BEREA, Ohio — Bob Golic joined his brother's ESPN radio show, "Mike and Mike," on Friday to rehash what he will never forget.

Mike Golic served up questions to Bob, who was a Pro Bowl defensive tackle for their hometown Cleveland Browns in the mid-1980s. The inevitable line to the “The Drive” worked into the conversation, as it always does. Bob slipped into autopilot mode telling the January 1987 horror story every Clevelander knows by down-and-distance.

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“Elway drove down the field,” he said. “They scored. Tied the game. We lost.”

The interview was part of a promotion for "30 for 30: Believeland," ESPN's documentary (Saturday, 9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2) about the Browns of that era. It's a story many know too well.

Browns radio color analyst Doug Dieken doesn’t plan on watching “Believeland.” He, too, knows all the heart-breaking stories. He put in 14 years as an offensive tackle for the Browns and another 29 years in the booth.

“I haven’t watched ‘Draft Day’ yet either,” he joked of the Kevin Costner fictional movie about the Browns.

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Dieken is watching the first day of Browns rookie minicamp from the sideline. He delivers each thought with a sense of caution, the kind from knowing Cleveland finished 3-13 last year.

In other words, it’s a spotless spring afternoon with sunny, crystal blue skies in Northeast Ohio. It’s also Friday the 13th. Where’s the next transition going?

Welcome to “Believeland.”

'We can bring a spark'

Rookie Joe Schobert joined the rest of his teammates outside the team hotel around 6 a.m. Friday, right about the time “Mike and Mike” hit the airwaves. In some ways, it felt like the first day of college for the standout linebacker at Wisconsin.

Schobert was part of the NFL equivalent to a large college football recruiting class. Cleveland made 14 picks in the 2016 NFL Draft, the most of any team. The Browns also made five trades. Schobert was one of more than 40 players waiting for the team shuttle.

“It’s a new environment, and you have to make new friends,” he said. “You’re all going through the same thing so it helps.”

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Browns rookie quarterback Cody Kessler (Bill Bender/SN).

That buy-in-bulk class isn’t short on college hardware. On offense, first-round pick Corey Coleman won the Biletnikoff Award (best wide receiver) and Cody Kessler was a three-year starter at Southern California.

Schobert joined a defense that brought in former Big 12 lineman of the year Emmanuel Ogbah in the second round and the past two Lombardi Award (best lineman or linebacker) winners in Carl Nassib and Scooby Wright. Nassib was quick to point out that’s four of the best pass rushers in college football but just as quick to point out that this is a new chapter.

“It’s really cool because everybody is really cool,” Nassib said. “There aren’t any cocky kids. Everybody is high on character. It’s been a smooth transition.”

Dieken said Cleveland needed that youth movement, and the draft proved the franchise was looking for more team speed.

Coleman leads that movement. He zipped around running routes at the first practice while “Drop It Like It’s Hot” blared on a loud speaker. The Snoop Dogg hit came out in 2004 — two years after Cleveland’s last playoff appearance.

Coleman offered a simple remedy.

"Change,” he said. “Like I said, we had a great draft class, and it's going to start with us. We can bring a spark to the team and Coach Jackson brought in some great people. It’s going to get us rocking.”

'A guy who wants to win'

First-year Browns head coach Hue Jackson wants these rookies to get “in shape extremely fast.” He belabored the point in his news conference after practice, and it seemed like the most-basic building block possible on Day 1.

“These guys have got to assimilate themselves into what we’ve already established,” Jackson said. “Our veteran players have worked extremely hard. The culture here is great, and I think it’s really important that these young guys get caught up.”

Of the eight coaches the Browns have had since returning to the NFL in 1999, Jackson has brought with him the freshest wave of optimism. He over-achieved in one year as Oakland’s head coach with an 8-8 record in 2011. He spent the past four seasons running the Bengals' offense before making the rare cross-state, cross-division move.It doesn’t feel doomed from the start this time.

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Browns coach Hue Jackson. (Getty Images)

That’s exactly what a younger Cleveland team needs. Kessler raved about a meeting with Jackson in March, a one-on-one conversation that had the quarterback convinced he would play for the Browns. After playing for four head coaches at USC, Kessler says he wanted to play in Cleveland.

“When we had our meeting I got the feeling of a guy who wants to win, loves to win and demands greatness from his teams,” Kessler said.

Nassib backed that up by saying there’s “no dysfunction here.” Coleman spoke of having the greatest wide receivers coach in America in veteran Al Saunders.

The rookies are living in “Believeland,” and that’s because of Jackson. That’s a start.

“I think there’s the enthusiasm he brings,” Dieken said. “The team is kind of like a beaten dog. It’s limped to the finish for the last several years, and what comes first the confidence or the success? I think he’s trying to pump some confidence in them because you got so many young players you’re going to take your lumps.”

'Tremendous battles' for spots

Cleveland has taken enough of those, especially within the division. Since coming back to the NFL in 1999, the Browns are 6-29 against Pittsburgh, 9-25 against Baltimore and 12-22 against Cincinnati. That’s a .262 winning percentage against their AFC North rivals, and none of those teams took a major step back in the offseason.

Give the Browns credit for a different approach this time. Former first-round pick/sideshow Johnny Manziel is gone. “Analytics” has become the buzz word associated with the franchise with the arrival of chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta, the former baseball general manager. Executive vice president of football operations Sashi Brown and vice president of player personnel Andrew Berry teamed with Jackson to compile all those draft picks.

If it fails this time, it won’t be for a lack of new ideas.

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Jackson doesn’t see a challenge in dealing with a huge rookie class. He foresees a competitive training camp this summer with “tremendous battles” for roster spots. The next step for that management team might be a lot harder than it was on draft day.

“Guys have to kind of mold themselves into how these veteran players have all of the sudden made a decision of this is how we work, this is who we are,” Jackson said. “The biggest challenge I think we have is when it comes time to make decisions of who is on this team.”

'You always hope'

Where the Browns go in 2016 will hinge largely on Robert Griffin III at quarterback and how quickly that large rookie class fills into their spots behind the veterans.

It’s another transition that will take time — time that hasn’t been afforded to the past four head coaches. Eric Mangini, Pat Shurmur, Rob Chudzinski and Mike Pettine all coached two seasons or less. That’s why there is still a sense of “show us” mode among the fans, Dieken said.

Yet there’s no harm for optimism on the first day of rookie camp. It’s so early Jackson was sorting out four kickers. He said the best players revealed their abilities.

“You always hope,” Dieken said. “But you’ve been around long enough to know that you just don’t put a young football team out there and get instant success. The chemistry part is real important, and chemistry comes from playing together.”

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That’s 43 years of experience talking, knowing that the Browns delivered the city’s last pro sports championship in 1964. The Cavaliers might break that streak in June. The Indians could contend for a playoff spot this fall. Yet Cleveland remains a Browns town, first and always.

Perhaps that’s why Coleman’s outlook for what lies ahead strikes a chord. It wasn’t heard on ESPN on Friday morning as the Golics slid from “The Drive” into “The Fumble.” It’s not a phrase used often to describe the state of affairs in Cleveland.

"This is a beautiful thing,” Coleman said. “We have the best coaches here. They tell us what we have to do and we understand it. We have the best fans here, which is just impressive to have a great fan base like that. They are always going to be there for us."

They always have a reason to hope. Maybe — just maybe — there’s reason to believe this time.