Where Is The Bottom?

 

After careful analysis I have determined the biggest problem for the Cleveland Browns is that they just aren't very good.  The team is the net result of not bringing in new impact players for three consecutive years and trading all their top draft picks for the worst starting QB in the league and two lackluster receivers.  The team has that feel of one of those 2010 era Browns teams where the hopelessness is absolute.  There are no quick fixes.  It is institutional failure, one which repeats over and over and over.  This is due to the fact that the ownership group continues to demonstrate an incompetence that even a casual onlooker can easily identify.

It's sort of amazing that Winston threw for almost 400 yards with no turnovers and the Browns only scored 14 points.  I guess it doesn't help that Hopkins appears to have a case of the yips and the team cannot run the ball at all, but still, 400 yards is 400 yards.  I spend most of these Browns games looking at completed passes saying things like "Who was that?  Who caught that?" and then when the announcers says "Thrash" or "Tillman" I say "who?".  I need to embrace these players as "Next Gen Mohamed Massaquoi" or "The Poor Man's Greg Little" to enjoy the grind of the next 7 weeks.  The defense gives up big plays.  They can't run the ball.  The special teams blow.  There really is no upside with this team.  It's grim.

One of the things I know about the NFL is when you lose a game that was expected to be close by three touchdowns, you're going to need a scapegoat.  Normally you'd reflexively fire the coach or at the very least cut the GM loose, but I'm not sure what that would accomplish here.  What you really need to do is to get a new ownership group, but I think we can all see that the Haslams have settled into our community like ticks and are preparing to suck the tax payers dry for the next stadium fiasco.  Maybe you put a bullet in the kicker.  The real path forward would be for Jimmy and Dee Haslam to step in front of a podium and say, "Since we have owned the franchise we have been too involved in the football operations.  This is a mistake since we don't know anything about how to put a winning football culture together.  We were the ones that wanted to bring in Watson.  That was our decision and we regret it.  However, we have learned from this terrible episode.  From this point on, we are going to get out of the way and let the football people handle the football decisions."  Of course, there is no way the ego of this ownership group would allow any of that to happen.

I suspect that they will fire the front office at the end of the season.  Let's be honest, the front office hasn't been great.  There hasn't been a Top 50 player selected in three years, and that has finally caught up to the Browns.  The miscalculation on Watson, which I believe is largely tied to not predicting what would happen when you gave that guy $250M without any strings attached, doomed Berry.  It wasn't solely his decision but he would have been a key player in making it happen.  The Browns went all in and ironically they would have been better off with Mayfield and all the draft picks.  Making matters worse, this 2024 Browns team is probably going to be much more competitive than the cash strapped teams that await Browns fans in 2025/2026.  They have an aging roster, no QB, and will need to rebuild on all the key positions of need with no money.  Yikes.

The Browns could easily lose the next seven games.  Where is a win?  Maybe at home Dec 29th versus a potentially disinterested Dolphins?  Maybe they play Cincinnati tough?  There is a very realistic chance that this Browns team, one which had been talking about going to a Super Bowl, is going to get the #1 pick in the NFL draft.  This could arguably be the most disastrous Browns season since the team returned in 1999.  That is REALLY saying something.  However, there is something familiar for Browns fans about comparing college QBs before Thanksgiving in the hopes that finally the team will deliver the right player.  The best part is we all know deep in our hearts that they won't.  We know with absolute certainty they will bungle the pick with whoever the Bryce Young is of the upcoming draft class.  The Browns are the Browns and will always be the Browns.  

Go Browns.