Saturday, Aug. 22 (AM) – The more things change. The more they remain the same.
Indeed, this is looking much like 2008 for the Browns, and that is not good, not at all.
You remember 2008, don’t you?
After finishing 10-6 and just barely missing the playoffs the previous year, the Browns went into the 2008 training camp as the darlings of the national media. Everybody was picking them to make the postseason for the first time since 2002, and for only the second time in the expansion era. Some pundits had them going to the AFC Championship Game and even beyond.
To be sure, the stars seemed to be all aligned for the Browns to excel, so much so that they were slated for a club-record five national TV appearances. It was a feel-good story in the making, and the networks figured that their audiences would want to see it play out.
But it never happened. Their season was over before it even started. They were decimated by injuries to a number of key players in camp and the preseason. They didn’t sprint into the beginning of the regular season, but rather they limped into it. They were completely unprepared.
As a result, the magic of 2007 was gone from the get-go. The Browns, who scored 402 points, the third-most in their history in 2007, lost their first three games of ’08, amassing a grand total of 26 points. They recovered and got to 3-4 near the midway point, but then a barrage of more injuries hit a few weeks later and that felled them for good. They lost their final six games to finish 4-12.
As the season was ending, both head coach Romeo Crennel and General Manager Phil Savage were fired after four years on the job.
There were no great expectations for this year’s Browns as they opened camp. Instead, it was just the opposite. The quarterback situation was still muddled and mediocre, and there were no real playmakers on offense.
A rash of injuries in camp and the preseason to some of the top players on the team has lowered those projections even more. Halfway through the preseason, the banged-up Browns are simply trying to find enough healthy bodies to suit up Saturday night when they travel to meet the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the dress rehearsal for the regular season.
Maybe the Browns will suddenly start getting healthy again. They can only hope that’s the case. But already much valuable practice time has been lost. Players who need to get onto the field and begin meshing with their teammates haven’t been able to do so much, if at all.
It is a mess that has to deeply concern head coach Mike Pettine and General Manager Ray Farmer. Their job was already hard enough in trying to build a team that could make up ground on the Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers in the tough AFC North. But now that task has become even harder.
Seven years after that disastrous 2008 season, the Browns are still looking for that second playoff trip of the expansion era. But before they worry too much about that, their injured players have to first make the trip to the active list.
That the bar has been lowered that much should send shivers down the spine of every Browns fan.
