LIKE EVERY YEAR, THIS DRAFT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT

By STEVE KING
Spoiler alert: media people hype things.
Big surprise, huh?
But really no surprise, huh?
They hype things because they need audiences to survive. They need people to read, watch and listen to what they write and say, or else they are out of business.
As such, everything, no matter what, is always the biggest, best and most important in history. That’s especially so when it comes to the local media and the NFL Draft. Every year, the draft is billed as the most important in Browns history.
But they might be right.
Every draft builds upon the drafts before it, so if a team fails in any year to get what it needs, then it has to get it the next year. That makes the next draft more important, then, right? And if a team gets what it wants in a draft, then in the following year, it is necessary for the team to add to that, again making that second draft important so as to keep the momentum of the building process going.
For the Browns, the need to get a franchise quarterback has filled almost all of the drafts in the expansion year. But now that they finally have their guy in Baker Mayfield, the job becomes to add the right pieces around him.
Last year, both in the draft and free agency, it was mostly to help the offense around Mayfield. This time, at least in free agency, it has been mostly to help the defense — the overall team — around him.
Here’s the big question as the Browns get closer to the draft that begins on Thursday night in Cleveland: do they keep adding to the defense, or go back to the offense, with that first-round pick, at No. 26 overall?
Where they go — what side of the ball they address — with that first choice will tell us everything we need to know about what the Browns’ deep thinkers, specifically General Manager Andrew Berry, think is the single biggest need.
I will keep saying that it will be wide receiver because the NFL is an offensive game and there is a need to build a good, strong young corps of receivers to begin taking over someday when Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham Jr. step aside. Even now, the Browns need that speedy pass-catcher to run downfield and make plays and take the top off of the defense.
And if it’s defense, then the Browns are saying their biggest need is to slow down opposing offenses and not make Mayfield have so much pressure on him to score on every drive to allow the Browns to keep up.
It is, as you might guess, an important decision — as it always is.