Some people are fans of the Cleveland Browns. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Cleveland Browns. This 2025 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: Cleveland Browns.
Your 2024 record: 3-14. When the highlight of your season involves Jameis Winston, that’s never a good sign. But these are the Browns, so what did you expect? High-octane offense? Precision clock management? Glittering championship rings? Don’t be a fucking idiot.
But let’s go back before Winston defeated the hated Steelers amid a picturesque snowfall, after which he went to the bar to reenact the lyrics to “Baby It’s Cold Outside” with an unsuspecting waitress. The 2024 Browns started off the season with a different apex sexual predator operating behind center. That would be Deshaun Watson, who is still on the roster and, owing to his contract, will likely remain on it until the year 2309. And you thought massage therapists had a hard time shaking this guy off.
Watson led Cleveland to a 1-6 start, getting outperformed by both real quarterbacks (Dak Prescott) and gag ones (Gardner Minshew) the whole way through. He lost to Daniel Jones and the Giants. He blew a 10-0 lead to Vegas and then lost the game for good after getting sacked on fourth down at the Raiders’ 10-yard line. To his and the Browns’ credit, they DID play well enough in a subsequent loss at Philly that Eagles coach Nick Sirianni got into a shouting match with his own team’s fans. So that was a victory, of sorts.
Philly would go on to win the Super Bowl. Watson would go on to suffer his first of two Achilles tears in the span of three months. You might think that means you’ve seen the last of this man in a Browns uniform. You might wanna take a look at the current QB room in Cleveland before you get so cocky.
Minus Watson, the Browns got blown out by LA after giving up two long TD passes to Chargers QB Justin Herbert, both on busted coverage. They let a 34-year-old (!!!) Taysom Hill run for 138 yards and three TDs against them in a beatdown loss to New Orleans. Hill needed all of seven carries to do the damage. Then Winston boosted morale for 30 seconds in that miracle Thursday night win against the Steelers, after which the Browns lost every game remaining on their schedule. Among those losses was a game where Winston threw for nearly 500 yards on an insane Denver defense, and then lost the game anyway when he threw his second pick-six of the evening. And, naturally, the Browns lost their rematch with Pittsburgh, a defeat that Winston summed up thusly: “I don’t believe the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Cleveland Browns. I believe the Cleveland Browns beat the Cleveland Browns.”
You can tell this was Winston’s first season in Cleveland from that quote, can’t you?
Anyway, the Browns eventually replaced him with featherweight scrub Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who then gave way to extremely temporary New England legend Bailey Zappe. This season was already doomed before the games had even started. But just like America itself, the Browns are never content to settle for rock bottom as their rock bottom. That’s why they held a lake fire sale midseason that saw both Amari Cooper and Za’Darius Smith traded out of town. Their offensive line, one of the more shockingly consistent parts of the team over this century, deteriorated into one of the worst pass blocking units in the league. Their monstrously talented defense seemed to age at wrong-holy-grail speed. And they ended the season with the lowest-scoring offense in the NFL. Drew Carey wept.
But hey, Jerry Jeudy set the franchise’s single-season record for receptions, so that was nice. Says way more about Cleveland’s wideout history than it does about Jeudy, but still.
Your coach: Two-time Coach Of The Year (I swear!) Kevin Stefanski, who is back to calling plays again after firing former offensive coordinator and headset abuser Ken Dorsey during the offseason. Stefanski and GM Andrew Berry both get the “they’re pretty good if you don’t factor in the Watson trade!” treatment from the press, which is like saying that Jim Brown was a good boyfriend if you don’t count the time he chucked his lady off a balcony. All praise in this town is strictly based in alternate realities.
Stefanski is a practitioner of the Gary Kubiak offensive philosophy, which utilizes zone running schemes and play-action in order to limit mistakes from the quarterback. And Stefanski will have a whole lot of limiting to do in 2025, because…
Your quarterback: I have no idea, and neither do they. Apparently, Berry watched the DTR/Zappe platoon in the final month of last season and said, “Hey, let’s do a whole season of that.” There’s a chance that you and I may be Browns QBs right now and just don’t realize it. Otherwise, here now are your options for QB1 going into camp:
- Miserable Steelers bust Kenny Pickett, who arrived in a trade for DTR
- 40-year-old Joe Flacco, who is demonstrably worse now than he was two season ago when he, by default, won Comeback Player of the Year for the Browns
- Third-round reach pick Dillon Gabriel, who made his name at Oregon as a prolific check-down artist. Just like Bo Nix, if Bo Nix were three feet shorter.
- Fifth-rounder Shedeur Sanders, who thought he was going No. 1 overall because both Mel Kiper and Jeff Ulbrich’s kid told him that he would. The Browns drafted Sanders after Gabriel at the exclusive behest of owner Jimmy Haslam, whose intuition regarding QB prospects is famously spot on.
