The preseason in NFL is a pretty funny time because the games don't count towards anyone's record and have no bearing whatsoever on who ends up being the eventual champion. Because of this, these 3 games are normally when teams will take chances, experiment a bit, and kind of take it easy on their really expensive stars. Strange things can happen in the preseason that won't happen in the regular season or the playoffs in American Football..
But one thing does happen every single year and nobody ever seems to learn from it. People start getting excited about how "this is our year!" and "we are really good!" when these 3 games are not at all representative of how good the team is actually going to be once the real games start in a few weeks.
The Cleveland Browns are a team that just seems to have the world and football universe against them. They haven't been good in a really long time. Sure they have made the playoffs a couple of times but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Lots of teams make the playoffs and get completely worked over once they get there. Trust me, I am a Carolina Panthers fan and the same is true for us.
The Browns have only had 4 season with a winning record since the team reformed in 1999. They were 3-14 in 2024 and 5-13 in 2025.
Every year though, Cleveland Browns fans get excited because their boys will pull off a couple of wins in the pre-season, and their fans seem to fall for this false hope every season.
They just beat the New England Patriots, which is one of the most successful NFL franchises of all time. The Patriots of that least amount of losses in the past 20 seasons, the Browns have the most.
News media seems to be in on this joke because almost all the news media, especially anything that is even somewhat close to Ohio, is saying once again that "this is the year for the Browns!"
let me make one very clear prediction right now. This is NOT a year of the Browns. The Browns have made very few changes to their lineup since their disastrous last few years and much of this has to do with the fact that they don't have the money to do so.
If there was a relegation system in American Football the Browns would have been relegated quite a few years ago.
Right now the "big news" is that backup QB Dillon Gabriel had a wonderful first half in the game vs. the Patriots. He went 12-15 and nearly 200 yards passing. Threw 3 TD's and zero interceptions.
Now all the media is fawning over this guy even though he was a 3rd round draft pick and Cleveland has not changed their position on how he will not be the starting QB in the regular season.
Would you like to know why that is? Well because this appearance of being good is just preseason smoke and mirrors. The Patriots, just like every single other NFL team at the moment, is not playing their best players and the players are not putting themselves into potential harm's way in games that don't count for anything at all. It's like the All-Star games man! Nobody really tries as hard as they can during these.
In fact, the only person on the field that probably was trying 100% as hard as he could...was probably Dillon Gabriel! He's going to give it his all because he thinks that if he really shines that maybe he'll get more playtime, or be able to negotiate a larger salary or god knows what.
Gabriel at the moment is making $1.5 million a year, which isn't bad for almost any other profession but it is comically low for a Quarterback in the NFL. He isn't likely to get much more than this either, and he knows it.
I have no beef with the Browns. If anything I feel bad for them and especially their die-hard fans that never give up on supporting them even though they are terrible.
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Watson, not Gabriel, is going to be the starting QB for the Browns.... everyone calm down!
Let's wait and see what happens to the Browns once the real season begins ok? Then let's let the media run wild... for now, take it easy guys, you are once again giving Cleveland fans false hope. The Browns spent a crazy amount of money on Deshaun Watson ($230 million) and this will put them in financial peril until nearly 2030. The Browns aren't all of a sudden just going to become fantastic defensively without spending any money that they don't actually have. They will be average at best this season and probably much worse than that... mark my words.
