It’s here.

 

Finally.

 

At long last, the 2018 NFL Draft has arrived.

 

By a little over 8 p.m. Thursday when the draft begins, all the predicting – or a least a good portion of it, anyway – will cease and we can sit back and watch how it plays out in real time.

 

The draft is like Christmas morning for all NFL fans. For Browns fans, it’s like Christmas morning on steroids. That’s what happens when your team has two of the first four overall picks, including Nos. 1 and 4, four of the top 35 and five of the first 64. Indeed, if the Browns are ever going to turn around their malaise in the expansion era, it will be now with this bounty of selections, along, of course, with the 12 players they signed in free agency.

 

Just hours before the draft, there is still no consensus on what the Browns will do at the top of the first round. Will it be Josh Allen, Baker Mayfield or some other quarterback – or a player at some other position – at No. 1? Will it be Saquon Barkley or Bradley Chubb – or someone else, or a trade-down – at No. 4?

 

In my mock draft the other day, I had the Browns taking Allen at No. 1. But I could also be happy with Mayfield, especially after hearing Louis Riddick, the former Browns safety from the Bill Belichick era in the early 1990s who is now an ESPN NFL analyst. He says that other than winning, the two most important things a quarterback must do is be accurate with his passes and make split-second decisions, especially in the red zone. He says that Mayfield is way ahead of the others in that regard. It isn’t even close.

 

I called former Browns head coach Sam Rutigliano and asked him what he thought of the top four quarterbacks. Not much.

 

“They all have some serious things wrong with them,” he said. “I wouldn’t take any of them. I’d wait until the second round and take Mason Rudolph. He doesn’t have anything rally wrong with him. They could sit him all season while Tyrod Taylor plays.”

 

And what would Rutigliano do at the top of the draft?

 

“I’d take Barkley with the first pick and Chubb at No. 4,” he said.

 

Hmmm.

 

Talk to you all on Thursday night.