Garrett Requests A Trade. Browns Need To Fix It

Only the Cleveland Browns could have a 3-14 season and have the off-season be worse than the actual season. But that’s where it seems we are after the franchise’s best player; Myles Garrett requested a trade.

We guess it is semantics, but Garrett asked to be moved, he didn’t demand it. People who know this stuff better than us feel it would be another huge hit on the salary cap to trade the All-Pro defensive end, which may preclude making the move.

Garrett has two years left on his current contract, so if push comes to shove, the Browns could play hard ball and refuse to trade him, making Garrett decide whether or not he is going to sit out a season.

It would also be stupid for it to come to that.

Our advice to the Browns’ front office? Put together your collaborative process (sarcasm intended) and fix this. And the sooner, the better.

We would even go as far as to say this. In his public statement requesting a deal, the former first overall pick gave a little tweak to GM Andrew Berry using the latter’s “Cleveland to Canton” comment. If Garrett’s issue is with Berry, it’s an easy solution for us, hire a new general manager.

Berry is easily more replaceable than the best defensive player the franchise has had over the last 65 years.

We understand that Garrett’s request got all of the football fans in northeast Ohio who crave and worship draft picks all excited. That’s what they love. But the reality is anyone you draft with one of the picks you get will not be as good as Myles Garrett.

And that’s not a slap at the front office either. Garrett has already won the Defensive Player of the Year last season and is up for the award this season. He’s arguably the best defensive player in the NFL.

The Browns could get 20 first round picks in return and not get anyone as good as Myles Garrett.

As for Garrett’s desire to play important games, let’s be honest about this, how many games would the Browns have won in 2024 with competent quarterback play? They certainly wouldn’t have been 3-14. Cleveland started 10 contests with Deshaun Watson, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, and Bailey Zappe behind center.

They were 2-5 with Jameis Winston, so is it out of the realm of possibility to think they could have gone 6-11 with Winston starting the whole season? If you agree, then that makes to trip back to the playoffs in 2025 shorter.

We understand Browns’ fans and media alike love to play the “woe is us” card. But there is talent on this roster. Denzel Ward and Jerry Jeudy made the Pro Bowl (such that it is), and the offensive line needs some tweaks, but there are solid players there.

David Njoku is a good player too, and Mike Hall and Isaiah McGuire look like they have talent. And don’t forget, the Browns have a first-round pick for the first time in four years and four picks in the top 100 of this year’s draft.

And going back to the offense Kevin Stefanski likes to run should cause an improvement as well.

There is a long time between now and the beginning of training camp, so the front office is on the clock. Fix this issue with Myles Garrett. End of discussion.

When It Comes Down To It, Have To Find A QB

While the real Super Bowl will take place a week from Sunday, for Browns’ fans the crazy season has started, and because of the Deshaun Watson trade, it has been a long time coming.

The NFL Draft will be here in late April and Cleveland has the second overall pick, and of course, they need a quarterback.

The popular opinion among many fans and media people is to trade down because the next Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning or Joe Burrow is not in this selection cycle. Of course, both of these groups have no input in the process and they both love picks, and the more, the merrier.

And their jobs are not on the line. However, Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefanski’s probably are. Let’s say they don’t fix the quarterback situation for 2025 either by not getting a capable veteran or a young guy waiting in the wings for the future. Then they are likely on the unemployment line following next season.

Keep in mind, Berry and Stefanski have both been at the Shrine Game and the Senior Bowl and they aren’t there to watch wide receivers and/or linebackers. They are talking to the QB prospects at both All-Star games.

Because they have to get that position right.

Bill Belichick used to love when other teams reached for quarterbacks in the draft because it pushed good players down to where New England picked. Of course, he had Tom Brady, creating a perfect scenario.

When you don’t have a QB, you simply have to get one. The easy thing for many people is to wait for the generational talent to appear the year the Browns happen to have a high draft pick. But that’s not reality.

