Odell Beckham, Jr. was profiled as a malcontent recently within the Cleveland Browns organization, with Jay Glazer having previously reported, for example, that he was telling players from other teams leading up to the trade deadline to “come get me”. At it turns out, he hasn’t been in the only one to invoke that phrase.
Admit the team’s latest embarrassing loss to a theoretically inferior team, Mike Silver reported that multiple Browns players, including good friend Jarvis Landry, approached the Arizona Cardinals bench during the game and told them to “come get me”.
In case it’s not obvious, the substance behind this is that these players are saying that they want off the team. Whether a genuine request or not, if they were indeed saying this, it expresses a clear dissatisfaction for the manner in which things are being run. And that is probably directly chiefly at first-year head coach Freddie Kitchens, who had regularly seemed to be in over his head.
With Sunday’s loss, the Browns are now 6-8 on the season, having successfully secure yet another non-winning record, their 12th in a row. They have the longest active non-winning streak in the NFL, as well as the longest streak of failing to win 10 or more games in a season.
They also have by far the longest playoff drought. Cleveland has not been to the postseason since 2002. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were last in the playoffs in 2007. Even teams like the Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills have recently extinguished long draughts, but not Cleveland. They are the only team to officially go the entire decade without winning at least 10 games.
And this season, there were expectations. They were going to win the division. Easily. They were even going to make a run at the Super Bowl, in the estimation of some. Now their playoffs hopes cling to the virtually impossible. I saw somewhere that their chances of making it are under 1 percent.
More likely, they will finish the season no better than 6-9, worse than last season. Up next for them is the Baltimore Ravens, and Baltimore has a lot to play for. A victory would secure not just a bye week, but homefield advantage throughout the playoffs.
Meanwhile, the Browns will be heading into offseason mode, and who knows what that will mean this year? Perhaps another coaching search. Players being traded is a virtual guarantee, since general manager Jon Dorsey appears to love making trades. How different will the 2020 roster look compared to this one? will Beckham even be here? …Will Landry?
