Why Your Team Sucks 2026: Cleveland Browns

Some people are fans of the Cleveland Browns. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Cleveland Browns. This 2026 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Your team: Cleveland Browns.

Gonna be another long year.

Your 2025 record: 5-12 and not really all that embarrassing, as far as the Browns go. We didn’t have to watch Deshaun Watson attempt to play football, or watch the Browns blow a game at the last second to one of their division rivals in the funniest way possible. They even beat the Packers! I’m a bit disappointed, frankly.

Now, does that mean the Browns had a dignified 2025? O ho ho, let’s pump the brakes on that idea, buddy boy. Rest assured that these Browns still fucked up enough times to make you want to drown yourself. In the first week of the season, they outgained the Bengals 327-141 and still lost. They let the charred remains of Carson Wentz engineer a 10-play, 80-yard TD drive at the very end of the game to lose to Minnesota in London. In their first tussle with the hated Steelers—a game they lost, naturally—they failed to sack Aaron Rodgers even once. Aaron Rodgers, who has a left leg made of pencil shavings. Aaron Rodgers, who spent all of last season taking 0.1-step drops because he was so utterly immobile in the pocket. Aaron Rodgers, whom all the world would KILL to personally sack. In a season where Myles Garrett finally took down Michael Strahan’s fraud-ass sack record, these Browns still couldn’t lay a hand on the fucker. Pathetic! I don’t ask this team to win games, but I do ask it to maim and/or kill people I dislike.

Garrett got his bull-rush back on against New England later, sacking Pats QB Drake Maye a whopping five times. The Browns lost that game by three scores anyway. They also lost to the Jets AFTER the Jets had traded away Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner, and to Tennessee AFTER the Titans had fired their head coach. Oh, and the Browns also got got by a fake tight-end tush push in their second loss to Baltimore. The tight-end tush push never works, let alone a fake one. But look at this shit. Look at it! And look at what Caleb Williams did to them after that!

You can try any stupid play design against these Browns, and it’ll work! Griff Whalen would have scored a touchdown on that fake punt against these idiots, they’re just that vulnerable. So if your team’s playcaller has a throwback pass, a swinging gate, or some other horrible idea lurking inside his playbook, make sure he calls it against Cleveland and no other team. We good?

Anyway, another year, another ignominious end for the NFL’s most toxic franchise. At season’s end, they fired head coach Kevin Stefanski, who was arguably the least guilty party in regards to Cleveland’s failures. But don’t worry, everyone who was actually responsible for this diseased corpus is still around! FUN TIMES IN CLEVELAND AGAIN!

Your coach: Former Ravens offensive coordinator Todd Monken, who was hired to be one-and-done, a la Rob Chudzinski. Monken took this job because no one else wanted it, because he’s old and won’t get a chance to be head coach anywhere else, and because hey, he can just fuck off back to his old friend John Harbaugh after this season is over. Truly, this man has nothing to lose, aside from 12 or 13 games.

A bit of side drama to this hire: Former Browns defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, a.k.a. socially acceptable Gregg Williams, assumed he was in line for the top job after Stefanski was fired. When the Browns went outside and hired Monken instead, the franchise hoped Schwartz would stay on as DC, given the laudable job he’d done with that unit over the previous three seasons. Instead, Schwartz rage-quit because he got passed over, and then subsequently went unhired by anyone else afterward. The lesson, in case it hadn’t occurred to you before: It’s always better to be unemployed than to work for this team.

Your quarterback: Oh, you gotta be shitting me. Not even Deshaun Watson is excited to see Deshaun Watson grace an NFL field one last (fingers crossed) time.

When we last left Watson, he was clumsily evading questions about his extremely long history of being a No Means Yes guy, while also being one of the analytically worst QBs in the league, while also tearing the same Achilles tendon twice. There hasn’t been a comeback this unwelcome since the Scary Movie reboot. But what choice did the Browns have, really? They can’t cut Watson because of his infamously terrible contract, which will eat into their cap until 2029. Meanwhile, the rest of their QB room is populated by Dillon Gabriel, a.k.a. the rich man’s Diego Pavia, and Mel Kiper’s favorite imbecile, Shedeur Sanders. Both Gabriel and Lil Deion got to start a few games by default last season. Here’s how that turned out:

The best QB the Browns had last season was Joe Flacco, whom they traded to Cincinnati midseason. With actual weapons at his disposal, Flacco would pass for over 1,200 yards and 11 TDs in his first four games with the Bengals. He would be the best QB on the 2026 Browns roster by orders of magnitude. As it stands now, the best QB they have presently is probably sixth-round rookie Taylen Green, and that’s only because Green is really a running back. Of course, there's always the chance that Watson plays so horribly that you and I only have to watch him for a few games before he gets the hook. In fact, there's a very large chance of it, so large you can see it from space.

