The Cleveland Browns have a whole lot at stake heading into 2024, and the first several weeks of the season could tell us everything about where they are headed.
Bleacher Report's Brad Gagnon has listed the Browns among six teams that simply cannot afford to have a slow start this year.
Why? Because of Cleveland's schedule.
The Browns have a couple of tough games off the bat, as they will take on the Dallas Cowboys and Jacksonville Jaguars in Weeks 1 and 2. But then, Cleveland gets a stretch of three straight games against teams that did not make the playoffs last season.
Gagnon notes that the Browns must avoid a disappointing run between Weeks 3 and 5, as they will then face the Philadelphia Eagles, Cincinnati Bengals and Baltimore Ravens over their next three contests.
Cleveland plays in what is probably the NFL's toughest division in the AFC North, so it absolutely cannot afford any slip-ups. That mean the Browns must take advantage of the weaker teams on their schedule in order to leave themselves some breathing room for the rougher matchups.
The good news is that Cleveland boasts one of the league's most talented rosters and managed to win 11 games last season in spite of rifling through five different starting quarterbacks. The bad news is that the jury is very much out on Deshaun Watson, who has played in a grand total of 12 games since joining the Browns in 2022 and is coming off of shoulder surgery.
We'll see if Cleveland can come firing out of the gates in September and October.
