An Enigmatic End To An Enigmatic Season
Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
How do you reconcile an unlikely regular season run with an even more unlikely postseason end? This is the question facing the Cleveland Browns and their fans after an absolute destruction at the hands of CJ Stroud and the AFC South champion Houston Texans.
The 2023 Browns traversed an outrageous path of expectations and nearly insurmountable obstacles to arrive at an 11-5 record and the fifth seed in the AFC.
It was thrilling. A season that seemed dead at numerous points somehow by week 18 had “maybe they can make it to the Super Bowl” potential. That potential made Joe Flacco and the offense finally turning into a pumpkin on Saturday hard. It made an elite defense have its worst moment in the season’s most important moment devastating.
But how do we sort it all out? What is the final word on the 2023 Browns.
There are two obvious paths we can walk down.
They Were On Borrowed Time
We can choose to let our disappointment be small and short lived and justify it by the reality of the team’s circumstances. Yes, the Joe Flacco thing was fun and he absolutely deserves an immense amount of credit, but anyone with any football sense knew he was playing on borrowed time. Stefanski did his best to scheme around the team’s limitations and Flacco created big moments when they were available, but this was just a larger-scale Josh Dobbs situation. Eventually, the mistakes and offense we’re going to catch up to this team. If every other aspect of the squad wasn’t perfect, they were going to fall apart. Unfortunately, those other aspects had their struggles at the first important opportunity.
To be on your fourth string quarterback and without your team’s best offensive player and get anywhere close to the playoffs is a ridiculous achievement. Ask the Minnesota Vikings. Their borrowed time ended after just two weeks of success. From there it was a disaster.
We can look at this season as an indicator of things to come. Andrew Barry doesn’t believe in the salary cap and there’s no reason to think that they can’t have a very strong squad next year and take advantage of a better situation.
Or…
This Was A Massive Blown Opportunity
Maybe you don’t think the Joe Flacco magic had run out. Perhaps you believe that if the defense would’ve come to play Cleveland could’ve pulled this thing out and then from there anything is possible.
It’s not an unreasonable argument. The AFC and the league for that matter has not been this wide open in years. The Chiefs and Bills are both having average seasons and the number one team in the AFC is a team Cleveland knows as well as anyone. The number one team in the NFC is a team that they had already proven they could beat.
If this team had just played the way they did in their final six games they had potential.
With Watsons contract continuing to hang over this franchise while his play continues to be subpar at best there is no reason to believe that next season will be any better than this one.
Regardless of which side you eventually land right now it just all feels so strange. Such an unlikely journey with such an unlikely end. It’s bizarre. As the dust settles, the answer to the above questions will likely be found in the off-season success of the franchise. If Berry, Stefanski, and company can excel in their team building, this will likely look like a blip on the radar on the way to something great. If they don’t, it could quickly look like the shining moment in another set of frustrating Cleveland Browns years.
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