If you want to know why the Cleveland Browns are not a good football team, why they must sink further into the crevasse before coming out born anew, look no further than their first-round selections over the past half decade or so.

We were reminded of their ineptitude on Thursday, when Cleveland traded 2013 first-round pick Barkevious Mingo to the Patriots after just two seasons on the team.

Ignoring the 2016 NFL Draft because 1) it's a new regime and 2) Corey Coleman hasn't even played a regular-season snap yet, the Browns have had eight first-round picks since 2011.

Of those first round picks, none are good.

YearPlayerOverall Pick No. Career AV*Current Team
2011Phil Taylor21st20N/A
2012Trent Richardson3rd18N/A
2012Brandon Weeden22nd15Texans
2013Barkevious Mingo6th11Patriots
2014Justin Gilbert8th3Browns
2014Johnny Manziel22nd5N/A
2015Danny Shelton12th6Browns
2015Cameron Erving19th2Browns

*Career AV is Pro-Football-Reference's Approximate Value, designed to attach a value to each individual player's season.

The jury is still out on Erving and Shelton, although no one is scrambling to pump them up as great picks at this very moment.

It is entirely possible that Hue Jackson's regime in Cleveland, as well as the new front office, will do a better job of developing players, and those two young men will become decent football players. The odds are stacked against them given history, but it's possible.

The other thing to note here is the "what if" factor. It's sort of unfair to play that against a team that's been beat up so badly like the Browns, but let's do it anyway.

Phil Taylor was taken after the Browns traded out of the top-10 and let the Falcons acquire Julio Jones. To make that more simple: they could have stood pat in the top 10 of one of the all-time great draft classes and landed a franchise wide receiver. Or just drafted J.J. Watt. Whatever.

Trent Richardson is kind of excusable because lots of people liked him, but there were inherent risks with taking a running back in the top five. There always are. Brandon Weeden was 29 when Cleveland drafted him. That's not hyperbole.

Mingo was bad enough to be traded three years into his career, and wasn't worth a fifth-round option. It's worth noting there wasn't much good coming out of the 2013 class. Sheldon Richardson and Star Lotulelei were drafted shortly after Mingo, though.

But 2014 was the real jewel here. The list of players drafted in between Justin Gilbert (No. 8) and Johnny Manziel (No. 22) is heartbreaking and painful if you're a Browns fan: Anthony Barr, Eric Ebron, Taylor Lewan, Odell Beckham, Aaron Donald, Kyle Fuller, Ryan Shazier, Zack Martin, C.J. Mosley, Calvin Pryor, Ja'Wuan James, Brandin Cooks and HaHa Clinton-Dix.

Plenty of chances for the Browns to screw up there anyway, but there are like six potential All-Pro players on that list. Absolutely brutal. Jason Verrett, Kelvin Benjamin, Deone Bucannon, Bradley Roby and Teddy Bridgewater were all taken after Manziel as well.

It's not difficult to imagine the Browns currently possessing Bridgewater/Derek Carr and Beckham instead of Gilbert/Manziel.

Well, considering how they've drafted since 2011, maybe it's pretty hard to imagine after all.