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For the first time ever, the NFL Draft will begin at night.

That will happen on April 22, the first of the draft’s three days, when the opening round is held.

Call it, if you will, the draft’s version of “The Tonight Show.”

The Browns’ 15th-round pick in the 1953 draft would have loved it. He was just 47 years too early to see it.

His name? Johnny Carson.

Uh, not the talk-show legend, but rather the end from the University of Georgia.

Yes, the Browns did indeed draft a player named Johnny Carson. If he had made it with the Browns, then the public address announcer at Cleveland Stadium could have said as Carson ran out on the field, “Heeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrreeeeeee’s Johnny!”

Before you ask, not in 1953 nor at any other time have the Browns drafted anyone named Ed McMahon or Doc Severinsen. But they did pick Shane Svendsen, a center from Minnesota in the 30th round in 1958, and Ricky Stevenson, a cornerback from Arizona in the fourth round in 1970. Is that close enough? Probably not. And they have also chosen numerous players over the years whose last names began with “Mc,” but no McMahons. He wasn’t a Browns draft pick, but veteran quarterback Jim McMahon did play for the team in 1995.

Anyway, the story on Carson -- the football player -- is just one of the many little-known but interesting facts about Browns draft history.

Here are some others:

*Since we’re on the entertainment theme, we should also point out that the Browns used their 27th-round pick in 1951 to select a halfback from Livingston State named Jack Jones. It’s not known if he could sing. He should not be confused with the team’s eighth-round choice in 1990, Virginia Tech linebacker Jock Jones.

*Some other Browns draft picks with memorable names, some of whom went on to play in the NFL either with the club or another team, include Nebraska tackle Charley Toogood, a 26th-rounder in 1950, Pittsburgh halfback Henry Ford (ninth round, 1955), SMU halfback Johnny Champion (26th round, 1951), Florida State tight end Charles “Chip” Glass (third round, 1969), Kentucky halfback Don “Dopey” Phelps (fifth round, 1950), Ohio State fullback Bob White (eighth round, 1960), Grambling wide receiver Clifton “Sticks” McNeil (11th round, 1962) and Mississippi back Charles (Chuck) Taylor (15th round, 1961).

*San Diego State’s Brian Sipe (1972) is not the only quarterback of note the Browns have drafted in the 13th round over the years. There’s also John Borton (1955), who helped lead Ohio State to the national championship in 1954.

*While Lindy Infante is maybe the best offensive coordinator in Browns history after serving in 1986 and ’87, that was not his first involvement with the team. That came when, as a back from Florida, he was Cleveland’s 12th-round choice in 1963. Another Browns draftee who never played for the club but went on to a fine career as an NFL coach is Michigan State halfback Sherman Lewis, an 18th-rounder in 1964. Cornerback Dick LeBeau, a fifth-rounder in 1959 from Ohio State, also never played for the Browns but starred for the Lions and is going into the Hall of Fame this year. He is a longtime NFL coach and served as a head coach with the Bengals.

*Hall of Fame head coach Don Shula was a ninth-round pick as a defensive back from John Carroll University in Cleveland in 1951 and played one year with the Browns. His John Carroll teammate, defensive back Carl Taseff, a 22nd-rounder in 1951, also played one season in Cleveland and later went on to a long coaching career as an assistant under Shula. You may also have heard of HOF head coach Chuck Noll, a 20th-round pick from Dayton in 1953 who played seven years for the Browns. Linebacker Walt Michaels, a seventh-rounder in 1951 from Washington & Lee, played a decade for the Browns before becoming head coach of the Jets. Another Browns star, defensive end Paul Wiggin, a sixth-rounder from Stanford in 1956, became an NFL head coach with the Chiefs.

*When the draft was 17 rounds, the Browns hit it big in the final round in 1967 by selecting Defiance cornerback Ben Davis, a key player for six seasons.

