The Browns are not the Detroit Lions.
We all heard that a lot this season, especially leading up to the Super Bowl since they are the only two old-school teams – and among just a few clubs overall – that have not played in the big game.
The Browns staggered to a 1-15 record this season, barely avoiding tying the 2008 Lions’ 0-16 mark, which is the only winless finish since the NFL went to a 16-game schedule in 1978.
Actually, many long-time followers of the league – including some based in Detroit – have said that the 2016 Browns, despite the closeness of their record to the Lions of 2008, were not anywhere close to that Detroit team in their quality of play. As bad as they performed this year, the Browns were a lot better.
Still, a lot of fans don’t do that type of thorough analytical comparison. They look at the two records and, with perception being 90 percent of reality, lump the teams together.
Fair enough.
That’s what the Browns get after struggling so much not just this season, but for 15 of the other 17 seasons of the expansion era. Only in 2002, when they went 9-7 and made the playoffs, and 2007, when they were 10-6 but missed the postseason, have they finished with records above. 500.
But when you look at the big picture of the Browns and Lions in the entire Super Bowl era – actually, since 1958, the year after Detroit thumped Cleveland 59-14 in the NFL Championship Game – there is no comparison between the two teams.
The Browns made four appearances in the NFL Championship Game in the 1960s, winning one title, and got to the postseason another time while barely missing out on two other occasions.
In the 1970s, the Browns’ first down decade, they made it to the playoffs twice.
Then in 1980s, they got to the playoffs seven times, winning four Central titles and getting to three AFC Championship Games.
Yes, that was all a long time ago – even that was which was done in the 1980s — but the Lions have done virtually nothing during that period.
Of course, this is a point so moot that it is almost not worth discussing. It is like two “beater” cars racing. Does it really matter who wins?
With all their high picks in the 2017 NFL Draft – five in the top 65 overall – and their bounty of riches to spend in free agency, the Browns have a real chance this offseason to begin laying the groundwork to distance themselves from all that futility.
Will they do it?
We’ll have to wait and see.