Cleveland has the opportunity to get one of the two best QB prospects coming into the NFL this season. It’s Berry’s and Stefanski’s job to find out who those players are and take one of them. Right now, the consensus is those passers are Shadeur Sanders and Cam Ward, but maybe going through the process, they like someone else.

If the latter is the case, perhaps they can trade down a couple of spots and still get their guy, but they better know what the other teams they drop behind in the process are going to do.

For us, we like Quinn Ewers out of Texas. He has started 36 games at the college level and has guided his team to the playoffs the past two seasons. He’s completed 65% of his passes at Texas in his three years as a starter.

But the question we can’t answer is how he reads defenses, the most important skill a QB can have. That’s what Berry and Stefanski need to find out.

All that said, the ideal situation would still be to find a veteran quarterback who can come in and start next season, while the rookie sits, learns, and maybe gets a start or two at the end of the season.

Trading down, getting a pass rusher to pair with Myles Garrett, getting another shutdown corner, all of those things are important. But the Browns have to find a QB and they need to keep taking swings until they find one.

That’s NFL reality.

Browns Should Make Note. Running The Ball Is Getting Back In Vogue

Today’s NFL is a quarterback driven league. The stars of football are the guys who throw the football…Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, C.J. Stroud, Brock Purdy, etc.

They are in commercials and are recognized on a first name basis.

However, we saw over the weekend in the playoff’s divisional round that the running game is still important too. The Eagles beat the Rams behind 285 yards on the ground, led by Saquon Barkley, who gained 205 yards, while the Bills and Ravens played another “old school” game.

Buffalo ran for 147 yards (Josh Allen had just 127 yards through the air), while the Ravens ground it out for 176 running the ball.

As we all know, the Cleveland Browns need a quarterback, but perhaps they can lessen the reliance for getting their guy if they can develop an elite running game.

It is interesting to note of the top ten teams in running the football this past season, many made the playoffs: Baltimore was 1st, the Eagles and Commanders, who play in the NFC Championship game this Sunday, rank 2nd and 3rd.

Out of the balance of the top ten, all but three teams (Cardinals, Colts, and Falcons) made the post season, and even those teams all finished at 8-9. Running the ball keeps you competitive.

The year before, the Ravens (13-4) led the NFL in rushing, and five of the top ten teams in running the ball made the playoffs.

Makes it even more curious the Browns got away from running the football in 2024.

We still agree the Browns should use the second overall pick in this spring’s draft on a quarterback. Why? Primarily because the rest of the Cleveland roster is talented enough that the likelihood of the franchise picking this high again isn’t probably great. You have a chance to take one of the two best QBs coming into the league, so do it.

But there is no question Kevin Stefanski and the front office can lessen the burden on the rookie or preferably the veteran they will bring in as a stop gap until the rookie is ready but getting back to his offensive roots and running the football.

Besides, and we have said this before, running the ball is in the franchise’s DNA, the legacy of the franchise starts with Marion Motley, Jim Brown, Leroy Kelly and leads all the way to Nick Chubb.

Use the Eagles as the model. They ranked 29th in passing yards this season and are playing Sunday with a chance to go to the Super Bowl. Is that model sustainable? Probably not, but it does buy time for whoever Cleveland drafts to get used to the NFL game and become a productive NFL QB.

While the Browns’ defense may not be at the level of the 2023 season, that side of the football is still pretty good. Rebuilding the offensive line and drafting a solid running back so you move the football and protect the quarterback isn’t the worst idea.

And it might just speed up the clock to getting back to being a playoff team. We would all love to have Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Jackson, etc. at the helm for the Browns. That doesn’t mean the organization should just give up if they don’t have one of those guys.

Browns Trying To Right The Wrongs They Inflicted On Themselves

The NFL playoffs started this past weekend, a grim reminder that it was only one year ago the Cleveland Browns were participating. Yes, it might seem like eons ago, but it was only 12 months.

While others want to sound the woe is us card when it comes to the Browns (as usual), we can’t get past the point that the organization did this to themselves. They replaced several offensive coaches, in essence tearing apart something that needed building upon.

