The Cleveland Browns are no strangers to self-destruction.
Who can forget the three-year train wreck from 2015 to 2017, when Cleveland had a combined record of 4-44, which translates to a winning percentage of.090?
Or how about 2016, when the Browns won all but 15 of their 16 games, which translates to a winning percentage of.032.
Then there was the granddaddy of them all, in 2017, when the Browns played 16 games and lost all of them, which translated to no winning percentage at all:.000.
When it comes to the art of futility, the Cleveland Browns take a backseat to no one, including themselves.
So far, in the 2024 season, the Browns are out-browning themselves again.
Seven games into the season, Cleveland has won just one game and lost the other six. Or, think about this: the Browns have not scored more than 18 points in any game this season. In their seven games so far they have been outscored by their opponents 162-109.
Cleveland has also now lost its quarterback, Deshaun Watson, who suffered a season-ending ruptured Achilles in Cleveland’s 21-14 loss to Cincinnati last Sunday.
Watson could have been replaced by Joe Flacco, who saved the Browns’ season last year when Watson suffered a season-ending injury. Flacco answered an emergency call from Cleveland officials, asking him if he would mind joining the team and help lead it to the playoffs.
Flacco said, “Sure,” and then did exactly that. After doing exactly that, Flacco was named the winner of the Associated Press’ Comeback Player of the Year Award, and during the offseason he offered to return to Cleveland in a backup role in 2024.
The Browns inexplicably declined the offer, so Flacco instead signed with the Indianapolis Colts, for whom, in three games in a backup role, Flacco has thrown seven touchdown passes, one interception, and has a passer rating of 102.2 with a 72 QBR.
Watson’s 2024 season ended in Cleveland’s 21-14 loss to Cincinnati last Sunday, when he ruptured his Achilles. When, where, and for whom Watson plays his next NFL game is unknown, but it will not be this year. He is still under that massive contract—five years, $230 million—from the Browns, for whom he still has two years remaining.
In the meantime, the Browns’ season is again starting to circle the drain in typically Brown-ish fashion. If all the above was not demoralizing enough, Cleveland on Sunday plays perhaps the best team in the NFL, the Baltimore Ravens (the former Browns franchise that was moved to Baltimore by Browns owner Art Modell in 1996).
Meanwhile, in Cleveland, Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam are moving forward with plans to build a domed stadium in Brook Park.
It seems likely that whoever is the Browns’ quarterback when the domed stadium opens for business will not be Watson. For now, the quarterback Sunday for the game with Baltimore will be Jameis Winston, who has started just 10 NFL games in the last five years, all of them with New Orleans.
Winston has thrown 99 career interceptions, including a league-high 30 for Tampa Bay in 2019. He was declared the starter for Sunday’s game with Baltimore. Winston’s backup will be Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who last year as a rookie lost two of the three games he started.
It has been a somewhat chaotic week for the Browns. First there was the loss of Watson to a season-ending injury. Then Kevin Stefanski, the team’s head coach and two-time NFL Coach of the Year, announced he was turning over the offensive play calling duties that he had held since the Browns hired him in 2020 to offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey.
The team’s dismal 1-6 start has already led to speculation on whether the team would consider trading some of its more expensive players in preparation for an extensive fire sale, and perhaps collecting draft picks for next year’s NFL Draft. Cleveland already traded its top receiver, Amari Cooper, to the Buffalo Bills. Other older, veteran players, both offensively and defensively, could be targets for teams that are still in the hunt for the playoffs.
At 1-6, Cleveland is not.
Watson’s future in Cleveland is only iffy at best. Halfway through his third year with the Browns, he has yet to play a full season with Cleveland due to injuries and suspensions by the NFL. Because of the trade for Watson, moreover, the Browns have not had a first-round pick in the draft in three years.
To that end, it seems likely that the going-nowhere, 1-6 Browns should consider trading some of their older veterans to teams still in the playoff hunt in exchange for as much draft capital as possible to facilitate as rapid a rebuild as is possible.
Browns fans, of course, have been through this exercise before. Indeed, the quarterback position that the Haslams thought they had solved with the trade for Watson is now murkier than ever.
