How do the Browns fix this? - Browns Daily Dose

What should the Browns do first in the offseason?

Nothing.

Absolutely, positively nothing.

For a while.

And they should be really good at it.

If they want a reason as to why, and a tutorial on what not to do, then all they need to do is research the 1988 Browns season and its aftermath. It will — or at least it should — scare them to death.

Like 2021, 1988 was a season 33 years ago that the Browns went into with extremely high expectations, only to see it ruined, or at least substantially reduced, due to a plethora of injuries to key personnel. The 1988 Browns weee picked by many to go to the Super Bowl, if not to also win it, after losing in excruciating fashion to the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship Game the two previous seasons.

The Browns of that entire era were deep and talented, so much so that when they cut players, there were no shortage of teams interested in signing them. And 1988 was the prime year for that.

But things went sideways right from the start. The Browns lost quarterback Bernie Kosar to injury early in the opener at Kansas City — imagine that, they opened at KC — and he blew out his elbow. Though he came back, he was never the same, as it altered his throwing motion, forcing him to “shot-put the ball,” according to backup quarterback Gary Danielson, Kosar’s mentor.

The injury to Kosar also set off a historic string of injuries at quarterback, with Danielson, Mike Pagel, Kosar again and finally Don Strock being lost to injuries. The 24-23 wild-card playoff loss to the Houston Oilers ended with Pagel having to come in and finish off the game even though he was nowhere near healthy enough to be able to do so.

Yes, the Browns, despite all the injuries at the most important position in team sports, still finished 10-6 and made the postseason because there was so much talent at all the other positions. That carried them.

But since the finish was far below what they had hoped to accomplish, frustration, disappointment and anger caused the Browns to, almost immediately after the season, make some terrible knee-jerk reactions, including parting ways with head coach Marty Schottenheimer and running back Earnest Byner and replacing them, sadly so, with Bud Carson and Mike Oliphant, respectively.

Ugh.

These current Browns movers and shakers can’t afford to allow themselves to do the same thing. They should step back, let their emotions cool down and then — and only then, when cooler heads are prevailing — begin figuring out what moves need to be made, and don’t need to be made, to get the Super Bowl berth that still has eluded the club all these years later.

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By Steve King