Cleveland Browns: Was Jarvis Landry the culture change’s missing link?

MIAMI GARDENS, FL - DECEMBER 11: Jarvis Landry
MIAMI GARDENS, FL - DECEMBER 11: Jarvis Landry /
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“Culture change” is a term that gets thrown around quite often when talking about the Cleveland Browns. With things finally, maybe, looking up for the Browns, was Jarvis Landry the psychological piece they needed?

The Cleveland Browns, for the better half of two decades, have been a broken franchise. Through all the heartbreaking losses, blown draft picks, and bone-headed free agency decisions, the Browns have made their mark of ineptitude in the NFL.

Turn on any and every Cleveland sports radio station during football season, and you are nearly guaranteed to hear the term “culture change.”

While the Browns have constantly switched out coaches and general managers, their locker room has remained down in the dumps since the early 2000s.

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That is, it seems, until the Browns started making their off-season moves. The amount of optimism currently surrounding the Cleveland Browns as a franchise is staggering.

For the first time in nearly a decade, the team feels fresh and full of potential.

So, why is that? One can point to any number of reasons. The hiring of John Dorsey, the opportunity for a clean slate in 2018, a polarizing (yet undeniably exciting) No. 1 draft choice, the list goes on and on.

Perhaps the strongest candidate, however, is the addition of wide receiver Jarvis Landry. Between the time the season ended, and Browns minicamp, it seems that the turning point for team morale was acquiring Landry.

Landry’s ability, along with his “name-brand” league recognition, has added an air of legitimacy to the Browns. They may not be Super Bowl contenders, but Landry seems like the poster boy of a long-awaited franchise turnaround.

Landry adds to the Browns locker room something that they have not had since 1999: a league-renowned skill player.

Joe Thomas was a great voice and face for the team, but Landry could become a known ambassador of the Browns during (hopefully) a franchise upswing.

With Thomas now in retirement, Cleveland football needed a new leader for the next generation.

Next: 5 Free agents the Browns can still sign

The Dawg Pound is Jarvis Landry’s for the taking. If his play backs up the culture shift that he looks to have caused, Landry could be an amazing asset to an up and coming Browns squad.