The Charles Barkley quote keeps ringing in our ears, “if it ain’t broke, don’t break it”.

We questioned a few times why when offensive line guru Bill Callahan went to Tennessee to coach with his son, the front office simply didn’t hire his assistant, Scott Peters, to succeed him. This would have been perfect sense, continuing the blocking scheme Callahan brought to Cleveland.

In an interview after the season ending loss to Baltimore, after hearing the news that Andy Dickerson was fired as the O-line coach, Joel Bitonio and Jack Conklin wondered out loud why the Browns made the change in scheme. They said they would like to go back to that.

It’s something else we always say. The players know when the coaches or the front office does something dumb. And nothing erodes the relationship between a coach and the players like doing something that doesn’t work and keep sticking with it.

And all these moves were made to justify the biggest mistake the Browns made in the last 10 years (perhaps in franchise history), the trade for Deshaun Watson. And compounding a mistake is always worse than just moving on from it.

Remember, Watson ruled out the Browns before the deal was made and only agreed to come to Cleveland when they fully guaranteed the contract. That should have sent a message that he really didn’t want to be here. And let’s face it, he still doesn’t want to be here.

It’s akin to being unemployed and taking the first job offer you get even though you know it’s not a good fit for you. Watson felt he could make it work, but his heart really wasn’t in it.

And the organization did not show Watson any tough love. Instead of telling him to conform to Kevin Stefanski’s offense, which has been proven, they instead decided to breakdown what was working, and try to make it more “Watson friendly”.

We guess the best news out of this is the organization decided to try to reverse the course after one season, a 3-14 disaster true, but they didn’t stick their heads in the sand and pretend everything was okay.

They hired a new offensive line coach, Mike Bloomgren, who lost his job as head coach at Rice University. Who did Bloomgren coach with earlier in his career with the Jets? That’s right, Bill Callahan.

The candidates for offensive coordinator also seem to have Stefanski’s offense, which means running the football in mind. It will be interesting to see who gets the gig, but it won’t be a pass first coach like Ken Dorsey.

As for Watson, his re-tear of the Achilles’ tendon virtually assures what was always thought to be true. His career in Cleveland is over.

The worst thing about it? The loss of draft picks and wasting three years of the careers of so many players.

With Pick #2, Gotta Go QB

The Cleveland Browns will have the second overall pick in this spring’s NFL Draft. No doubt the area’s sports talk show will devote hundreds upon hundreds of hours discussing who the team should take with that selection.

The Browns need to draft a quarterback. They have to find the right person after all these years and properly get him ready to be the starter for many years to come.

We aren’t going to pretend we are football scouts and tell everyone who should be the choice. And if the Browns would have stayed around the fifth overall pick, we would have advised trading down because the team needs to get younger and faster.

Currently, the organization has 23 players 29 or older on the team. True, two of them, Dustin Hopkins and Charley Hughlett are specialists, and another, Rodney McLeod, is retiring, but there are many key players in that group.

Among them are Joel Bitonio, who may retire, Jack Conklin, Wyatt Teller, Ethan Pocic, Juan Thornhill, and Nick Chubb. And of course, the best player on the roster and the best defensive player in the league, Myles Garrett.

Another one is Deshaun Watson, but he likely will never play another down in the brown and orange, so there’s that.

When you finish 3-14 you have holes in your roster, but in listing those players, you can see more holes are about to pop up in the not-too-distant future.

But since they moved up to second, you have to identify and draft a quarterback and then be patient enough to probably not use him for the 2025 campaign.

We are aware two rookie QBs have guided their squads to the post-season in Jayden Daniels with Washington and Bo Nix in Denver. And yes, C.J. Stroud has guided the Texans to the playoffs in each of his first two seasons.

Still, more often than not, rookies struggle at the most important position in sports, so getting an opportunity to sit and watch and be mentored should be the plan.

Everyone talks about two passers in particular, Colorado’s Shadeur Sanders and Miami’s Cam Ward.

