{"id":731399,"date":"2026-02-05T15:46:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T15:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/731399\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T15:46:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T15:46:15","slug":"the-browns-arent-keeping-their-roadmap-a-secret-if-youre-paying-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/731399\/","title":{"rendered":"The Browns aren\u2019t keeping their roadmap a secret, if you\u2019re paying attention"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 It\u2019s rare this time of year to get much honesty from football people and even rarer to think the Browns<\/a> would offer up much about their expectations for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

If your eyes aren\u2019t showing you what\u2019s going on with this team and its plan, the team\u2019s leadership has been telling you in bits and pieces over the last year.<\/p>\n

You can go back to last July, when Dee and Jimmy Haslam spoke during training camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made the decision last year to take a step back after last year\u2019s disaster,\u201d Jimmy Haslam said, \u201cand looking at our roster, and knowing that we needed a quarterback, to do this over a two- or three-year period.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can go back even before that, to when Browns GM Andrew Berry traded the No. 2 pick to move back, acquire additional draft capital in last year\u2019s draft and, most importantly, acquire a second first-round pick in the 2026 draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just felt like it was a fantastic opportunity for our organization to move down three spots, still get a top-notch prospect in the trenches, adding a pick in what we view as really the sweet spot for this year\u2019s draft class, and then adding a first-round pick (in 2026) in a class that quite frankly we think will be a bit stronger in the first 30 picks,\u201d Berry explained the night the Browns made the deal.<\/p>\n

Then, go back to that July press conference when Haslam discussed a multi-year window of player acquisition and development.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk about it openly,\u201d Haslam said. \u201cNow could we take a big jump in one year? Yes. But we talk about we\u2019re not going to panic, we\u2019re going to draft good players, we\u2019re going to build through the draft and (in 2026) we have nine picks including two (first-round picks).\u201d<\/p>\n

The Browns are up to 10 picks now in this coming draft, by the way.<\/p>\n

GM Andrew Berry actually dared to use the word rebuild when talking about the roster the day the team fired head coach Kevin Stefanski.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when people hear the term rebuild, and probably specifically here, really their thought is tear down, the idea that you\u2019re trading away a number of prime players or veterans and you\u2019re accumulating resources and things of that nature,\u201d Berry said. \u201cWhen we think about where we are in our transition, it really is about building up the offense. Many of the trades that we\u2019ve made are really about maybe players who won\u2019t be a part of the future core and getting future value for when we\u2019re in our prime window with this roster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, when introducing Todd Monken as the team\u2019s new head coach on Tuesday, Berry emphasized a key point.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we looked at everything and we thought about what we needed from our head coach, particularly in this phase, the first thing we actually looked at is, we wanted someone who could lead, develop and grow a young team,\u201d Berry said. \u201cBecause quite frankly, we\u2019re probably going to be, if not the youngest, one of the youngest teams in football in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

How does Berry arrive at that projection? <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just where we\u2019re projecting based on the amount of draft resources we have and then probably just anticipated activity in free agency,\u201d Berry said. \u201cThat combined with having a very young defense, we would anticipate that we\u2019d be a very young team. We\u2019re not necessarily going to be in the phase where we\u2019re going to sign a bunch of mid-30s veterans to put us over the top so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Browns top decision makers have spent the better part of the last year laying out the plan they\u2019re following and it should serve to set real expectations for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

The biggest fallout from the Deshaun Watson trade goes beyond just the three first-round picks they lost. It\u2019s how old and expensive the roster got in trying to turn that trade into a Super Bowl run.<\/p>\n

The minute they acquired Watson they were all-in on trying to win the AFC and make it to the franchise\u2019s first Super Bowl. They never even came close, making the playoffs one time, a loss to Houston in the wild card round.<\/p>\n

Since that loss, the Browns have been caught between competing philosophies \u2014 trying to win now while also acknowledging the need to rebuild. They tried one last time to salvage the Watson deal by blowing up Kevin Stefanski\u2019s offensive staff. Watson ruptured his Achilles in October and they went 3-14.<\/p>\n

Last season, they conducted a mostly quiet free agency and couldn\u2019t quite decide who they were as they handed the offense back to Stefanski and ran a four-man quarterback competition that included veterans Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco.<\/p>\n

Flacco was gone by mid-October and a 1-5 start dictated their path forward. Berry has since talked about the lifecycle of the roster numerous times, painting a bigger picture than just the few months ahead \u2014 even if Haslam called the 120 days after firing Stefanski \u201ccrucial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of their process was moving on from Stefanski and choosing a new leader in Monken to take them into their next phase.<\/p>\n

Their focus this offseason is reshaping their offense with young players, specifically the offensive line and pass catchers. They\u2019ve found two building blocks in tight end Harold Fannin Jr. and running back Quinshon Judkins. Jerry Jeudy is still young enough that they can get him back to being a positive contributor.<\/p>\n

Quarterback is a major question mark. Right now their choices are hoping for a leap from Shedeur Sanders or a return to form by Deshaun Watson, but they will have opportunities to add in free agency, the trade market or the draft \u2014 or two of the three.<\/p>\n

The Browns aren\u2019t selling a complete rebuild or a tank job. The NFL is a league where teams regularly exceed expectations, especially if the schedule is favorable and injury luck holds. <\/p>\n

The Browns aren\u2019t counting on a stroke of good luck, though. They\u2019ll take it, but in the process, they\u2019re laying out a road map to move the franchise past one failed phase and into another.<\/p>\n

It will take plenty of work, and if Berry fails to follow up last year\u2019s draft with an equally strong draft \u2014 he has struggled to draft both offensive linemen and wide receivers \u2014 the plan could falter. They need one of their quarterbacks to surprise, or they need to find one who can do the job at a winning level. Nothing on this road map is a given. There\u2019s no guarantee Berry is the right person to lead it.<\/p>\n

They also owe it to veterans like Myles Garrett, Denzel Ward and, if he returns, Joel Bitonio, to try to compete at the highest level possible in 2026.<\/p>\n

In the past, however, the Browns have been driven by that urgency. They\u2019ve tried to skip steps. They\u2019ve panicked when patience was required and doubled down when pulling back might have been smarter.<\/p>\n

This time, at least by their own words, they\u2019re done with that.<\/p>\n

The expectations for 2026 and beyond have been clear for a while now.<\/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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 It\u2019s rare this time of year to get much honesty from football people and even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[103764,94864,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-731399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-cleveland-browns-head-coach-todd-monken","9":"tag-cleveland-browns-2025-2026","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116018805678044903","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731399","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=731399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}