Cleveland Browns

Browns season preview 2016: Predictions and analysis

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

foxsports

The Cleveland Browns have a long way to go, but they’ve at least started moving in the right direction. (We think… We hope… Probably not…) Still glowing from the high of capturing its first championship since 1964, courtesy of the Herculean LeBron James and his Cavaliers, the city of Cleveland now faces the stark, perennial reality of yet another painful NFL season.

The Browns cleaned out the front office yet again this offseason, barely waiting until the completion of Week 17 before canning general manager Ray Farmer and replacing him with Sashi Brown. Brown opted to sit back in free agency, allowing a quartet of core players — center Alex Mack, right tackle Mitch Schwartz, wide receiver Travis Benjamin, and safety Tashaun Gipson — to leave the franchise.

For fans, it was just another brutal blow in a football tragedy teeming with them. For the future health of the Browns organization, it was a bloodletting that needed to happen.

Cleveland is clearly trying to clean up the salary cap and wait out the next few years, relying on good drafting and smart, low-cost free agents to flesh out the team’s base. While it’s certainly the most time-intensive plan possible, it’s also the right one — for team and fans alike.

There is no easy fix for the Browns, who desperately needed to overhaul the entire roster. On the sideline, Mike Pettine wasn’t getting the job done, and was promptly replaced by Hue Jackson. (In all fairness, though, Vince Lombardi himself couldn’t have done anything with that roster.)

Jackson is now in his second stint as head coach, having run the Oakland Raiders in 2011. There, Jackson orchestrated one of the best coaching jobs nobody talks about, going 8-8 with Jason Campbell at the helm (go ahead and read that again), only to be sacked by general manager Reggie McKenzie and replaced by Dennis Allen.

More than anything, Jackson brings an attitude to Cleveland that’s been glaringly lacking in recent years. The Browns also signed quarterback Robert Griffin III to a two-year deal worth $15 million, with the idea of resurrecting Griffin’s once-promising star. RGIII was a dynamo as a rookie with the Washington Redskins in 2012, when he won the NFC East before tearing his ACL in the Wild Card game. Griffin has been pretty terrible ever since, but the physical gifts are still there.

For Cleveland, this season is about whether Jackson and Griffin can forge the kind of coach-player chemistry the latter has lacked seemingly since day one, while giving fans reason to believe the quarterback and coaching searches can be finally, mercifully called off. Nobody has lasted in either position since the franchise was reintroduced into the NFL in 1999, but Jackson comes into the job with more cache than anybody before him (save Romeo Crennel, perhaps).

Eternal hope aside, it’s going to be a tough year on the Cuyahoga. With little talent on either side of the ball, the Browns are going to be both terrible and boring — at least at times. This is a team doomed to be stuck in neutral. The trick is making sure the whole thing doesn’t get thrown in reverse.

Still, real progress can be made. The rest of the roster remains flexible, and Brown has cleaved open a ton of cap space to work with.

There’s an old saying that it’s often darkest before the dawn. Well, it’s been pitch black in Cleveland for some time now. Here’s hoping the Cavs’ magical run was the first ray of a coming golden dawn on Lake Erie.

Schedule

Week 1 – at Philadelphia Eagles
Week 2 – Baltimore Ravens
Week 3 – at Miami Dolphins
Week 4 – at Washington Redskins
Week 5 – New England Patriots
Week 6 – at Tennessee Titans
Week 7 – at Cincinnati Bengals
Week 8 – New York Jets
Week 9 – Dallas Cowboys
Week 10 – at Baltimore Ravens (Thurs.)
Week 11 – Pittsburgh Steelers
Week 12 – New York Giants
Week 13 – BYE
Week 14 – Cincinnati Bengals
Week 15 – at Buffalo Bills
Week 16 – San Diego Chargers
Week 17 – at Pittsburgh Steelers

The Browns are going to struggle to stay in a lot of games this season, but the beginning of the campaign —a home stand against division-rival Baltimore and a winnable road game against the Dolphins — could give them an early confidence boost.

There are other opportunities for wins, including Week 6 on the road at Tennessee and a Week-12 home game against Giants, whose defense seems tailor-made to give up 30 points a game. Whether or not the Browns can actually capitalize on the lower-hanging fruit, and generate the kind of momentum to propel them forward in 2017, is another question entirely.

Draft class

Round 1 (15) – Corey Coleman, WR, Baylor
Round 2 (32) – Emmanuel Ogbah, DE, Oklahoma State
Round 3 (65) – Carl Nassib, DE, Penn State
Round 3 (76) – Shon Coleman, OT, Auburn
Round 3 (93) – Cody Kessler, QB, USC
Round 4 (99) – Joe Schobert, ILB, Wisconsin
Round 4 (114) – Ricardo Lewis, WR, Auburn
Round 4 (129) – Derrick Kindred, S, TCU
Round 4 (138) – Seth Devalve, TE, Princeton
Round 5 (154) – Jordan Payton, WR, UCLA
Round 5 (168) – Spencer Drango, OG, Baylor
Round 5 (172) – Rashard Higgins, WR, Colorado State
Round 5 (173) – Trey Caldwell, CB, Louisiana-Monroe
Round 7 (250) – Scooby Wright III, ILB, Arizona

It’s never a good sign when your first-round pick shows up to rookie camp and gets yelled out for being out of shape. Yet that’s the welcome Corey Coleman got from Hue Jackson back in May. If Coleman wants to be productive at this level, he’ll need to get serious — and fast.

The rest of this class — save for sneaky-smart selection of Ogbah — leaves something to be desired. The front office wasn’t wrong to focus on the offense, but it may have missed the mark by taking four receivers and a quarterback with ample flaws.

Offseason moves

Acquired

Robert Griffin III, QB (2 years, $15 million)

Lost

Mitch Schwartz, OT (KC – 5 years, $33 million)
Alex Mack, C (ATL – 5 years, $47.5 million)
Travis Benjamin, WR (SD – 4 years, $24 million)
Tashaun Gipson, S (JAX – 5 years, $35.5 million)

X-Factor

Easy: Robert Griffin III. is he the gamer we saw lead the Skins to a division crown in his rookie season? Or is he more the guy we’ve seen (on the rare occasion he’s played) over the past three years, looking like a shell of his former self?

Griffin can play like Joe Montana incarnate, and the Browns still aren’t making the playoffs. But they could be entertaining — if Jackson and his quarterback can figure out a system that works. If Griffin is terrible right out of the gate or benched halfway through the season? A one-win season is eminently possible.

Bottom Line

This is going to be a long, slow climb for Cleveland. The Browns let most of their top players walk in free agency in an effort to completely rebuild with a clean cap sheet. It’s not a bad move, but it comes with the understanding that team will likely struggle for the rest of this decade.

The keys to watch this season are Jackson and Griffin. If those two find solid counterparts — and confidants — in one another, the Browns should feel like they solved some huge questions. Also, what are the young players giving them?

As much as Cleveland fans will hate hearing it, this year is not about the final record, but simply making progress. For a franchise accustomed to making things much more difficult than they have to be, that’s anything but a small task.