CLEVELAND -- The moment that sealed the Cleveland Browns' 0-16 record in 2017 was equally as heartbreaking as it was symbolic.
Trailing the Pittsburgh Steelers 28-24, the Browns found themselves facing a 4th-and-2 from their opponent's 31-yard line with 1:54 remaining on the clock. After avoiding pressure inside the pocket, quarterback DeShone Kizer rolled to his left, finding an open Corey Coleman along the sideline.
Kizer's pass, however, proceeded to bounce off of the fingertips of the former first-round pick, who immediately placed his hands on the top of his helmet as Cleveland clinched just the second 0-16 season in NFL history.
That Coleman is perhaps the player most associated with 0-16 isn't necessarily fair -- after all, he only played in 9 games last season -- but in many ways, it is fitting. Cleveland's winless season marked the culmination of an unprecedented roster teardown orchestrated by former general manager Sashi Brown -- a teardown that began with the 2016 draft, which Cleveland entered with the No. 2 overall pick.
But rather than selecting any one of the five Pro Bowl talents who were selected in the top-five, the Browns traded back to No. 8 -- and again to No. 15. That's where they would ultimately select Coleman, who was hardly considered the consensus top receiver in the draft.
To be fair, that trade -- and subsequent trades that came as a result of that trade -- netted the Browns a bevy of picks, including the one they used to select Denzel Ward with the No. 4 overall pick this past April. Still, it'd be tough to argue Cleveland wouldn't be in a better spot had Brown just selected Carson Wentz -- or Joey Bosa, Jalen Ramsey or Ezekiel Elliott -- with the No. 2 pick, parlaying a 3-13 record in 2015 into a top-tier talent the following spring.
Instead, the Brown did his best to outthink the room, and as a result, wound up selecting an injury-prone receiver with shaky hands and a questionable off-field reputation as his first first-round pick. Advanced analytics loved the 5-foot-11's speed and inflated production at Baylor, but very rarely did either make much of an appearance during the 19 games he played in two seasons with the Browns.
Poor quarterback play may have plagued Coleman's time in Cleveland, but so too did his own inconsistencies, both on and off the field.
Suffice to say, measurables didn't tell the whole story when it came to Coleman as a prospect, which will go down as one of the defining characteristics of the Sashi Brown era. "Winning" trades on draft day didn't result in wins on the field, which is why Brown was let go last December.
In eight months on the job, new Browns general manager John Dorsey has already put his stamp on the roster, acquiring veterans such as Tyrod Taylor, Jarvis Landry, Carlos Hyde and Damarious Randall. In trading Coleman for merely a 7th round pick in 2020, he's shown he's not afraid to move on from a sunken cost, closing the door on one era in Cleveland as another gets set to begin.
Time will tell if this Browns regime -- like the last one -- drops the ball.