- Watson, who tore that same Achilles a second time just six months ago and whose numbers since joining the Browns provide reasonable proof that he’s a worse QB, right now, than the four gentlemen I just listed above him. Watson has two more guaranteed years left on his deal and will remain on the team’s books until 2029. His contract is so shitty, in fact, that NFL owners not-so-secretly colluded to ensure that no other player would ever receive another contract like it. Can’t say I blame them.
Those are your contenders for the starting gig. If you’re still wondering how Kirk Cousins made so much money playing in this league, wonder no more. He’ll be here come August.
What’s new that sucks: Your future stadium!
Credit where credit is due: This hype video is gorgeous, mostly because it elides the fact that the proposed new stadium will be located right by the airport.
Some background: After Art Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore in the 1990s, the city of Cleveland not only got to keep the Browns name and records—how prestigious—but they also got the state of Ohio to pass a law that said no future Browns owner could move the team out of Cleveland. Ah, but what if Haslam wanted to move the team to kinda Cleveland? Isn’t that pretty much the same thing as being in Cleveland?
Well, Governor Mike DeWine seems to believe so, so he gifted Haslam $600 million in public funding for the future Ariel Castro Memorial Stadium. Ohio legislators also had the Art Modell law reworded so that it’s now the Art Modell suggestion. Since Haslam purchased this team in 2012, the Browns have never won their division and have finished DFL in the AFC North eight times. They have finished a regular season with a positive net point differential once. Worst of all, they executed the Watson trade and his subsequent contract on Haslam’s orders. For all of that, Haslam will get a stadium. In the burbs. One that will have all the architectural value of a fucking Applebee’s. America must be destroyed.
As for on-field matters, franchise cornerstone Myles Garrett demanded a trade this offseason before deciding that $123 million guaranteed was its own Super Bowl win. Garrett will have to rack up 40 sacks by himself this season if this team hopes to offset all of the following departures: Smith, Cooper, DE Ogbonnia Okoronkwo, DT Dalvin Tomlinson, RB Nick Chubb, T Jedrick Wills, and WR Elijah Moore. LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah is still here, but will miss all of 2025 after suffering an “Oh god is he dead?” neck injury on the field midseason last year. Owusu-Koramoah may never play football again, which would be a blessing because Cleveland.
But Berry did whip out his TI-84 and math up a few new arrivals. Yes, he opted out of taking Travis Hunter No. 2 overall in April, but trading out of that spot with the Jags got his team a monster DT in Mason Graham, two promising RBs in Quinshon Judkins and Dylan Sampson, and a 2026 first-rounder. I’d argue that’s a good enough return to lay the groundwork for an effective rebuild, except that this next rebuild would be overseen by the people responsible for the last 57 rebuilds. Oh, and Judkins was just arrested on a domestic violence charge. This franchise just can’t quit shitbags!
Meanwhile, Berry’s free-agent haul this spring was meager, with the only major names added being LB Joe Tryon–Shoyinka (flamed out in Tampa), WR Diontae Johnson (played for three different teams last season, all of which hated him), and G Teven Jenkins (was a Bear). That’s not enough to keep this from being one of the worst rosters in the AFC.
And there’s every chance it’ll be an even worse roster by season’s end, because all of the remaining capable vets on hand (G Joel Bitonio, CBs Greg Newsome and Denzel Ward) are in the final year of their respective contracts, and are more valuable to the team as trade bait near the deadline than as active contributors to yet another 3-14 campaign. You guys are somehow more pre-fucked this season than you were a year ago.
The Cavs choked.
What has always sucked: Are you a Browns fan? What are you doing? I mean it. Look at you, wearing a Bernie Kosar jersey and carrying a $10 Spirit Halloween dog mask into the stadium. What are you doing with your life? Do you even have a life? A family? A job? A home? Do you know basic addition and subtraction? Then why are you here, huh? It’s certainly not to see this team win football games, because they never do. Is it because your daddy raised you a Browns fan? Well, your daddy probably drank a lot. Is it because the Browns are the one thing that makes you feel closer to both Cleveland and your fellow Clevelanders? Kid, those other fans are just as sad and useless as you are.
The Nu Browns have spent this entire century telling you STOP ROOTING FOR US in the loudest, most embarrassing ways imaginable. And now they’re leaving the city again. That’s not an insult; it’s a gift. You came back to this team in 1999, and it repaid your loyalty with Tim Couch, Courtney Brown, Hue Jackson, Freddie Kitchens, Mike Lombardi, Watson, and Haslam. Three playoff appearances this century. No AFC titles ever. No Super Bowl wins ever. Sticking with this team was a mistake, and now they’ve gifted you a second chance to bail without shame. So leave. GET THE FUCK OUT. Now, before Watson breaks into your house and steals all of the baby oil.
Past Jeudy, the wideout room is horrifying.
What might not suck: I like this fan vid from the draft, because the cutoff doggie bone on the jumbotron looks like a pair of truck nutz.
HEAR IT FROM BROWNS FANS!
