The 2024 season has not gone well for the Cleveland Browns. With a 3-11 record, this team has underachieved and underperformed across the board. Usually, in circumstances like this, those who are the most responsible for this catastrophic failure are held accountable, but that does not appear to be the case for the Browns.
According to a report from CBS Sports' Jonathan Jones, Browns fans can expect Deshaun Watson, Kevin Stefanski, and Andrew Berry to return next season despite being those most responsible for their collective failure this season.
Rather than do the right thing and hold them accountable, Jimmy Haslam seems more interested in letting everything continue down a path leading to nowhere instead of taking action and making some overdue changes.
While the Browns have not enjoyed the same post-Watson success from last season, his poor performance before going down with a season-ending injury for the second straight year must be noted.
Watson was one of, if not the worst, starting quarterback in the league, and it seems like the Browns had no intention of doing the right thing and relegating him to the bench where he belongs. Instead, those involved in determining who will start on Sundays would rather continue to trot out a quarterback incapable of playing winning football.
Problems go beyond the quarterback position
Can we genuinely discuss Kevin Stefanski for a moment? How long can he live off of being named coach of the year in seasons that definitively deserve to have asterisks attached to them? The 2020 season featured fanless or partially filled stadiums, and their playoff win in Pittsburgh came when Stefanski was at home and former special teams coordinator Mike Priefer was acting head coach.
2023 saw Joe Flacco come off the couch to save the day, leading Cleveland to the playoffs and resulting in the premature extensions of both Stefanski and Andrew Berry.
Speaking of Andrew Berry, his track record in the player acquisition department has not been great. Obviously, trading for Deshaun Watson was a collective effort by the front office and coaching staff, but there are plenty of other questionable moves that have not worked out.
Read more: 3 Browns players (and 2 coaches) to blame for Cleveland missing NFL playoffs
From missed draft picks to bad contracts and the unwillingness to move on from players who are not performing adequately, Berry is not delivering the results that are needed.
Complicating matters is his tendency to try and prove himself right by doubling and tripling down on players instead of making the right decision to let them go. A good evaluator of talent is able to identify when they've made a mistake with a player, and they take the appropriate actions to rectify it.
Meanwhile, Berry tries time and time again to make something work even though it is apparent to anyone with a working set of eyes that it is just not going to happen. This has set the Browns back and will only make their attempts to be a competitive team again more difficult.
Previous regime failures are clouding judgment
The main argument in support of Stefanski and Berry is that they are better than those who came before them. This is not the accomplishment people make it out to be, as the Browns have been one of the worst-run organizations in sports since returning in 1999. Being better than previous regimes is not impressive in the least bit. In fact, it is a bar so low an infant could crawl over it with ease.
What this comes down to is wanting better rather than settling for mediocrity. Bringing the band back together for another year will not yield the results they are looking for and will only lead to continued frustration from the fanbase. It is clear that across-the-board changes are necessary if they are ever going to take the step forward to truly compete. Without it, the Browns are doomed to continued irrelevance.
It would be one thing if there was sustained year-over-year success while putting multiple foundational building blocks into place. But it seems like the more influence the coaching staff and front office have on the roster, the further away they are from competing with the best teams in the league.
The best path forward in Cleveland would be to make some changes and try again with a different approach instead of continuing to try to make something work that clearly won't. If the Browns were as smart as they want everyone to think they are, they would accept that their process is not working and must be altered to change the trajectory of the franchise.
Unfortunately, it seems like they are going to run it back as is, with another unsuccessful season in 2025 being almost guaranteed.