Sanders played two years at Jackson State and then two years at Colorado, while Ward started two seasons Washington State, before transferring to the Hurricanes this season.

Both have played a lot of college football, much like Daniels and Nix.

There are others who could and probably will put their names in the conversation.

We aren’t sure who will be deemed worthy of the selection by the Browns, but we do know we will hear ad nauseum about their personal workout days when they throw passes without a defense present, and media folks and fans will ooh and aah about guys completing 63 of 65 passes.

We could do the same in our backyard.

A former college quarterback once told me the most important thing a QB needs to do if read defenses. It doesn’t matter if you have a big arm or not, or how mobile you are if you know what the defense is going to do and can counter it.

As for the Browns, they can’t keep trying to patch a flat tire at that position. Many people thought they solved the problem when they drafted Baker Mayfield, but for whatever reason, the organization soured on him.

It says volumes that the last “franchise” player at the spot was Bernie Kosar, and he was drafted in 1985.

It’s time to identify and pick a player who can handle the spot for the next ten years. It just has to be done.

Mercifully Football Is Over, Now The Changes Begin For Browns

The NFL seemed to be merciful in ending the Cleveland Browns’ season before any other team’s this season.

A year after a playoff year, finishing 11-6, the Browns went 3-14 following a 35-10 defeat at the hands of the Baltimore Ravens.

The ownership has said time and again GM Andrew Berry and head coach Kevin Stefanski will be back next season, but we would guess we would see news about any changes to the coaching staff or in the front office this week.

We are going to go against the norm and say this should not be the start of a long rebuilding process. There is talent on the roster, particularly probably the best defensive player in the game in DE Myles Garrett and a Pro Bowl shutdown corner in Denzel Ward.

And sorry everyone, Garrett should not be traded for a bunch of draft choices who will never be as good as he is. He is only 29 years old and has plenty of great seasons to come. Give him a new contract and 3-4 years from now, if things still look bleak and the future Hall of Famer wants to go to a winner, the Browns can do right by him and trade or release him.

There is an entire cottage industry of chronicling the misfortunes of the Browns over the last decade. (Did you know Bailey Zappe was the 40th starting QB since 1999?).

Some of it is deserved. If we were in the front office, we would put a muzzle on certain members of the coaching staff and some executives. Why would people leak word of Deshaun Watson competing for the starting QB job next summer or have Ken Dorsey say Dorian Thompson-Robinson has potential?

Dorsey was let go by the organization pretty much immediately after the season ending loss, along with offensive line coach Andy Dickerson.

What’s the comment about being silent and having people think you are stupid?

Cleveland must get better quarterback play. That is first and foremost. And any talk of bringing Watson back is dumb. He has played 19 games with the Browns and has played probably less than 10 decent quarters. At this point, thinking a change in offensive strategy or coordinator will make him regain the skills he had prior to the trade is lunacy.

If they like one of the passers coming into the league via the draft, they should draft one, but they should not feel the need to force-feed that player onto the field.

They also need to get better at running back. We would love to see Nick Chubb back, but they need to find a younger version of the back who wears #24.

And they need an offensive coordinator who understands the importance of running the ball and is willing to make a commitment to doing it.

The defense isn’t bad. True, they played much better a year ago, but they allowed the least first downs in the league. Even yesterday, until the fourth quarter, they kept Cleveland in the game. Remember, the first Baltimore TD was an interception return, a too common sight in 2024.

On that side of the ball, some younger players stood out. DT Mike Hall, injured in the finale, looks like he can play. Second year DE Isaiah McGuire looks like a player, so does LB Mohamoud Diabate, CB Cam Mitchell, and don’t forget DE Alex Wright, who was injured after week four.

Offensively, we would be remiss in not mentioning WR Jerry Jeudy, who also made the Pro Bowl catching 90 passes this season, amazing since he played with one professional passer.

The worrisome part of this is the first thing that needs to be done is recognizing who can play and who can’t. The talent evaluators thought DTR was better than Tyler Huntley. They started DTR in two games when based on yesterday, Bailey Zappe is better.