Jared:
It’s almost a relief to be back to having our season start and end on draft weekend.
Rick:
We were 3-14 last year and this year’s roster is somehow worse.
Jamie:
Being happy that Myles Garrett stayed with this team feels like cheering on Stella for deciding to stay with Stanley Kowalski.
Sam:
I swear the Browns decide who they’re drafting by consulting a giant wheel spun by a mule’s piss stream.
Don:
I’ve failed as a father. I’m a stay-at-home dad. I’m entrenched in their lives, but I’ve still failed them. I would be better off going to the store for a carton of cigarettes and never coming back.
Peter:
The one silver lining to my brother passing away a few years ago is that he never had to see Watson take a snap as a Brown.
Andy:
These are the Browns QBs since Jimmy Haslam bought the team:
- Brandon Weeden
- Thad Lewis
- Jason Campbell
- Brian Hoyer
- Johnny Manziel
- Connor Shaw
- Josh McCown
- Austin Davis
- Cody Kessler
- Robert Griffin III
- DeShone Kizer
- Kevin Hogan
- Baker Mayfield
- Tyrod Taylor
- Case Keenum
- Nick Mullens
- Jacoby Brissett
- Deshaun Watson
- Joe Flacco
- Dorian Thompson-Robinson
- P.J. Walker
- Jeff Driskel
- Jameis Winston
- Bailey Zappe
Brian:
Jimmy Haslam pried $600 million from Ohio taxpayers (via a bought-and-sold legislature and governor) to fund a walled-off stadium compound that would fail any lending feasibility study spectacularly. One of the tax-money funneling methods consists of handing over Ohio’s unclaimed funds. Lo and behold, I was on this list, in the form of two fractional stock share sales that totaled a combined 22 cents.
Out of moral imperative, I started the claim process, which consisted of the abundant uploading of personal information, finding and forwarding proof of address for two residences I had not lived at for more than 12 years and, finally, filing a W9 Form with the IRS so I could be taxed for my good fortune of reclaiming my own 22 cents. I did not complete all this. In the meantime, a class action lawsuit seems to be in the works, and I happily would join it. In all likelihood, when all is said and done, I will have contributed to Jimmy Haslam’s Parking, Foo’ball and Microwave-baked Food Funstravaganza in an amount of roughly equal value to Shake-n-Bake coupon that Homer Simpson placed in the offering plate.
David:
I am wholly prepared to add Dillon Gabriel to the victim list after Flacco blows out an Achilles taking a knee to end the half and Shedeur goes 5-23 with 2 INTs in the second half.
Adam:
The owner is a criminal that sounds like Foghorn Leghorn and is now meddling in Boston politics despite not having any business interests there. They are also literally stealing from their fans now by raiding the state’s unclaimed funds account. The Brookpark stadium boondoggle is going to cost the state about 3 times the money they are saying once the Republican Junta in Columbus realizes the entire highway infrastructure around that Amazon looking warehouse ass stadium needs to be redone. It also deliberately cuts off public transportation. Thank god Lebron won a title here because these assholes are never getting one. FREE MYLES GARRETT!
Vince Guerreri:
The Browns have been so bad for so long that even average milestones seem out of reach. This is a team that not only hasn’t reached a conference championship since the 1980s, they haven’t won a division title since then. Both the Jaguars and the Houston Oilers have won the Browns’ division more recently than the Browns, who haven’t had back-to-back winning seasons or a five-game winning streak during a season since the 1980s. The Browns appear to be good for one winning season a decade, and 2023 may have been it for this one.
It’s a tall order to make a team like that even worse, but the Haslams seem more than equal to the task. On their watch, the team had the worst two-year stint in NFL history (the infamous 1-31 era of 2016-17) and made what might be the worst trade in professional sports history. But Deshaun Watson’s meeting the Saudis and showing us all he’s living his best life on his social media, the owners appear to have done their goddamndest to ensure a contract like that will never happen again, and the Haslams spread around enough money in Columbus to ensure that a new dome is getting built. They got far better ROI on their campaign contributions to Republicans than they’ll EVER see on the Watson deal. And now they’re trying to get Bob Kraft’s son elected mayor of Boston.
They can talk about winning — mostly because they seem incapable of actually doing it — but the fact is that their ownership has been a concerted effort to make more money. They changed the uniforms and then changed back after the stink of going 4-44 in the ensuing three years. They keep offering fewer and fewer free training camp practices to the public. And now they want to build a dome where they’ll get richer and fans will pay inordinately more for a team that performance-wise should be playing on a vacant lot on the East Side.
At least in terms of draft picks that are more marketing-oriented than football-oriented, Shedeur Sanders will probably turn out to be a better quarterback than Johnny Manziel. As if that’s a high bar to clear.
Matt:
Northeast Ohio is not ready for the critical mass of bitter 30 something alcoholics that will be out and about once tailgating is inevitably phased out in the Haslams answer to Jerry World. Fuck Ken Dorsey with a million shotgun zone reads.
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