Browns “Not Focused” on 2016 Record

The Cleveland Browns have not won a single game all year. They are the closest team since the 2008 Detroit Lions to flirt with the disaster that is a winless season. Were it not for the embarrassing state of the AFC North, Cleveland would already be out of playoff contention.

And yet, in the lead up to the Browns’ opening game of the season series against the hated Steelers, Vice President of Football Operations, Sashi Brown, has declared the team isn’t concerned with where it ends up in January. “We are not focussed on wins and losses this year,” said Brown.

“I have never seen anything even close to this [rebuild],” admitted veteran left tackle Joe Thomas, perhaps the only elite member of the team at any position throughout his decade-long career. “It is probably one of the most extreme rebuilds in NFL history,” he added.

So while it’s true that the Browns have little to salvage from yet another lost season, one has to believe they’re still holding out hope of winning at least one game.

Clinching the first overall draft pick? Almost a certainty, and a crucial aspect of the rookie renaissance Cleveland is striving for. Finishing the season 2-14? Disappointing, but a necessary evil in the grand scheme of “The Plan.” Ending a season without winning one game is a whole new level of futility; one that even a franchise as snakebitten as the Browns has managed to elude since re-joining the league in 1999.

First-year head coach Hue Jackson, and many similarly fresh members of the front office, hold the dubious honor of being perhaps the only people in their position that would survive an 0-16 campaign. Still, that must provide little solace for a team that expected improvement, not regression over this past offseason.

The Browns might just have one of their best chances at breaking the streak this Sunday. At home, against a Pittsburgh team that has been dismal on the road and even worse against bottom-tier teams. Stranger things have happened in the NFL.