Another year, another season that drew out like a blade. Despite a strong draft haul and moving a year closer to escaping the worst contract in NFL history, the decision was apparently made that someone had to answer for the team's latest losing campaign. Let's conduct the postmortem and set about drawing up a roadmap of the next few months for the Cleveland Browns.

2025 Cleveland Browns

Record: 5-12
Head Coach: Kevin Stefanski, fifth season
(44-56 record, 1-2 postseason)
Offensive Coordinator: Tommy Rees, first season
Total Offense: 30th
Passing: 29th
Rushing: 27th
Scoring: 31st

Defensive Coordinator: Jim Schwartz, third season
Total Defense: 2nd
Passing: 2nd
Rushing: 14th
Scoring: 14th

Should they have fired the coach?: No
Should they have fired the GM?: No

The Cleveland Browns trudged into the 2025 season in a slightly less hopeless fashion than the previous fall. Free from being forced to prop up the illusion that Deshaun Watson would one day return to form and 'break the curse', Cleveland tucked their quarter billion-dollar nightmare as far up and as far back in the attic as they could and turned their focus to a post-Watson future that was almost in sight.

Having lost the veteran leadership of Nick Chubb and Amari Cooper, a youth movement was the order of the day. A bizarre hodgepodge of journeymen and longshot rookies filling out a crowded quarterback room, rookies certain to play heavy snaps on both sides of the ball, an offensive line that hadn't garnered a top 75 pick in seven years — it would seem to have been understood that there was a relatively narrow range of potential outcomes. Nevertheless, we headed into Black Monday with Kevin Stefanski's seat hotter than a Bob Evans griddle. Sure enough, Cleveland dismissed their two-time Coach of the Year less than 24 hours after their season finale.

Twenty-three months prior, this outcome was almost unimaginable. After leading Cleveland to their first postseason victory since their 1999 're-activation', Stefanski took minimal blame for things going south with 2018 No. 1 pick Baker Mayfield. In fact, Cleveland was so sure that they had their head coach that they made one of the most controversial moves of the 21st century: Jettisoning Mayfield for almost nothing, but not before shipping three years' worth of first round picks to Houston to take the Deshaun Watson migraine off their hands. Public relations nightmare that he was, Watson was coming off of an age-25 season that saw him throw for 4800 yards, complete 70 percent of his passes and average almost 9 yards per attempt for a bad Houston team. Quarterbacks that young, playing at that level come available once in a generation, and never without strings attached. Absolutely desperate to put an end to the 23-year search, Jimmy Haslam and the Browns pulled the trigger: To pry him away from his hometown Falcons, Cleveland offered Watson an unprecedented 230 million contract, guaranteed in full.

As you know, Cleveland's perpetual suffering has been largely in hyperdrive ever since. On paid vacation leave for his first 11 games with the team, his tepid six-game showing in 2022 proved every bit a sign of things to come: Watson went 9-10 in parts of three seasons, passing for just under 3400 yards, 19 TDs, 12 picks, 11 fumbles, and an 80.7 passer rating. In stark and excruciating contrast has been the much different trajectory of Baker Mayfield's career.

It is difficult to quantify the suppressive, perhaps even depressive effect of a situation like the Deshaun Watson contract on a team - largely because it's really never happened before. The closest thing would obviously be Russell Wilson's unfortunate time in Denver, but even that really pales in comparison: When Denver pulled the pin on 'DangeRuss' two years ago it triggered $85 million in dead money, which Denver spread out over two seasons. Deshaun Watson is counting $80 million against Cleveland's 2026 cap already, and would incur an apocalyptic $131 million cap charge if released in 2026.

But wait, it gets worse: Because of the unusual (see: fully guaranteed) nature of his contract, restructuring Watson's deal in the form of void and dummy year add-ons so as to make his present-day cap numbers more manageable has been an annual tradition in Cleveland. That means this terminal stretch is going to be the hardest, as there's no more road to kick the can down: For Cleveland to walk away even next March, having already paid Watson every cent of his $230 million, will incur a $50 million cap penalty. There may be a mechanism for softening that number — maybe Watson agrees to tear up the contract for a couple more million on his way out the door — but until this upcoming season has come and gone, Cleveland is smack dab between the rock and the hard place.

