There was a time, not all that long ago, when even a vague reference to betting lines by a broadcaster would sound every alarm at 345 Park Avenue.<\/p>\n
Times have definitely changed.<\/p>\n
Asked by reporters on Friday what a successful season would look like in 2026, owner Jimmy Haslam went straight to the wagering angle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say this, and we never do this, but I think the odds are for us to win five and a half games,\u201d Haslam said. \u201cI\u2019ll take the over.\u201d<\/p>\n
After going winless in 2017, the Browns went six straight seasons with six or more wins, including a pair of playoff appearances. Over the last two years, however, the Browns were 8-24.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to be fun to watch,\u201d Haslam said. \u201cWe want to play hard and not make mistakes. Look like we\u2019ve got our act together, which is something we didn\u2019t have the last two years, and the expectations are we will this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the team\u2019s overall struggles are \u201csomething that keeps us awake at night.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unacceptable, and I hate it most for our fans, because they deserve better than that,\u201d Haslam said. \u201cWe\u2019re working hard every day to not have that same kind of performance we\u2019ve had in the past. We don\u2019t have our heads in the sand \u2014 we know we haven\u2019t performed.\u201d<\/p>\n
They haven\u2019t. But they\u2019re not far from being competitive. This season could be a struggle with a new coaching staff and a quarterback competition. They still seem to be laying the foundation to be better than they\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n
Truth be told, they can\u2019t be much worse than they were in 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a time, not all that long ago, when even a vague reference to betting lines by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-797969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}