CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 Browns coach Kevin Stefanski will call plays again this season, but first he must build trust. Stefanski\u2019s players perform a dangerous job, and part of his is to give them good reason. <\/p>\n
Why should the Browns risk their bodies? Easy to answer in September, when season-long goals \u2014 Suuuper Booowl! \u2014 all seem achievable. But unlike Tuesday\u2019s hopeful prediction column<\/a>, this one deals with a darker, more difficult question. <\/p>\n What happens when those goals fade from view? <\/p>\n Last season, Cleveland gave us the wrong answers. The Browns ranked 25th in penalties last season, and per PFF, they missed more tackles than any team in the league. Coaches call these fundamental mistakes, emphasis on mental. And as Cleveland drifted further from its goals, players\u2019 focus followed. <\/p>\n Four of the Browns\u2019 five highest missed tackle totals occurred after their 1-6 start. Three of their lowest occurred beforehand. <\/p>\n Four of their five games with 70-plus penalty yards occurred after Week 6. And only twice did Cleveland commit fewer than five penalties in consecutive weeks last year: Weeks 3 and 4, before the season felt over (but probably was); and Weeks 9 and 11, or the two games after Cleveland upset the Baltimore Ravens in Jameis Winston\u2019s first start.<\/p>\n This is no exact science, but you watched the games. The Browns lost energy as hope lost steam. Their point differential dropped from -7.5 per game with Deshuan Watson at quarterback to -9.2 per game with Winston, then to -20 during the Dorian Thompson-Robinson dog days, featuring Week 18 starter (and current practice squad member) Bailey Zappe. <\/p>\n Of course, bad quarterback play makes teams worse. But it also inspires less motivation. And I worry how human nature could interfere with data suggesting Cleveland could be better than expected. <\/p>\n Quick review: History tells us that elite defenses, like Cleveland\u2019s 2023 unit, usually return to top form. It also tells us that, when paired with a competent quarterback, Stefanski\u2019s offenses score points. Add those points to a top defense, and your team often makes the playoffs. <\/p>\n But like many math equations, this one has variables. The variables are people. And people are hard to predict. <\/p>\n How would these Browns react to another 1-5 start over their first six games, which include five matchups against 2024 playoff teams? <\/p>\n Would players lose motivation? Would Stefanski bench veteran quarterback Joe Flacco, by far Cleveland\u2019s best win-now option, to collect data on rookie passers Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders? Would general manager Andrew Berry punt on this season by trading proven veterans for draft picks? <\/p>\n Would Browns ownership, still fighting a publicity battle as they push for a new stadium, keep their promise to be patient<\/a> with Stefanski and Berry? <\/p>\n Hard to say when we\u2019re calculating humanity. In statistics, one bad year usually leads to a better one. Good defenses and quality play-callers progress to their means. Penalties and missed tackles normalize year over year. <\/p>\n But bad times can snowball on people, especially after a slow start to the season. <\/p>\n Look at this slate: vs. Bengals, at Ravens, vs. Packers, at Lions, vs. Vikings in London, at Steelers. Those teams finished with 61 combined wins and 31 losses last season. None had a losing record. The Browns will likely be underdogs in all six matchups. <\/p>\n How many upsets must Cleveland pull to keep hope alive, or keep Flacco atop the depth chart, or convince the front office to keep competing? Or, put another way, how long until the Browns accept the path most pundits see for them? <\/p>\n Anybody can predict a six- or seven-win season from a team stuck between re-building for the future and retaining buy-in from its talented veterans. Boring. <\/p>\n It takes a real doubter to predict another 3-14 season, leaving unpredictable ownership to ponder the wreckage. <\/p>\n Yesterday I asked Browns fans to believe<\/a>, and what a beautiful tenet. Trusting blindly builds community, especially when it pays off. <\/p>\n But people can only buy in for so long without proof of concept. The Browns have earned little benefit of the doubt. And ahead of Sunday\u2019s Week 1 game vs. the Cincinnati, which begins a six-game gauntlet, I can see their fanbase\u2019s worst fears coming to fruition.<\/p>\n Cleveland could lose just as much this year as did last. <\/p>\n Football Insider newsletter free trial: Take a minute and sign up for a free trial<\/a> of our Football Insider newsletter, featuring exclusive content from cleveland.com’s Browns reporters.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 Browns coach Kevin Stefanski will call plays again this season, but first he must build…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2054],"tags":[86,85,54,58555,2337,7,58556,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-337965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-browns","8":"tag-browns","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-browns","11":"tag-cleveland-browns-2025","12":"tag-clevelandbrowns","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-los-angeles-rams-2025","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115139645843161855","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}