What began with a roar on Thursday night ended with a dull thud for the Browns in the 2017 NFL Draft.

After taking Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett, the best player on everybody’s board, with the No. 1 overall pick to a chorus of cheers, the Browns traded down 13 spots from No. 12 with the Houston Texans and then selected a specialty player at No. 25 with Michigan safety/returner/sometimes outside linebacker Jabrill Peppers.

Peppers also has a strike against him in the NFL’s substance abuse policy in having had a diluted sample that was announced just before the draft.

And the Browns passed up a lot of players to get to Peppers.

That’s a bad combination.

We can talk about Peppers later, but the real story is that when the Browns had a chance to take a second player in the top half of the draft, they did what they’ve done far too often in recent years and bailed out to acquire future draft picks.

That’s all well and good – that’s what the Browns always rush to shout from the rooftops that they’ve positioned themselves well for the future – but when does the future come? When? Is it 2018? Or 2019?? Or maybe 2020?

When? Just when?

This team needs players, prospects and production in the present instead of promises for the if-come. The Browns have to start winning games at some point. That’s what this is all about anyway, isn’t it?

The Browns circled back at the end of the first round and, with the No. 29 pick acquired in a trade from the Green Bay Packers, selected Miami (Fla.) tight end David Njoku.

But again, they let all those players pass them by between Nos. 12 and 24.

That, and not so much Garrett, Peppers or Njoku, is the storyline of this opening day of the draft for the Browns.

It could have been so much better.

All the Browns had to do was to stay put. They set themselves up to do that.

Instead, though, they focused way too far down the road.

If they look closer, there’s a freight train starting to bear down on this regime to make this struggling franchise better. Declining to take great players is not the way to do that.