None of this is revelatory, but it is context for framing the logic that led to Stefanski's dismissal. Faced with a situation significantly more challenging and limiting than the one Denver just emerged from in much less time than most could have guessed, it wouldn't be inherently unreasonable to say that all expectations of success were suspended until the team was out from under the Watson storm cloud. That was certainly the undercurrent of praise for his 2023, when he teamed up with wily ol' Joe Flacco for a wild card berth.

So, for Stefanski to fall on his sword is hard not to interpret as shifting blame for the Watson catastrophe in his direction. While many (including myself) believe that Haslam himself was the driving force behind the Watson trade (if you think there's a GM outside of Jerry Jones that has permission to offer $230 million guaranteed of somebody else's money without running it by ownership, twice, I've got a bridge to sell you), even Haslam's cover story seems to place most of the blame with Andrew Berry — who remains employed. Reluctance to take full responsibility for the worst contract in football history is understandable — especially when it already made him something of a pariah among his fellow owners — but hanging both Berry and now Stefanski out to dry on top of a backbreaking contract that is only just now reaching its maximum pain factor had exactly the impact on the perception surrounding the Browns' head coaching vacancy you would expect.

First it was Mike McDaniel, fresh from his own curious firing downstream of a major mistake at quarterback made further up the org chart. When McDaniel publicly withdrew from Cleveland's head coaching search it was somewhat understandable — 'been there, done that'. When Jesse Minter followed suit, it was presumed to be because he had a better gig elsewhere lined up, which proved to be the case.

But then came the withdrawal of Jacksonville's Grant Udinski and the clearly ice cold feet of Los Angeles' Nate Scheelhaase, neither of whom have yet even donned official coordinator titles in the NFL, and it became exceedingly clear: Guys with NFL futures wanted nothing to do with the Cleveland job. Desperate to stop the bleeding and reconstitute a functional football operation, the Browns pivoted away from their fruitless flirtations with the hotshot youngster demographic and went all in on Todd Monken, who has three years of head coaching experience - at the collegiate level. Ten years ago. In Conference USA.

Yeah.

What's Next?

I believe Clubber Lang said it best: "Pain." Between the contracts of Watson, Denzel Ward and longtime guard Joel Bitonio, Cleveland currently has over 40 percent of their $300 million 2026 salary cap budget tied up in three players — one of whom was an actual difference-maker last year, and he's clearly leaning toward retirement and isn't even under contract for 2026. With comfortably the second-lowest cap space ceiling available to them via simple restructures (Philadelphia's Super Bowl window appears to be closing), Cleveland is going to have precious little money to throw around next month. That, combined with currently sitting on 10 2026 draft picks before any compensatory picks are allocated to them via free agency departures, projects to push this team from being one of the younger teams in the league to quite possibly the youngest. “Because quite frankly, we’re probably going to be, if not the youngest, one of the youngest teams in football in 2026", said Berry, shortly after the Kevin Stefanski dismissal announcement.

Younger teams can be successful; five of the last six teams to make the Super Bowl were one of the 12 youngest rosters in the league. But the 2023 Chiefs, 2024 Eagles, and 2025 Seahawks and Patriots all had another thing in common: Solidified quarterback rooms. Recent iterations of the Giants, Jets, Raiders, and pre-Coen Jaguars also stood among the league's youngest. Todd Monken did take Southern Mississippi from a winless 2012 to a 9-5 record and a bowl game by his 2015 departure - but that included going 4-20 in between. Barring an effort that leaves Monken as the runaway winner of 2026 Coach of the Year, the Browns are on track to lose and lose a lot... again.

Quarterback
The biggest question in Cleveland over the next few months will be various forms of: Is Shedeur Sanders the guy? This is a question that will (continue to) invite a huge variety of opinions, ranging from 'nepo baby' teeth-gnashing to 'proven winner!' drumbeating. Regardless of where you fall on that opinion spectrum (probably for most of us it's the former), what matters is how this new look Cleveland brain trust views Sanders. Considering that his 7.5-game sample size projects out to a positively Deshaun-ian 3175 yards, 16 TDs and 23 interceptions, probably they're regarding him with more than a little suspicion. More than one insider has passed along their belief that Cleveland's going to find a way to add competition for Shedeur Sanders.

The question is: How? Even with some contract reworks, Cleveland's broke. Guys like Kyler Murray, Kirk Cousins, Daniel Jones, Derek Carr, Geno Smith, and probably even Malik Willis are just going to be too expensive. The veteran market thins out fast after that: Russell Wilson; Jimmy Garoppolo; perhaps a freshly released Tua Tagovailoa, or Justin Fields. If Cleveland's looking to make a quarterback signing, these are the realistic options for them.

