The temptation is alluring, but it's Ray Farmer's job to resist it.
The Browns general manager was hired not only to build the team into a championship contender, but also establish a culture of sustained success. Those two goals can work in sync, but they can also be disparate if they're achieved in the wrong fashion.
Farmer calls it a "delicate balance." It will be a term to remember as the Browns approach a busy offseason of bolstering the roster through free agency and the draft.
"You've got to win games today but you can't lose sight of what happens tomorrow," Farmer said in a recent interview on 'Inside the Cleveland Browns.' "Our goal for the Browns is to win and sustain winning over time."
"It's more about the balance of the two than it is any one outweighing the other."
For a second consecutive year, the Browns have managed the salary cap well and carry significant flexibility as they look to resign their own players and add new ones to the roster. They also boast a large number of picks in the 2015 NFL Draft, holding two first-round picks (12 and 19) for a second consecutive year. No other team holds two first-rounders in this year's draft.
In his end-of-season press conference, Farmer said he'd already re-evaluated how he and his staff would approach the draft because he took over as general manager with a relatively minimal time to prepare. Farmer's group of scouts now has more experience and the "processes" they use to evaluate players has changed, he said.
The philosophy for how to approach another big chance to make the Browns better will not.
"We will be creative, we will think outside the box, we will leave no stone unturned, we will make a concerted effort to make sure we improve the Cleveland Browns to move this franchise forward," Farmer said. "We have resources, we have an owner that's willing, we have a head coach that's not afraid and we have a GM that's going to move us forward with the people that are available for us to acquire."
Check out the rest of this portion of Nathan Zegura's interview with Farmer by clicking on the video near the top.
