{"id":740790,"date":"2026-02-09T17:53:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/740790\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T17:53:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:53:18","slug":"browns-vs-seahawks-gap-between-cleveland-and-super-bowl-champs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/740790\/","title":{"rendered":"Browns vs Seahawks: Gap between Cleveland and Super Bowl champs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Something very few would have expected when the season started, the Seattle Seahawks are the Super Bowl champions after defeating the New England Patriots (another thing very few predicted) to close out the 2025 NFL season. Now, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawgsbynature.com\/cleveland-browns-news\/117493\/browns-2026-nfl-offseason-important-dates-including-free-agency-draft-and-more\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the 2026 NFL offseason gets started<\/a> with the Cleveland Browns looking to right the ship under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawgsbynature.com\/cleveland-browns-news\/116519\/daily-dawg-chow-1-29-cleveland-browns-hire-todd-monken-as-head-coach-shedeur\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">new head coach Todd Monken<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Similar to the Super Bowl matchup that almost no one predicted, few were surprised that the Browns 2025 season went poorly. Cleveland\u2019s offense struggled, and the defense couldn\u2019t carry the team. Interestingly, defense did win the championship for the Seahawks, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawgsbynature.com\/cleveland-browns-roster-players\/117266\/browns-roster-seahawks-super-bowl-roster-nfl-draft-free-agency\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">whose process the Browns could try to replicate<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Cleveland\u2019s defense was really good in 2025 (<a href=\"https:\/\/ftnfantasy.com\/stats\/nfl\/team-total-dvoa?_nc=1770658855571\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">8th overall in FTN\u2019s DVOA<\/a>, -9.7), but fell significantly behind Seattle\u2019s (1st overall, -24.2%). With QB Sam Darnold resurrecting his career, along with OPOY Jaxson Smith-Njigba and RB Kenneth Walker, the Seahawks offense ranked 10th overall (8.5%) while the Browns were the worst in the NFL (-33.9%).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">While Cleveland\u2019s defense should still be stellar, the offense needs help. TE Harold Fannin Jr. and RB Quinshon Judkins, if he recovers from his injuries well, are two foundational pieces, but the Browns likely need more to come anywhere near what Seattle has.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Which brings us to our questions of the day: How many pieces away from being able to compete with the Seahawks roster are the Browns? And at what specific positions? Do they need a specific position upgraded to take their defense from 8th to 1st, or just a better offense to help them out?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Something very few would have expected when the season started, the Seattle Seahawks are the Super Bowl champions&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2054],"tags":[86,85,54,85398,2337,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-740790","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-discussion","12":"tag-clevelandbrowns","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116041955220038015","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740790","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=740790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}