The far more sensible choice would be via the draft. Currently slated to pick sixth, it's unlikely Cleveland becomes enamored enough with Alabama's Ty Simpson to take him there, but it certainly can't be ruled out. University of Miami's Carson Beck is also in this draft and should be available well into Day 2. Prior to that, he and Monken were together in Athens for the Bulldogs for a time; that familiarity could be appealing to a head coach faced with precious little alternative.

Of course, the answer could also be hiding in plain sight. With the end of his time on the North Coast — and his contract guarantees — drawing near, for the first time in his career Deshaun Watson is heading into what is functionally a contract season. Between that and having fully resolved the last of his longstanding legal woes, Watson is notionally free and motivated to 'focus on football' again. With Monken likely to be in desperate need of a competent field general that can avoid committing turnovers by the fistful, and Watson hoping to continue his NFL career and maybe, just maybe land another multi-year contract, a short-term alliance between Watson and Monken is becoming a real possibility.

Not to say that it will or necessarily even can work, mind you — we haven't seen Deshaun Watson play good football this decade, and certainly nobody outside of a portion of the Cleveland organization will be rooting for him. He may just legitimately not be good enough to beat out even an overmatched, deer still in headlights Shedeur Sanders. Oh, and even if he does he would be skittering around behind a very young, very makeshift offensive line on a twice-ruptured Achilles tendon. This has a low chance of working out. But that may somehow be a slight improvement?

Running Back
Quinshon Judkins was one of Cleveland's two real bright spots on offense this year. Judkins 827 yards at 3.6 yards a tote doesn't jump off the screen, but Cleveland couldn't run the ball a lick — among running back with 50-plus attempts, Judkins and fellow Browns rookie Dylan Sampson were the only running backs in the NFL with a stuff rate over 55 percent. Judkins ran tough: His 2.23 yards after contact per rush attempt edged out Kenneth Walker, Josh Jacobs and Travis Etienne. Sampson had even less success running the ball, but he flashed some upside as a receiver, catching 5-plus passes three times. Jerome Ford is headed to free agency and will probably hop the fence, but if Judkins can come back strong from his December ankle injury then the backfield looks to be a relative team strength.

Wide Receiver
The same cannot and definitely will not be said of these wideouts. It's been a tale of two seasons for Jerry Jeudy: The 2024 season saw him well and truly break out, with 90 receptions and 1229 yards that vaporized his previous career highs. Effectively the Michael Wilson of 2024, from Week 8 on Jeudy was third in the NFL in receiving.

That blazing second half proved to be a mirage. Funneled 48 targets thru Week 6, Jerry Jeudy tallied just 240 yards, with no scores. The wheels fell off for good once Sanders took over, as Cleveland's top receiver averaged just under five targets per game in the rookie's seven starts. Jeudy's current deal runs two more years, but it could easily be dispensed with as part of Cleveland finally clawing their way out of the salary cap gulag in a little over 12 months. If he wants to stick around, in the fall he'll need to turn it around.

Across from Jeudy, expect an open casting call. Cedric Tillman teased some big play potential around the same time that Jeudy turned white hot last year, exploding out of a deep reserve role for a three-week binge that included 21 receptions, 255 yards and 3 TDs on 32 targets. But a bad concussion suffered in the infamous Jameis Winston snow globe game ended his season right as it was lifting off the runway, and his 2025 was wiped out by a September hamstring strain. This cracked the door open for undrafted speedster Isaiah Bond, who hit some big plays as a rookie — particularly once Sanders took the reins. Like Elijah Moore before him, New York Jets' castoff Malachi Corley washed up in Cleveland, sticking as a weekly gameday active and primary kick returner from the Tillman injury on. Fellow undrafted rookie Gage Larvadain and second-year deep threat Jamari Thrash round out a wide receiver room extremely short on experience — Cleveland could definitely use one of their 10 draft picks here — but that also now has a head coach that got his start coaching up wide receivers.

While it's likely to be another long year for the team, one or two of these guys taking a step forward under Monken's tutelage wouldn't be a big surprise. Hired as Jacksonville's WRs coach in 2007, Monken oversaw former Washington Husky Reggie Williams' 10-touchdown season. Called back to the big leagues to serve as OC & WRs coach under Dirk Koetter in Tampa, Monken saw fit to inundate Mike Evans with a gargantuan 173 targets in 2016, 35 more than he would ever again draw in one season.