And we have our weekly mention of trading a second-round pick for WR Elijah Moore.

They have to correctly evaluate what changes need to be made. If they are honest with themselves, we think they can win. Next season.

Another Loss Brings More Puzzling Questions For Browns

It was another mind-numbing, head scratching performance by the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, capping their home schedule with a 20-3 loss to the Miami Dolphins.

If you thought it couldn’t get worse from the early season offensive struggles with Deshaun Watson at the helm, the Browns have now scored in single digits the last three contests, the last two with overmatched Dorian Thompson-Robinson calling signals.

At least Watson would put up at least 10 points per game. His low was the 13 scored against Washington in week five.

Offensively, Cleveland had a decent day running the football, gaining 114 yards (their 4th best of the season) on 28 attempts. And although we understand the Browns were trailing most of the second half, they still decided to have their inexperienced, ineffective QB put the ball in the air 47 times.

Thompson-Robinson completed 24 of those throws for 170 yards, and had an interception, the 10th of his career vs. just one touchdown pass.

The Browns said they wanted to take a look at the second year QB when he has time to prepare for games, and if true, they can’t like what they’ve seen. Jameis Winston has a reputation for throwing interceptions, and his career percentage is 3.5%.

DTR in his 14 games, including five starts, has a percentage of 4.4%. Add that to a career completion percentage of 52.4% and you can see he’s not ready to be a starter in the league, and really, you have to question whether or not he should be on a roster.

Which leads to another question. Why did the Browns cut Tyler Huntley in order to keep Thompson-Robinson? It leads us to believe there is an agenda, in that case being the GM drafted one and signed the other as a free agent.

We understand general managers have a fondness for players they drafted, but good organizations (note, we said good) make evaluations based on how people play, not where or by whom they were drafted by.

Is Huntley a better quarterback? He’s played 24 games in the NFL with 13 starts and has completed 65% of his throws with 10 TDs and 8 interceptions (1.8%). Yeah, he’s better without a doubt.

Which leads us to this question. Should Andrew Berry be making the draft picks this upcoming spring? It’s hard to make a case for him.

Yes, he’s been without a first-round choice for the last three seasons. However, he’s only selected one player who has made a Pro Bowl, LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah. The first round picks he did make; T Jedrick Wills and CB Greg Newsome aren’t cornerstones of the team.

He’s made some good trades, like the ones for Amari Cooper and Jerry Jeudy, but he also dealt a second-round pick for Elijah Moore, whose roster spot is tenuous at best.

Does anyone trust Berry to change the landscape of the Browns in this draft where they likely will have a top five pick? It’s difficult to make that argument.

The Browns’ front office makes too many errors trying to justify bad decisions which is a twofold problem. The best thing to do if you mess up is to admit it, move on and get better.

There was another report this week about Watson competing for the QB job in training camp. If it is not true, then the powers that be should say nothing about him, so apparently someone is putting that out there.

Why? The guy doesn’t want to play in Cleveland.

By next Saturday night, this nightmare season for the Browns will be over. We still think Kevin Stefanski should be the coach next year, but someone needs to be held accountable for Watson and the offensive coaching staff firings.

Running it back with the same group shouldn’t be an option.

Garrett Is In Concert With The Fans In Saying Get It Fixed

Myles Garrett caused quite the commotion last Friday in his weekly chat with the media, telling the Browns’ front office to get their act together.

And as usual, there was a lot of overreaction from the media and Browns’ fans.

First, Garrett did not ask to be traded. In fact, he said he wanted to finish his career with the Browns. He said he did not want to be part of a long rebuilding program such as the one the team started in 2016 when they stripped it down and rebuilt from the ground up.

Garrett was the first pick in the ’17 draft after Cleveland went 1-15. He played on a team that went 0-16 in his rookie year.

He will also be 29 years old next season and understands his NFL future isn’t going to be lengthy.