*Ha, 17 rounds? That’s the express lane of drafts compared to when the event consisted of 30 -- count ’em, 30 -- rounds from 1950-59. Compare that to today, when the draft is just seven rounds. That’s not even a blip on the screen compared to the old days. We’re talking a man’s draft here, son. But if the truth be told, in the last part of a 30-round draft, teams have to reach. There just aren’t that many players to go around. So those were throwaway picks in many respects in the late rounds -- but not in every case, certainly. The Browns did manage to select some great players at the end of those drafts, including Missouri safety Lowe “Junior” Wren, a 23rd-rounder in 1952, and Bowling Green wide receiver Bob Schnelker (29th round, 1950). Wren had a nice four-year career with the Browns, but Schnelker never played for the team. He did, however, play against the Browns through the 1950s as a member of the arch rival Giants and always seemed to save his best for Cleveland. He was a thorn in the Browns’ side.

*But don’t be hard on the Browns for not keeping Schnelker. There were only 33-man rosters then, so teams had to be quite picky about who made the final cut. That was especially the case with the Browns of that era, for they were stacked to the brim with talent. Some other players who never played for the Browns, or hit their stride after leaving the club, include four Pro Football Hall of Famers in Tennessee defensive end Doug Atkins (first round, 1954), Boston College defensive tackle defensive tackle Art “Fats” Donovan (fourth round, 1951), Grambling defensive end Willis Davis (15th round, 1956) and Virginia defensive tackle Henry Jordan (fifth round, 1957). There’s also a possible someday Hall of Famer in defensive end Jim Marshall, a fourth-rounder in 1960 from Columbus (Ohio) East High School and Ohio State. What a draft the Browns had in 1957, getting Jordan and two Hall of Famers of their own in Syracuse running back Jim Brown (first round) and Mississippi offensive guard Gene Hickerson (seventh round). Incidentally, Jordan and Davis played together for the Packers.

*Some draft picks just weren’t destined to be football players, but they were destined to be stars in other sports. The Browns selected Ohio State’s John Havlicek in the seventh round in 1962 and tried him at wide receiver. He hadn’t played football since his days at Bridgeport (Ohio) High School, when he was an All-Ohio choice in that sport, and also baseball and basketball. Talk about a well-rounded athlete. When he went off to college, he helped lead the Buckeyes basketball team in 1960 to its only national championship. He stayed with the Browns through training camp that year then went on to a Basketball Hall of Fame career with Boston Celtics. In addition, Mississippi quarterback Jake Gibbs was taken in the ninth round in 1961 and ended up being a pretty good catcher for the New York Yankees.

*Tom Bloom is the most tragic story of all Browns draft picks. The back from Purdue, a sixth-rounder in 1963, never even got to meet his new team, after being killed in a car accident a little over a month following the draft.

*Then there’s center/linebacker Don Steinbrunner from Washington State, a sixth-round choice in 1953 who played one year with the Browns before going into the service. He ended up being the first former or current NFL player at the time that was killed in the Vietnam War.

*But fortunately, for every sad story like the last two, there are 10 good ones in Browns draft history. We’ll leave you with this tale that will hopefully make you smile. The Browns used their fifth-round pick in 1993 to draft Grambling offensive lineman Herman Arvie. He was a big player -- especially for the time -- at 6-foot-4 and about 325 pounds. Then right after the draft, the Browns signed Orlando “Zeus” Brown, a rookie free agent offensive tackle from South Carolina State. Brown was 6-foot-7 and when he reported, was estimated to be about 385 pounds, give or take a few deluxe cheeseburgers. South Carolina State didn’t have much of a weight training program, so Brown arrived with a lot of baby fat. Plus he had an Afro hair cut that seemed to extend about as far out as his shoulders, making him look more like a 747 than a human being when he walked past. The head coach at the time was Bill Belichick, who, as longtime Browns fans can attest, hardly ever cracked a smile -- for any reason. With him, it was all business, all the time. After one of the team’s rookie mini-camp practices that year, a media member posed a question to Belichick about the two players. “Is Orlando Brown bigger than Herman Arvie?” the reporter asked innocently. Though he still didn’t break away from his usual monotone voice, Belichick, looking up, did sport -- by far -- his widest grin of the year as he replied, “You could put Herman Arvie inside of Orlando Brown.”

If Johnny Carson -- the talk-show legend, that is -- had heard a story like that, then he might have used it during one of his monologues.