Cleveland Browns players are on the same page this offseason

The Cleveland Browns are coming together as a team already and that’s a nice change going into this new season with a renewed focus

It’s been refreshing to hear the latest news of current and new Cleveland Browns players coming together and planning activities where many members of the squad on both sides of the ball are going to be trying to build camaraderie. Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland. com recently reported on this new rejuvenation amongst the Browns players to try and become a more close-knit group going into the next season.

It’s something that was certainly lacking in years past. Quarterback Baker Mayfield did often get several of the offensive players together to work out on their own, usually in Texas where Mayfield is from, but he never tried involving the defensive players. This past season new Browns, like safety John Johnson III, had suggested that the team chemistry wasn’t the best.

In the Cabot report, Denzel Ward was quoted as saying:

"“Yeah, we’ve actually been on a lot of talks with that camaraderie…I mean we’ve been doing things off the field again together, going out to eat. I know guys like Deshaun Watson, Myles Garrett are planning trips for guys and we’re going to get together and build that camaraderie off the field, not just here in the facility.”"

In the report, Cabot also shared that players such as Garrett and previous starting quarterback, Baker Mayfield weren’t always on the same page — thus an explanation for some of the disconnect on the team.

The other big difference, as reported in the Cabot story said this is the first time that both the offensive and defensive players are coming to the voluntary offseason program stretching over the next two-plus months.

It’s certainly nice to see this type of activity starting early and it could mean a victory or two more in the end. Team chemistry and trusting your teammates go a long way in the locker room and on the playing field.

In the Browns first season with head coach Kevin Stefanski in 2020, the team entered the preseason virtually and through Zoom calls because the team and the rest of the world were being introduced to a worldwide pandemic. Then last year, former starting center JC Tretter, who’s also the NFLPA president, urged his teammates to stay away from the voluntary workouts — and most players on the offensive side of the ball did.

While building better bonds with your teammates can’t win you a Super Bowl, it can help and the Browns need all the help they can get when it comes to reaching a Super Bowl.

I hope next season we see the offensive players and the defensive players lining the sidelines while the other group is on the field and encouraging them more, kind of like these players did when they were younger.

Too many times we’ve seen the players on the benches and not engaged or encouraging their teammates. Maybe that will look different next season for the Browns.