Between a Rock And The Other Thing
It’s incredibly difficult to feel stuck. When all your options feel like pain will follow. Eggshells, mousetraps, painted into a corner, you know that any move you make is going to end up in a cleanup you’re wholly unprepared for. The longer you sit in it, the more apathy takes over your brain, the more crushing each minute feels when you know that pulling the band-aid is likely the best option but will hurt the most. Welcome to the 2024 Cleveland Browns season.
Where do we go from here? A 2-8 record after a three-score loss to a New Orleans team that is in the midst of a dead cat bounce after firing their head coach in-season. Every positive seems to have a mirror monkey paw opposite effect on it. An offense that threw for 377 yards but a defense that gave up 473, 214 of which were rushing, and of those, 138 were from the 34-year-old tight end-but-quarterback-but-glaringly-obvious-running-back gimmick. For every Jerry Jeudy 89-yard touchdown reception, there’s a Marquez Valdes-Scantling 71-yard scamper through busted coverage to take the lead back or Taysom Hill, the aforementioned gimmick player, running for 75 yards to ice the game.
It’s the type of game, a full blowout coming off a bye, that feels like heads are on the block. Especially when levers have already been pulled, such as taking play calling away from your offensive guru head coach. But does firing Kevin Stefanski and installing Mike Vrabel as the ass-kicking interim do anything for your future? Maybe, but if you let Stefanski go, he’s immediately the top hire for any other spot in the league. Does moving Paul DePodesta or Andrew Berry to the unemployment line help the team today, or is it a sign of “things to come”? Personally, I’ve come around on the idea that Berry either needs fired fully or moved to a capologist space and replaced as GM. There have been too many misses with the draft, and all signs point to Berry as being the fall guy for the Deshaun Watson move, which has unequivocally set the franchise back 3-5 years. But does that make me feel better about continuing to watch this 2024 product? Is it just a pound of flesh for a pound of flesh's sake?
The future isn’t even something that looks hopeful given the state of the roster. Extensions and void years abound and the “win now” build feels top heavy as a retool is needed. Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah is on IR and, if reports are correct, his first steps are actual steps, not football moves. Nick Chubb looks like the knee injuries have caught up to him. Myles Garrett can’t keep the team afloat by himself and every hit Denzel Ward gives or takes could be the one that has his brain on lockdown. The Browns are now heading, headlong and careening, into a rush for the No. 1 overall pick. But do they go with a quarterback in a bad class because rookie QB contracts are so damn cheap and you could use some help with the anchor of all anchors weighing you down, a player who maybe could have possibly if only probably should have played his last snap for the team while he rehabs a devastating injury? I don’t want to hear how Neon Deion privately doesn’t like the look of the franchise for three months as we do draft prep and kid ourselves that Shedur Sanders is going to come to Cleveland.
So which side do you choose, the rock or the hard place? There, feasibly, seems to be no winning for the team this year, and even then, is winning what you want out of this year? Fire your well-liked and smart coach to make the roster “feel” something? Make less impactful-to-gameday “Stuck” is about as accurate a word to describe not only the franchise, but the fanbase as well.