What’s new that sucks: After watching Garrett make history for them (the good kind!), the Browns traded him to the Rams for a basket of picks and DE Jared Verse, who’s definitely happy to be here. It could have been me in those Chase ads with Juno Temple, dammit!

Verse joins a front seven that, apart from second-year man Mason Graham and DROY LB Carson Schwesinger, is alarmingly thin everywhere you don’t want it to be thin. While the secondary still boasts a couple studs in S Grant Delpit and CB Denzel Ward (freshly extended), this will be a significantly worse defense without Garrett and Schwartz around to cover up all of its deficiencies. CBs Martin Emerson and Greg Newsome are also no longer here, after all.

On the other side of the ball, the Browns completely overhauled an O-line that ranked second-to-last in the final PFF rankings a year ago. Longtime interior stalwart Joel Bitonio retired, and LT Jack Conklin was let go in March. Here to help replace them is first-round pick Spencer Fano, plus free agents Tytus Howard and Elgton Jenkins. Howard arrives from Houston, so you already know that he struggles with pass protection. And Jenkins is on his last legs after a largely excellent tenure in Green Bay. But honestly, there’s no one in that QB room worth protecting. If Jenkins feels gimpy one Sunday and decides to let Cam Heyward grind Watson into flour, he’ll have done us all a favor.

Here’s the part where I talk about the team’s draft haul from April. In addition to Fano, the Browns also snagged two receiving threats in KC Concepcion and Denzel Boston. Boston is too slow to get separation from NFL DBs, and Concepcion struggled with the dropsies during his career at Texas A&M. As you know, it’s TOTALLY easy to cure the dropsies once you reach the pros. The Browns also lucked into S Emmanuel McNeil-Warren in the second round when he dropped out of the first. McNeil-Warren might be the next Nick Emmanwori, were he not built like Todd Pinkston. I’m always hearing about how GM Andrew Berry is an analytical mastermind with good drafting acumen, and how he’s made a lot of great moves despite being saddled with the Deshaun Watson contract. But where are the results, I ask you? Why the fuck am I supposed to treat Berry like he’s built a model front office when the Browns are still shitty everywhere, every year? Fuck that guy. You think Arch Manning is gonna come here willingly in the spring? He’ll cling to school harder than Wooderson did.

LeBron stiffed the Cavs to play for the Sixers and James Harden is probably going to re-up. You people live in hell.

What has always sucked: Your owner, who isn’t going anywhere now that Brook Park is building his thieving ass a stadium right by the airport. And what a stadium it’ll be!

That’s right, Cleveland. Jimmy Haslam will see his franchise valuation double while you get to watch your shitty team bleed out inside of a crater for the rest of your miserable lives. I’d feel bad, but I saw some of you celebrate the Watson signing. You asked for this. I hope you get a lifetime more of it.

What might not suck: Harold Fannin. He’s so good he makes Gary Barnidge look like Kellen Winslow II!

HEAR IT FROM BROWNS FANS!

Bill:

Shedeur Sanders? I'm going to jump off the Interbelt Bridge. 

Andy:

Jimmy Haslam, Browns and Milwaukee Bucks owner, traded Myles Garrett and Giannis Antetokounmpo within a month of each other. He is not a serious owner. This is not a serious organization. I want nothing but bad things to happen to this fucking team until I die.

Jamie:

Great, now we're just like That '70s Show after Topher Grace left, except that Red and Kitty aren't actively fleecing Point Place and Danny Masterson actually went to prison.

Vince Guerrieri:

You know what wasn't a failure? Jimmy Haslam getting the Ohio legislature to change the law so he could use the state's unclaimed funds to pay for his new stately pleasure dome (currently a pile of dirt visible from Interstate 71 near the airport). There's a class-action suit to keep the unclaimed funds from being paid out. It's being led by Marc Dann, a former attorney general who resigned in disgrace and even had his law license suspended. Do you know how bad you have to be to make Marc Dann the good guy?

So many people are so irate that requests for unclaimed funds TRIPLED last year. One of the requests came from my father, when he was told that my uncle had something like $35 in a bank account after he died. "What happens to the money," Dad asked when the bank called. "It goes to unclaimed funds..." She couldn't get another word out before he said, "Send me the paperwork. I'll be goddamned if Jimmy Haslam gets it."

