{"id":906392,"date":"2026-05-31T18:09:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T18:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/906392\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T18:09:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T18:09:31","slug":"browns-chances-of-going-worst-to-first-in-afc-north-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/906392\/","title":{"rendered":"Browns’ Chances of Going Worst-to-First in AFC North Revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The current iteration of the AFC North was aligned in 2002, and the Cleveland Browns<\/a> have NEVER won it once in 24 seasons.<\/p>\n

Fresh off a five-win campaign in 2025, you won’t find a lot of people predicting that trend to change this fall. Nearly every year, though, a team that finished last in its respective division finds itself in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

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This past season, for example, three teams accomplished that feat, with the New England Patriots<\/a>, Chicago Bears<\/a> and Carolina Panthers<\/a> all going from the basement to division champs. The Patriots even parlayed that into a memorable run all the way to the Super Bowl<\/p>\n

So what are the chances the Browns can become one of those teams this year?<\/p>\n

Well, believe it or not, they don’t have the worst odds to pull it off.<\/p>\n

According to the Pro Football Network’s NFL Playoff Predictor, Cleveland has a 6.4% chance to win the AFC North this season. It’s the third-lowest percentage among the eight last-place finishers from 2025 to flip the script and win their respective division.<\/p>\n

The two teams with lower odds to go from worst-to-first according to PFSN are the New York Jets<\/a> (5.4%) and the Arizona Cardinals<\/a> (1.7%). Unsurprisingly, the Detroit Lions have the best odds to rise from the basement of the NFC North and win a division title. Detroit obviously experienced a down year this past season in a division that sent two teams to the playoffs and saw all four teams finish with a winning record.<\/p>\n

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Behind Detroit, the New Orleans Saints come in with a 22.1% chance to win the NFC South, the New York Giants are listed with a 10.4% chance to win the NFC East and the Tennessee Titans are listed with a 10.3% chance to win the AFC South.<\/p>\n

Coming in just ahead of Cleveland is the Las Vegas Raiders with a 7.3% chance to go worst-to-first, after overhauling their roster and adding potential by finding their franchise quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, with the No. 1 overall pick.<\/p>\n

Of course, so much about a team pulling off the rags-to-riches story is about the division they play in. What’s interesting for the Browns is that their division is suddenly littered with new coaches, starting with their own new head man in Todd Monken.<\/p>\n

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The Baltimore Ravens<\/a> and Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> also hired new coaches in Jesse Minter and Mike McCarthy, which comes with some uncertainty of its own. Of course, two of the best QBs in the league also reside in the AFC North in Lamar Jackson<\/a> and Joe Burrow<\/a>, which may make it a tougher road to hoe than some of the other teams on this list.<\/p>\n

Browns Roundtable also offers a fan community and message board. We\u2019d love to have you join us to talk all things\u00a0Browns.\u00a0Click the \u201cJoin\u201d button at the top of the page to join our community for free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The current iteration of the AFC North was aligned in 2002, and the Cleveland Browns have NEVER won…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":906393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061],"tags":[1990,390,117,260,391,54,113,7,1577,895,393,249,55,56,255,6,80898,57,7127,526,394,2411,582,527],"class_list":["post-906392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennessee-titans","tag-afc-north","tag-arizona-cardinals","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-chicago-bears","tag-cleveland-browns","tag-detroit-lions","tag-football","tag-joe-burrow","tag-lamar-jackson","tag-las-vegas-raiders","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-new-york-giants","tag-new-york-jets","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-playoff-predictor","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-pro-football-network","tag-tennessee","tag-tennessee-titans","tag-tennesseetitans","tag-the-browns","tag-titans"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116670533713345280","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906392","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=906392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/906393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}