Winless Browns and a game of ‘WOULD YOU RATHER?’
The winless Browns may well finish the 16-game regular season 0-16.
Ouch.
Double-ouch.
The team is on a total rebuild and as such is playing a slew of young, inexperienced and supposedly talented players in hopes of building a base for the future.
Don’t like that? You’re not alone.
So, then, would you rather be 3-10 and playing veterans who are either past their prime, or will never reach a prime because they just aren’t good enough?
What hope is there in that?
From 2008-15, the latter is where the Browns were at. As miserable as this season is, those eight seasons were light years worse.
Let’s look at them, each at this point of the season, after 13 games:
*2008 – The Browns, picked before the season to make a big splash, were 4-9 but had lost three games in a row, scoring a combined total of 21 points. They would score 10 points the rest of the season – all losses, extending the losing streak to six — and finish 4-12, causing head coach Romeo Crennel and General Manager Phil Savage to both be fired after four seasons.
*2009 – The Browns were coming off a 13-6 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday Night Football, ending a seven-game losing streak in which they scored over 14 points just twice. They were 2-11. They would win their final three games to finish 5-11. That late run was built on the strength of Jerome Harrison’s Jim Brown-like performances. But “The Genius,” first-year head coach Eric Mangini, thought so little of what Harrison was doing that he continually refused to proclaim him as his starter going into next season.
*2010 – The Browns fell to 5-8 after a 13-6 loss to the Buffalo Bills, ending a two-game winning streak. They would drop their next three, scoring a combined total of just 36 points, to finish 5-11, causing – mercifully – Mangini to get canned.
*2011 – Now under head coach Pat Shurmur, the Browns lost their third straight, 14-3 to Pittsburgh, to drop their mark to 4-9. They would lose their last three to end 4-12. In their final five games, they were held to 10 points or less three times.
*2012 – The Browns won their third in a row, 30-7 over the Kansas City Chiefs, to push their record to 5-8. But they dropped their last three games to end 5-11, causing Shurmur to be fired after only two seasons.
*2013 – Once 3-2 under new head coach Rob Chudzinski, the Browns lost their fourth straight, 27-26 to the New England Patriots, to fall to 4-9. They would lose three more to end the season at 4-12, after which Chudzinski was stunningly fired after just 11 months on the job.
*2014 – The Browns fell for the second time in a row, 25-24 to the Indianapolis Colts, to put their mark at 7-6 under new head coach Mike Pettine. Though still in the playoff hunt at that point, their lost their last three, scoring a combined total of just 23 points, to finish 7-9, completing a disastrous crash-and-burn.
*2015 – The Browns broke a seven-game losing streak by defeating the San Francisco 49ers 24-10 to fall to 3-10. It would be the only win in their final 11 games, as they lost their last three to finish 3-13. In those 11 contests to close out the year, they scored 10 or fewer points seven times. To the surprise of no one, Pettine was fired.
All these seasons sound the same in where the Browns were at in terms of their record and with the number of useless veterans they would have to pare from the roster in the offseason. Combined, they are the football version of the movie, “Groundhog Day.”
The 2016 season is different. The Browns’ record is much worse, and there are few veterans who need to be sent packing.
And because it is different – because the Browns dared to be different, and because there are a number of young players – there is at least a chance that things will be different going forward for the winless Browns.
