed as well as any rookie quarterback in recent memory last season without a true No. 1 receiver. He did it while hamstring by Hue Jackson and Todd Haley for a half-season. New coach Freddie Kitchens should unleash an offense of Mayfield dealing to Beckham, Landry, Chubb, Njoku and, whenever he returns, Kareem Hunt. On defense, the Browns misused personnel across the board last year. But the defensive line has doubled its danger with Richardson and Vernon, and there is more cap space available for more defensive help.

Is there potential risk to any of this? We all take a risk when we climb out of bed each morning. But there’s no downside.

Sashi Brown tore football down in Cleveland with a plan in mind, and now Dorsey is building it back up. You all lived through it. If you don’t think this was planned all along, ask yourself why the Browns and the Giants had the two top picks in the 2018 NFL Draft as the two worst teams in the league, and the Browns are now plundering the Giants’ roster.

The Giants are a salary cap, talent and quarterback mess because they just lost because they stunk. The Browns are ready to take on the football world because they lost with a plan.

You owned the pain of that plan. Now own this.

Beckham is here. And the Browns are back.