Richard:

I have seen enough Browns football to tell you how this season is going to go. Shedeur Sanders is going to start the first six games of the season, suck, and then get hurt. Deshaun Watson will then start the next four games, suck, and then get hurt (but not before a coach, a player, or Jimmy Haslam sticks their foot in their mouth on camera). Next, Dillon Gabriel will start four games, suck, and then get hurt. Before finally the future UFL guy they drafted in the sixth round will start the rest of the season. He will, of course, suck but in a way that convinces the dumbest part of the fan base he is the future. While all this is happening a still okay defense and a weak schedule will drag the worst offense you have ever seen to a 5-12 record which will put all of the good quarterbacks out of reach. (Unless all but one quarterback flames out then the 3-14 Browns will watch the 2-15 Cardinals select Arch Manning first overall). During the offseason the Browns will trade away players for assets to help them build a future that will never come, and football pundits who should know better will say that they are turning a corner.

It is kind of impressive that this is the worst run professional sports team in Ohio considering how dogshit their competition is. They share a state with the Columbus Blue Jackets for fucks sake and even they look semi-functional compared to the Browns.

Fifteen years ago who would have thought that the most competently run sports team in Ohio would be the one owned by the comic sans guy.

Isaac:

One of my favorite weeks of the year is the Browns' bye week. It's because I'll come home on an autumn Sunday after a long, stupid day at work (again, on a Sunday) and my roommate will say, "Hey, the Browns didn't lose today!" with complete earnestness. Occasionally he'll do it during Wild Card weekend or during the conference championship game and the line works just as well. 

It's a simple bit and not all that funny on the surface, but over the last 10 years we've lived together it's one of the few things I can count on happening without fail. I didn't appreciate it at first, but now every week I pray for the Browns to tie -- not win -- just so he can say that stupid line in that specific way. 

Adam:

This team has caused me more pain than the cancer I got 2 yrs ago. I’d rather it come raging out of remission (shout out to Ohio State for being great at something other than football and covering for a guy that sells thongs to teens) than ever watch Dry Rub Deshaun take another snap. Yet he will, and if he plays at anything resembling competent, Foghorn Leghorn will instruct Andrew Berry to extend him.

Sam:

“Deshaun Watson holds no ill will to Cleveland Browns.” Oh fuck off! Shitface FitzPissguzzle here has the audacity to say we’re the goddamned problem, but not his rubber-band leg ligaments or hand-hungry dick. Get your ass on a Lake Erie ice floe and go away forever.

Matt:

Randomly checked in on the Twitter list I keep to stay abreast of team news/commentary in May or whatever and found people having earnest heated discourse about Deshaun Watson vs Shadeur Sanders as if the result of the competition is an actual important thing that will make any difference. Just push the stadium into Lake Erie and wipe everyones memory from Ashtabula to Sandusky. That these people cant see that this is a year to just not pay attention is evidence enough that the disease is terminal and that an appointment out behind the barn with the sad old man and his Winchester is the only cure.

Aar:

Taylen Green was drafted in the sixth round which once again means it's time to remember that at one point the Arkansas Razorbacks had Darren McFadden, Felix Jones, and Peyton Hillis in the same backfield, and somehow Hillis was the one that made the cover of Madden.

Jared:

The notoriously trustworthy and competent management of my team is trying to assure everyone that the Browns are stocked with young talent, and will only be a solid QB away from contending next year. Good thing that position is so easy to fill each off-season.

I hope the Haslem Sports Group all sit on a pile of rusty fish hooks dug up from the reclaimed garbage dump where the new stadium is being built.

Quinn:

You know it’s a great sign when your team trades the greatest defensive player of his generation and the fanbase reaction is to be happy for him that he actually gets to play in meaningful games for once.

Fuck Brandon Weeden always.

Dan:

We just fired the most successful head coach we've had since coming back in 1999, and he was so successful that his record was a blistering 45-56. The best thing we can say about our owner is that he's only the second worst owner we've had. Among his brilliant ideas was pissing away a pile of draft picks and decades of good will in order to bring in a guy who looked at Ben Roethlisberger's dubious definition of consent and took it as a challenge. For that, we got a 9-10 record in 3 seasons, meaning that this team couldn't even make a deal with the devil without fucking it up. I can't think of a single thing that rooting for this team has done to enrich my life in some way.

Fuck Art Modell with a rusty rake.

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