User:Omg its will run/Sandbox articles/List of Cleveland Browns first-round draft picks

The following is a list of first-round draft picks made by the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL). Prior to the 1950 NFL season, the Cleveland Browns, as well as the Baltimore Colts and San Francisco 49ers, became members of the NFL following the league's merger with the then-rival All-America Football Conference (AAFC), which was dominated by the Browns throughout all four years of its existence.

The Browns have made the first overall selection three times: Bobby Garrett, a quarterback from Stanford, in 1957; Tim Couch, a quarterback from Kentucky, in 1999; and Courtney Brown, a defensive end from Penn State, in 2000. The team has also selected four eventual Pro Football Hall of Famers: Doug Atkins, a defensive end from Tennessee, in 1953 (though he would be enshrined as a member of the Chicago Bears); Jim Brown, a fullback from Syracuse, in 1957; Paul Warfield, a wide receiver from Ohio State, in 1964; and Ozzie Newsome, a tight end from Alabama, in 1973. Cleveland's five selections from Michigan are the most chosen by the team from one school.

The team did not have any draft picks from 1996 to 1998; then-owner Art Modell had made the decision to relocate the team from Cleveland to Baltimore following the 1995 season. However, a compromise between the city of Cleveland and the NFL kept the team's history, name, and colors in Cleveland, while Modell's new franchise would be regarded as an expansion team. The Baltimore Ravens began play in 1996. The Browns returned to the league as an expansion team in 1999 and were awarded the first overall selection of the draft (see below), with which the team selected Couch. Because of this, and for the NFL's record-keeping purposes, the Browns are considered to have suspended operations from 1996 to 1998, which is reflected in this list.

Cleveland's first first-round draft pick as an NFL team was Ken Carpenter, a halfback from Oregon State, in the 1950 NFL Draft. The team's most recent first-round draft pick was Alex Mack, a center from California, in the 2009 NFL Draft.

How the draft works
The NFL Player Selection Meeting, which is more commonly known as the NFL Draft, is held each year at the end of April. It is the primary method for the league's teams to add newly-eligible players to their rosters, primarily from college football. These additions are known as selections, but are more commonly known as picks.

The draft order for the first round is determined as follows: Ties are first broken by strength of schedule, where a lower strength of schedule results in an earlier selection. If there is still a tie, conference or division standings tiebreakers are used. In cases where ties cannot be broken, a coin toss is performed at the NFL Scouting Combine in early February to determine the draft order.
 * Expansion teams select before any other team, with a coin toss deciding which team will select first should there be more than one expansion team;
 * Participants in the Super Bowl are always given the final two selections, with the loser selecting before the champion;
 * Teams that did not make the NFL playoffs are sorted by their records during the regular season;
 * Finally, teams that made the playoffs are sorted by how they performed, with teams eliminated in the wild card round selecting before teams eliminated in the divisional round, who, in turn, select before teams eliminated in the conference round, with all teams being sorted within this primary order by their regular season records.

Furthermore, teams have the option of trading draft selections, so it is not uncommon for a team's actual selection to vary from its assigned selection.