Brown's Mediocre Cycle
by Longvillian65 | 3 years ago | 0 Comments
The Browns Cycle of Mediocrity
By: Kirk Hirbstreet
The Browns, for as long as many can remember, have been the bottom dwellers of the league. Last cycle a new coach was brought in with hopes of changing that. Sadly, the results never came and the learning curve of redzone came with a cost. However, the Browns were optimistic with their new coach that they were willing to give him a second chance by offering Coach Quinn a new contract at the beginning of season 70. Some may not know how this went, others may take a well-educated guess, but we will dive deep into why this was the cycle of mediocrity of the Browns.
Let me start by stating I joined this excellent analyst crew in the middle of season 75. I had to go through season-by-season worth of data and film to see what exactly happened and why such a talented team never came to fruition. Luckily, all those years covering college football has prepared me for such a task and the strongest and weakest areas of these browns are both my specialty.
First, we are going to go over the overall record. Below we can see that the Browns held one winning season. One out of a possible 7. Three seven-win seasons, one six win, and one four win season to round them out.
|
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
2025 |
2026 |
2027 |
|
|
Record |
6-11 |
10-7 |
7-10 |
7-10 |
4-13 |
4-13 |
7-10 |
At first, I thought there may be a correlation between the way the offense played compared to the record, but there wasn’t enough data to prove that. The defense, minus the last season, was top 12 every season showing that was not the issue. The offense was the culprit in the end but not for issues moving the ball. Turnovers, specifically interceptions, were the cause of such turmoil in Cleveland. In the only winning season we can see that Winston only threw 13 interceptions to 27 touchdowns receiving a 108.7 QBR. The highest of any season for a browns qb this cycle.
|
QB |
NAME |
CMP |
ATT |
% |
YDS |
AVG |
TD |
SACK |
INT |
RATING |
|
2021 |
Baker |
235 |
399 |
58.9 |
3131 |
7.9 |
21 |
40 |
19 |
80.5 |
|
2022 |
Winston |
234 |
350 |
66.9 |
3327 |
9.7 |
27 |
33 |
13 |
108.7 |
|
2023 |
Winston |
202 |
352 |
57.4 |
2766 |
7.3 |
17 |
30 |
22 |
73.1 |
|
2024 |
Crowder |
264 |
430 |
61.4 |
3697 |
8.6 |
15 |
25 |
19 |
80.7 |
|
2025 |
Crowder |
192 |
361 |
53.2 |
3198 |
8.3 |
19 |
38 |
32 |
62.9 |
|
2026 |
Crowder |
262 |
457 |
57.3 |
3700 |
8.1 |
19 |
27 |
33 |
66.9 |
|
2027 |
Mond |
258 |
423 |
61 |
3689 |
8.6 |
22 |
35 |
19 |
87.2 |
The limited turnovers allowed the offense to control the clock and the Browns to feed Chubb who racked up more than 1900 yards that season by himself. A fresh defense and heavy dose of running the ball the browns were able to make the first playoff appearance of the cycle while nearly upsetting the heavily favored Bengals in the WC matchup.
|
2022 |
Chubb |
373 |
1909 |
5.1 |
15 |
|
2022 |
Hunt |
108 |
523 |
4.8 |
4 |
|
2022 |
Weston |
91 |
418 |
4.6 |
4 |
Winston showing a decline in production and Browns sold the house in a questionable move that ended up dooming the team the rest of the cycle. Trading for Crowder ended up being the worst trade in RZ that I could see recently find. Sending off that many picks ended up not allowing the browns the ability to reload on some aging positions and ended up hurting the cap situation in the long term. Crowder showed promise in his first season beating numbers Winston put up but did not progress to what was expected. Instead, Crowder regressed and ended up being a detriment to the team where the front office finally decided enough was enough and Mond was brought in the help fix the sinking ship.
To finish off this I believe the coaching staff having a change of scenery will help them in the future. With the upcoming team draft I am curious where some coaches will go. We saw where a new team created fantastic opportunities for some while others crumbled in the end. Lessons learned and a new outlook on the game will hopefully propel this browns staff to a better cycle, if not we can always see how the next cycle compared to this one and see if the same issues are there. Thank you to everyone who took the time to sit and read this and let me know if there is another team you would like a quick dive on!
Signing out
Hirby