This season of misery for the Cleveland Browns is almost over. The team plays the Miami Dolphins on Sunday afternoon down at the stadium. There’s not much to play for if you’re Cleveland Brown, but the Miami Dolphins still have a very outside shot at the postseason. The weather will be frightful again with rain showers so taking care of the football will be a priority. This could be the key to whoever wins this game.
Let’s look at some of the bigger stories going into this game in our first and goal report.
1st and goal: Watson contract restructured again
Word spread Friday that quarterback Deshaun Watson’s enormous contract was getting restructured again where the team was going to add a couple extra “dummy” years in 2027 and 2028. In doing this they’ll have a cap hit of 46 million next year and $46 million in 2026. After the 2026 season, the team will officially cut Watson in all likelihood. That’s still 2 years away but that doesn’t mean Watson will ever quarterback again as the Browns starter.
His injury and recovery will have him start likely on the PUP list next season and then likely to the IR list the remainder of the season. I’m not sure how 2026 will look for Watson but we can discuss that at a later date.
There has been much misinterpretation of this current situation with Watson’s contract, but rest assured that the Browns are preparing for life without Watson. And these moves now are the first stages of that.
2nd and goal: Browns need to use the run game more
The Browns are ranked last in the NFL in terms of the number of offensive plays they have run the ball this season. They are only running the ball 34% of the time. The unbalanced offense this year has helped lead to the team’s 3-12 record.
Since 2020 and Browns coach Kevin Stefanski’s tenure the squad had been in the top tier of teams running the ball as they were running anywhere from 46 to 48% of the time.
I wrote about this problem with the team recently and it certainly doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see how this lack of a ground game has influenced the outcome of this year’s squad.
3rd and goal: Garrett and Bitonio speak out
This past week both Myles Garrett and Joel Bitonio spoke about their futures as Cleveland Browns. The two veterans have been with the team for a very long time. Bitonio is coming off of his 11th season. Garrett has been with the team for eight seasons. Bitonio isn’t looking to move to another team, but he is saying that it might be time to retire. He’ll do some reflection at season’s end.
Garrett would like to see the team not go back to a rebuild but continue to try to improve and get better so they can get back to the postseason a year from now. He indicated that he wants to stay with the Browns but wants to also talk to the organization. He still has several seasons on his current contract and wouldn’t be a free agent until 2027. So whatever happens to him would have to be some type of trade with another team.
Is it possible that that will happen this off-season? Yes, there is. We’ll have to monitor it as the off-season starts in a few weeks.
4th and goal: Draft order coming into view
With their lousy 3-12 record, the Browns are currently scheduled to draft fifth in the upcoming NFL draft in the spring. The team has not had a first-round draft pick for the last several seasons. Why? You know. They made that horrendous trade for Deshaun Watson a few years ago and gave up the farm in doing so.
Now they get a first-round pick. Depending on how the other teams in front of them do and how Cleveland does they could end up getting the number one pick. However, more likely it could be anywhere between three and five.
There is plenty of talent in this upper part of the draft and any team should be able to get a very good player.
This year the Browns have nine picks. They have picks in rounds 1-6 including an extra pick in round 3 and two extra in round 6.
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