We compare it to LeBron James’ second tenure with the Cavaliers in which he continually put pressure on the front office to put a winning team on the court. He didn’t want to be on a real good team, he wanted to be with a group that can compete for titles.

Garrett has played for the Browns eight seasons and has participated in three playoff games, winning one. He will likely be named to his sixth Pro Bowl this season, and of course was the league’s Defensive Player of the Year following last season.

And when he retires, he will likely head to Canton to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

Since 1960, he’s the greatest defensive player the Browns have ever had. He’s just would like to see how the team is going to compete next year and the following seasons. He’s tired of wasting his talents on what has turned out to be a mess of a season.

In a way, Garrett was talking for the fans. He was on a squad that made the playoffs a year ago, with coaching and leadership that guided the team through four different quarterbacks.

After the season, the front office decided to make wholesale changes to that coaching staff and overhaul an offense that proved to be pretty effective.

Gone were people like Alex Van Pelt, Bill Callahan, and Stump Mitchell. Since Cleveland’s first run to the playoffs in 2020, the Browns have been a running team, led of course by Nick Chubb. In the defensive end’s comments Friday, he talked about the lack of a running game this year, and how that impacts his side of the ball.

He probably can’t believe after all these years; wholesale changes were made to a winning season. Frankly, we thought the same.

And all the changes were made to suit a quarterback who came here with great numbers but hasn’t really produced since he arrived in town.

As the best player on the team, he feels it is fair for the powers that be show him what the plan is going forward. Maybe he saw the reports that they were planning to give Deshaun Watson a shot at the QB job next year, and he knows that’s not going to work.

Perhaps he just wants to be reassured this isn’t going to be another total rebuild again. Teams in the NFL go from fourth to first place every year, why can’t the Browns do the same thing next season?

That 1-15 team that Garrett and David Njoku arrived to play with didn’t have players like Denzel Ward, Grant Delpit, Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, Jerry Jeudy, and Wyatt Teller on it.

We are sure the front office’s plan didn’t include making their best player upset.

Garrett is with the fans on this. He’s saying to the front office, “get it fixed”. He’s earned the right to make that comment.

This QB Looked A Lot Like The One Who Started The Year For Browns

The ugly season authored by the Cleveland Browns continued on Sunday with another abysmal offensive performance in a 24-6 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in the Queen City dropping their record to 3-12.

It was the 10th time this season the Browns failed to gain 300 yards of total offense. Of the five games they exceeded that total, Jameis Winston was at the controls in four of them.

Dorian Thompson-Robinson was the starting quarterback and frankly, the offense looked a lot like it did in the first seven games with Deshaun Watson at the helm. He was skittish in the pocket, looked to escape very early, not giving receivers a chance, and of course, running himself into sacks.

The game started promising for the Browns as Jerome Ford ripped off a 66-yard run on the game’s very first play. But true to the Ken Dorsey offense, Ford carried just nine more times on the day, gaining 92 yards on the ground as Cleveland felt the need to have a very inexperienced QB throw 34 passes.

The Browns rank 28th in rushing attempts and 27th in yardage this season, which is by far the worst ranking for any offense coordinated or guided as a head coach by Kevin Stefanski.

Until last year, his teams were always in the top ten in rushing, and last season finished 12th and that was with Nick Chubb being injured in the second game of the year.

And when you think about it, the identity of the Cleveland Browns is the running game, tough, physical football. The greatest running back in the history of the game, Jim Brown, played here.

So did Marion Motley, Leroy Kelly, Greg Pruitt, Mike Pruitt, Kevin Mack and Earnest Byner both gained 1000 yards in the same season, and of course, Chubb has been one of the best runners of the last 10-15 years of NFL football.

It’s in the DNA to run the ball in Cleveland, and currently the Browns have an offensive coordinator who doesn’t like to run the ball.

Apparently, Stefanski’s success of running the football and using the play action pass didn’t figure into the decision in choosing the offensive coordinator because their ideas on offense seem to be at odds with each other.

