One of the benefits of hiring John Dorsey now as opposed to after the season will be evident on Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium.

The new general manager of the Browns will get the first of four consecutive up-close-and-personal looks at the team to close the regular season when it plays one of his former clubs, the Green Bay Packers. The next three looks will come on the following Sundays, against, in order, the Baltimore Ravens, Chicago Bears and Pittsburgh Steelers.

In the last five weeks, when the Browns began zeroing in on him as a replacement for former Executive Vice President of Football Operations Sashi Brown, Dorsey no doubt started paying attention to what was going on in Cleveland. Now he can really start honing in on the Browns, and it will give him a real head start going into an offseason that, for a variety of reasons, looms as one of the most important in franchise history – both the original one and the present one.

But it goes the other way, too. While Dorsey has four games to evaluate the players, they have four games to impress the new sheriff in town. That he wasted no time in jettisoning veteran unproductive wide receiver Kenny Britt should be a real eye-opener to the players who remain.

What Brown thought of them doesn’t matter anymore – not at all. Going forward, it will be Dorsey’s opinion, along, of course, with that of head coach Hue Jackson, that counts.

Dorsey is well aware that there is a lot of young, talented players on the roster, and the vast majority of them will likely be here in 2018. But there will be some who won’t fit with the vision Dorsey, again in collaboration with Jackson, has for the Browns going forward.

In addition, don’t discount the impact the “new” Jackson will have in that process. Because of Brown, who had the final say on the 53-man roster, Jackson was stuck with players he didn’t want. And the one player he didn’t want above all others, was Britt. Dorsey threw Jackson a bone and offered an olive branch to the coach by releasing Britt. Jackson understands all that and, unlike the disdain he had for Brown, he will work that much harder to build a strong camaraderie with Dorsey.

It’s all a reason for Browns fans to have the audacity of hope.