Tag: Checklist

The 3-13 Cleveland Browns close the season Saturday in Baltimore. Bailey Zappe will get the start and become the Browns’ 40th starting quarterback since the team’s return to the NFL in 1999. It’s the second straight season they’ve had to use at least four different starting quarterbacks.

Last January, the Browns were headed to the playoffs. This year’s team has been spiraling since September and enters the season finale losers of five straight and seven of its last eight.

Here’s a rundown of the major pregame news from the Browns’ training facility, as well as an outline of what to expect Saturday and in the hours, days and weeks that follow as they close this disappointing season and head toward an uncertain future.

What’s at stake in season finale?

A lot, for both sides. The 11-5 Ravens win the AFC North and clinch a home playoff game with a victory. With a loss, the Browns can guarantee themselves a top-three pick in April’s NFL Draft. If New England beats Buffalo, Cleveland could still end up with the No. 1 pick depending on Tennessee’s result versus Houston and/or the strength of schedule tiebreaker. Entering the weekend, the Browns hold the No. 3 pick.

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Under center

Zappe is the latest quarterback for a franchise that’s going to spend the next three to four months looking for its 41st starter since 1999. He becomes the first of the previous 40 to have spent a game watching from the pressbox as an unemployed observer. The Browns had to cut Zappe ahead of their Dec. 2 game in Denver to be able to activate an emergency defensive lineman. The team signed him back the following day, but because Zappe was not under contract, he was not allowed on the sideline area for the game.

Now, four weeks later, he’s making his ninth career start. The Browns signed Zappe off Kansas City’s practice squad in October in the wake of Deshaun Watson’s season-ending Achilles injury. The Browns benched Jameis Winston ahead of Week 15 and now have benched Dorian Thompson-Robinson. If you watched Thompson-Robinson’s two starts, you knew this was coming. We’ll see if Zappe can move the offense and put solid play on tape for the league to evaluate. He’s eligible for restricted free agency in March.

Browns coach Kevin Stefanski has hinted at playing both Zappe and Thompson-Robinson in Baltimore. Presumably, Thompson-Robinson would be used as a change-of-pace option and in potential running situations. There’s no sure thing when it comes to the Browns and quarterbacks — this season, or any since 1999.

Number (and quarterback) chasing

Last week, Myles Garrett became the first player to record at least 14 sacks in four consecutive seasons. Garrett enters the season finale tied with Trey Hendrickson of the Cincinnati Bengals for the NFL lead with 14 sacks, and he’s trying to win his first sack title and repeat as the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year.

Garrett turned 29 last weekend, and in Week 16 he became the youngest player to reach 100 career sacks. Garrett has 5 1/2 sacks of the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson in nine games against the quarterback, who has 39 touchdown passes and four interceptions entering Week 18 and can join Aaron Rodgers (2020) as the only players with at least 40 touchdown passes and five or fewer interceptions in a season in NFL history.

With 182 passing yards and 31 rushing yards Saturday, the Ravens can become the first team in NFL history to record 4,000 passing yards and 3,000 rushing yards in the same season. With one rushing touchdown and one passing touchdown, the Ravens can become the first team to reach 40 pass touchdowns and 20 rush touchdowns in the same season.

The Browns, on the other hand, have 18 passing and eight rushing touchdowns on the season.

Big decisions ahead

Last month, Garrett said he’ll meet with the team’s decision-makers in the offseason and will need to see the franchise’s plan for returning the team to playoff contention before he commits to a future with the Browns. Though Garrett is under contract for two more seasons and might have been just angling for an extension and raise, the comments marked a sharp turn from his previous stance that he’d be playing in Cleveland.

Garrett has said he doesn’t want to be part of another rebuild. The big-spending Browns might try to resist taking on another teardown, but the overall state of the roster might require that. Stefanski and general manager Andrew Berry both signed extensions last spring, though it’s pretty clear that buyout money wouldn’t be an issue with the way the Browns have spent in recent seasons. This 2024 team was the most expensive in NFL history before the Browns traded Za’Darius Smith and Amari Cooper, who combine for about $36 million in dead money on the team’s 2025 salary cap.

There’s been no public indication that the Browns plan to move on from either Stefanski or Berry, though the failures of this season almost certainly mean there will be changes on some level. The combination of the 2022 trade for Watson and his contract is one of the worst in NFL history, and the Browns continue to re-work Watson’s contract as the team still has more than $170 million in cap commitments to the quarterback going forward.

With the three first-rounders given away in the Watson deal and multiple misses in the middle rounds of other drafts, can the Browns trust Berry and the team’s current front office and scouting system to deliver big (and nearly mandatory) hits in the 2025 draft? There’s not a lot of evidence that points to yes.

Perhaps the Browns will shake up the coaching staff again. Last offseason, they remade the offensive staff, most notably with Ken Dorsey taking over as offensive coordinator and Andy Dickerson replacing Bill Callahan as offensive line coach. The Browns’ special teams units have been awful this season, too, leaving special teams coach Bubba Ventrone as another name to watch in the coming days. Stefanski handed the play-calling duties to Dorsey in October, and Winston delivered two big games. Otherwise, the offense going back to August has been a major disappointment.

Part of the reason there’s no easy way to predict the Browns’ pending decisions is that there are a lot of layers to them. What the team decides to do at quarterback next year — and, likely, with future years in mind — will affect the draft strategy, salary cap, free-agency strategy and more. The Dorsey hire was supposed to help fix Watson, but the entire thing was a flop even before he suffered another season-ending injury.

Browns Pro Bowlers, announced Thursday: Garrett (sixth), Denzel Ward (fourth), Jerry Jeudy (first). With 1,166 yards, Jeudy enters Week 18 sixth in the NFL in receiving.

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Browns not playing Saturday due to injury: David Njoku (knee), Ward (shoulder), Jordan Hicks (concussion), Jerome Ford (ankle), Pierre Strong Jr. (concussion). Earlier this week, the Browns placed Cedric Tillman (concussion) on injured reserve.

Listed as questionable for Saturday: Dalvin Tomlinson (knee), Ogbo Okoronkwo (knee), Cameron Mitchell (knee), Blake Whiteheart (knee), Michael Woods II (knee), Winston (shoulder — he will be the emergency third quarterback).

Saturday starters who are eligible for free agency in March: Elijah Moore, Devin Bush, Jordan Akins, Germain Ifedi, D’Onta Foreman.

Starters (or regular contributors) on IR who aren’t under contract for 2025: Nick Chubb, Jedrick Wills Jr. ($11.8 million in 2025 dead money if he’s not on the team), Maurice Hurst II.

Retiring: Rodney McLeod. a backup safety and special-teamer who played the last two seasons of his 13-year career in Cleveland. McLeod has two touchdowns this season, a fumble return in September and a blocked field goal return in October.

Undecided on 2025: Joel Bitonio, an 11-year vet and six-time Pro Bowl guard who’s signed through next season. Bitonio has said he doesn’t see himself playing for another team, but he stressed that he’s made no decisions on whether he wants to play another season.

Contributors who are eligible for free agency in March: Winston, Michael Dunn, James Hudson III, Zappe (restricted free agency), James Proche, Mike Ford Jr., D’Anthony Bell (restricted free agency).

2025 opponents: Dates and times will be released at some point in May. In addition to playing each of their three division rivals home and away, here are Cleveland’s other 2025 opponents:

Home: San Francisco, Tennessee, Green Bay, Minnesota, Buffalo, Miami
Away: Las Vegas, Chicago, Detroit, New England, New York Jets

(Photo of Kevin Stefanski and Myles Garrett: Sue Ogrocki / Associated Press)