To us, the first step to making this football team respectable when it has the football is to go back to the identity of the franchise and what the head coach clearly likes to do, and that is establish a solid running attack.

Back to Sunday’s loss. After that opening run by Ford, the Browns got no points because D’Onta Foreman fumbled on the one-yard line, presumably his last carry as a member of the brown and orange.

Cleveland’s biggest weapon of late, WR Jerry Jeudy was made useless by the switch in quarterbacks from Winston to Thompson-Robinson, who mostly dinked and dunked with short passes to Ford and David Njoku.

The turnover issues didn’t end with Winston’s benching as DTR threw two, and his career ratio now stands at one touchdown and nine picks in 180 attempts. We think we can all see he is not a legitimate starter in the NFL.

Congratulations to Myles Garrett on getting his 100th sack of his illustrious career. The front office has work to do in rebuilding this roster quick so Garrett will want to remain a Brown.

And of course, Dustin Hopkins missed an extra point, his only kick of the day. His confidence is clearly shaken, and he should not be kicking any more this year.

Not that these last two games really matter. It will be interesting to see at what point Stefanski pulls the plug on the DTR experience and goes to Bailey Zappe.

Merry Christmas! The Browns don’t play until Sunday!

Mistakes, Turnovers, And Other Assorted Errors Lead To Yet Another Loss

When you lose the turnover margin 6-0 in an NFL game, we would guess the odds are monumental against winning the game, so perhaps the best thing we can say about the Cleveland Browns is they only lost 21-7 to the defending Super Bowl champs despite that turnover margin.

The game started well with the defense forcing a three and out, but unbelievably, James Proche fumbled the punt and Kansas City recovered and quickly scored a touchdown.

It was the first of several special teams’ errors, mostly penalties, although Proche also caught a punt inside the five-yard line, and fair caught a few more because we assume he was cautious about fumbling another one.

Jameis Winston was benched after throwing three interceptions for the second game in the last three games and has now thrown eight the last three contests. Who starts next week? Our guess would be Dorian Thompson-Robinson, although on a postgame show, both Josh Cribbs (can he come back and return kicks) and Eric Metcalf both thought Winston still is the best option.

Before the game, it was reported that the team could bring back Deshaun Watson next year. We understand Watson is still under contract, but why would anyone in the organization leak that news, especially now? If asked about him, just say “no comment”.

Whether or not the Browns stay with Winston, there is simply no way you can bring Watson into training camp next summer, salary cap hit or not. Seeing his name infuriates most fans, so what is the point of having discussions about him?

Back to the game, another downer was the injury to Nick Chubb, lost for the season with a broken foot. Chubb did lose a rare fumble, but also had 41 yards on nine carries, and seems to be getting some of his explosiveness back. The last two games he has 20 carries for 89 yards, more like traditional Chubb numbers.

The Browns need to bring him back next year.

Also, kudos to Jerry Jeudy who caught 11 passes for 108 yards, his third 100+ game in the last five and we went over the 1000-yard mark on receptions, the first time he accomplished this.

We were concerned about him early in the year, but he has found a rhythm with Winston, so at least there is that.

As happens on losing teams, players seem to play their way off the roster. Last week, we mentioned Kadarious Toney and Dustin Hopkins. This week, we became tired of Germain Ifedi, who can’t seem to get lined up correctly (and picked a dumb unsportsmanlike conduct penalty last week).

Geron Christian started last season for the Browns at left tackle and did a decent job, and he’s with the team. Why not start him for the rest of the year?

We already discussed Proche, but let us add Elijah Moore, who kind of has no role with the team. Moore was supposed to be kind of an all-purpose player who can make big plays, but he’s averaging 8.7 yards per reception on his 55 catches.

Let’s just say, we’d like to see more of Michael Woods II and Jamari Thrash going forward.

Three games left in this dreadful season. Who takes the snaps next week at Cincinnati? The guess would be Thompson-Robinson, but who knows, perhaps it’s Bailey Zappe.

It feels like the season can’t be over soon enough.