Cleveland Browns 2023-24 NFL Season Recap

Cleveland Browns NFL Season Recap

The Cleveland Browns return to the playoffs off a two-year hiatus isn’t one the “Dawg Pound” will look back upon fondly after the team got crushed 45-14 in the wild card round by the Houston Texans. The 31 point skunking was made even tougher to swallow due to linemakers actually installing them the favored side to win the game by 2.5-points per the closing NFL odds. But the game held true to the team’s M.O. all season long of being exceptionally tough to defeat at home (8-1, 8-1 ATS) and much easier to tame on the road where Saturday’s defeat moved Kevin Stefanski’s troops to 3-6 SU and 2-6-1 ATS regardless of holding a 14-10 lead at the outset of the second quarter. Aided by a pair of pick-sixes, the Texans would rattle off the game’s final 35 points and the rest was history.

Hopefully the first round playoff exit doesn’t force NFL bettors to sour on this team when you take into account how much of a miracle it actually was that the Browns found themselves in the second season competing for the Lombardi Trophy in the first place. Per usual, the injury bug took huge bites out of the roster on both sides of the ball. Leading up to the playoff tilt, headliners like Jack Conklin, Nick Chubb, Dawand Jones, and Jedrick Wills Jr. all weren’t able to suit up – that’s almost the entirety of the starting rushing offense right there! Defensively, Grant Delpit, Rodney McLeod, and Denzel Ward were also out of commission – that’s nearly the entirety of the secondary!

You’ll notice Deshaun Watson’s name wasn’t mentioned up above. Even when healthy and under center, the mega trade bust was nothing if not a shell of his former self. In the six games he ultimately went on to start, Watson threw for just 1,115 yards and 7:4 TD/INT ratio and added another 142 yards and a score with his legs. The end result was an embarrassing 84.3 QB rating that did little if anything to get the fan base or his player prop supporters excited. Upper management now has another conundrum on its hands with No. 4 locked into four more years with $230M guaranteed coming his way! Even with Joe Flacco coming on late off his couch, the Browns ranked out with the league’s No. 19 ranked passing attack that averaged just over 217 yards per game.

The other side of the ball is where Cleveland made its hay playing to the league’s top ranked unit that silenced opposing passing attacks (No. 1) en route to conceding just over 270 yards per game (No. 1). Its 28 takeaways ranked fourth overall while the 49 overall sacks accrued ranked sixth. The overall body of work ended up finding the unit ranked No. 2 in defensive DVOA behind only the division rival Baltimore Ravens. Myles Garret put forth another body of work that had him in the running for the Defensive Player of the Year Award all NFL betting season long. Unfortunately, the depleted unit simply had no answers for what C.J. Stroud and the Texans offense brought to the table in the wild card round.

Though the team ultimately went on to punch a playoff ticket, the franchise is left with more questions than it has answers for due to the roster’s premiere players routinely succumbing to the injury bug. As sickeningly it ended, the 2023-24 season should still be considered a success with Cleveland going on to exceed its 9-game season win total (11), cash in as +100 choices to punch a ticket to the playoffs, and finish in second place (+290) of what proved to be the uber-competitive AFC North that sent three teams to the playoffs.

Cleveland Browns 2024 Offseason

With the front office sending this year’s first round pick to Houston to acquire Watson this past offseason, Cleveland will not have a first round pick provided it doesn’t make a move to get one leading up to the draft. It’s highly likely it won’t. That means GM Andrew Berry will utilize eight picks to improve and add depth to a roster that tested the latter to the fullest over the course of the regular season. With the franchise’s finances limited and already projected to be well over the salary cap entering next season, a number of tough choices will need to be made on who to keep and who to part ways with. Don’t be surprised if the time comes that Chubb is outright released with the 28-year old vet entering the final season of his contract coming off a brutal injury. The move would free up a ton of space to allow upper management to improve the roster.

Linebacker help and a premiere No. 2 receiver will be sought out in free agency should Cleveland have the funds. In the draft, the Browns will have picks in the second and third rounds as well as a pair in both the fifth, sixth, and seventh rounds. With all the injuries the offense suffered along the front wall, I can’t help but think Berry will load up at the hog position; likely trading down to acquire more picks in the process. It would also make sense to add to the backfield with a number of currently rostered players getting extremely long in the tooth.

Cleveland Browns Schedule & Results

The Cleveland Browns are one of the legacy franchises of the NFL. Yet the Browns have a complex history that is part of that DNA. The original Browns were founded by the late great Paul Brown in the All-America Football Conference. Cleveland won all four of its championships in the AAFC before merging into the NFL. In their first NFL season, the Browns won the championship. Subsequently, Cleveland played in the NFL championship game for the next five years, winning the final two times.

By the early 1960s, the club grew stale under Paul Brown. And in 1962, Brown was fired by new owner Art Modell. After winning the 1964 NFL championship, the Browns were a perennial contender for most of the next three decades. However, they never made the Super Bowl after the 1966 AFL-NFL merger.

In 1995, Modell moved the original Browns to Baltimore to become the Ravens. The second iteration of the Browns was born in 1999 as an expansion team. Cleveland has a passionate fan base and has been plagued by incompetent ownership and consistent losing. Since their return to the NFL, the Browns have only two playoff appearances.

Cleveland Browns Past Seasons (2000)

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