If you’re old like I am and you remember cars with big fins, black and white TV and the Hula Hoop, then you probably also recall S & H Green Stamps.

I can vividly remember my mom collecting Green Stamps, which were a little smaller than postage stamps, as rewards for her purchases at the A&P Supermarket and carefully pasting them into these tiny books when she got back home. When she had enough stamps, she would go to the redemption center nearby and trade them in for a toaster, iron, etc.

Mom didn’t hoard the Green Stamps, nor did she use them just willy-nilly. Simply put, when she needed something, she got it. There was no bonus for keeping them longer than you needed to. You didn’t get extra stamps for holding on to them.

I wish – I really wish – that the Browns had used my mom’s Green Stamps philosophy in their approach to the NFL Draft in the last decade, and especially in the past several years. That is, when they needed something, or in their case, someone – and goodness knows that they have needed great players – I wish they had used their high picks to get those guys.

Instead, they have traded down and down and down out of the very top of the draft so as to collect more picks, particularly for future drafts. They were always looking to next season, or the season after that, and ignoring the here and now, even though there were major needs in the here and now and major players available who could have filled those needs.

By doing so, they missed out on guys like quarterback Carson Wentz. Do you think they could have used him? Yeah, I sure do, too.

The Browns have the first overall pick in this year’s draft, and No. 4 – two choices in the top four, for goodness sake! – and four picks in the top 35. This is the Cleveland Browns’ draft. The 31 other teams are just participating in it.

The Browns’ toaster is fried. Their iron is flat-out worn out. Both need to be replaced now.

As such, I am hoping that they will – and again, as I stated in my last post, with new General Manager John Dorsey, I am expecting that they will – use all the Green Stamps that they’ve collected over the years – and there are lots and lots and lots of them – and get the best toaster and the best iron available.

The toaster is a franchise quarterback, for whom the Browns have been searching for seemingly forever. You can’t win in this league without a great player there.

The iron represents top-rated players at a variety of other positions of great need as well, including cornerback, running back and safety.

If the Browns have any unused books full of Green Stamps left at the end of the draft, then owner Jimmy Haslam ought to trade them in for a new GM.

But I don’t think it will come to that.

At least I hope it doesn’t.