If anybody can set Jerry Jeudy up to rebound in a big way, this would seem to be the guy.

Tight End
The competition is light, and the sorry state of the rest of the offense could easily turn him into a bust, but Harold Fannin is likely to be the first AFC North tight end off of draft boards this summer. Fannin transitioned from rewriting the Bowling Green record books to the pros without missing a beat: His 72 receptions, 731 yards and 6 touchdowns were each team highs. Fannin's already healthy slice of the action went supersonic after the bye: The 23.1 percent target share he logged over his last eight games was second only to luminaries George Kittle and Trey McBride. The second of Cleveland's two 2025 offensive bright spots, over the next couple of years we may witness the ascent of this 21-year-old to true stardom.

Of course, in order for Fannin's star to rise, another's had to fall. David Njoku kept the rookie in check for five weeks, but a knee injury in Pittsburgh would linger for the rest of Njoku's ninth season, and earlier this week the veteran confirmed what had long been suspected: As will surely be the case for several other familiar faces, his time in Cleveland is up.

Sentimentality aside, the loss of Njoku will leave Cleveland basically barren behind Fannin - who, at 6'3" and 240 lbs., isn't exactly a road grader in the run game. Njoku was their best run blocking tight end, and No. 3 TE Blake Whiteheart was probably their second-best — he's also headed to free agency. With only third-year mystery man Brenden Bates behind Fannin once free agency opens, Cleveland will have to add a warm body or two at tight end.

Offensive Line
The need to find a plus run blocking tight end or two is amplified by the situation along the offensive line, which it's fair to say may somehow be almost as bad as at quarterback. Here's a quick snapshot of the offensive line:

The dots: Players that will be free to sign with whichever team they like in 30 days.

But wait, it once again gets worse! The only impact player last year was Bitonio, who's 12-year run in Cleveland has been the closest thing to a spiritual successor to franchise legend Joe Thomas. Bitonio's emotional final press conference of the season certainly had the general mood of a player in the process of making peace with it being the end, and if that's the case — yeah, this will be the worst offensive line in football next year basically no matter what. Which is a scary thing to be able to forecast confidently in February.

Defense
As you know, it was the defense that kept Cleveland respectable in games. In his third year with the team, DC Jim Schwartz fielded a truly imposing unit for most of the season, and one that was especially stingy against opposing passing games. Cleveland's 5.8 yards per pass attempt permitted to opposing quarterbacks was comfortably the lowest mark in the league by a non-playoff team. While they weren't quite as ferocious against the run, particularly down the stretch, this was still one of only four units to permit less than 285 yards per game. While the offense would no doubt struggle again in 2026, Cleveland at least had things solidified on the other side of the ball.

Ah, but "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!" In their mounting desperation to locate a head coach with something approximating credibility, Cleveland permitted Schwartz to at least believe he was under serious consideration for the job. And while Schwartz was an accomplished and respected defensive mind, the fact is that the NFL's head coaching hires are trending younger, and at 59 Schwartz hadn't been a head coach in over a decade. Schwartz likely assumed he'd miss out to one of the young guns in which Cleveland had expressed interest.

So, when Schwartz was passed over for the 60-year-old Monken, who also hadn't been a head coach in over a decade, he snapped. Barring one heck of an olive branch, Schwartz looks to have made up his mind and is willing to sit on the couch for a year to avoid plying his trade for Cleveland in 2026.

This development will be largely forgotten in a couple months' time, but this could easily be the thing that plunges the '26 Browns from dysfunctional mediocrity into being one of the worst teams of the decade. It was already almost February by the time things between the team and Schwartz went nuclear — quality candidates to replace him had largely dried up, and seeing Cleveland now intent on punishing him for resigning certainly won't make the job any more appealing - Giants' LBs coach Charlie Bullen just passed on the job. This was already a defense with nowhere to go but down, and a desperation DC hire certainly won't help matters.

Myles Garrett remains eligible for his own abbreviation on the table of elements, grading out as one of the top two EDGEs in the NFL by virtually any metric — oh, and he broke the sack record.

Elsewhere, Cleveland's defensive core is nothing if not young. Andrew Berry made the big splash last April when he opted out of the Travis Hunter pick, trading down a few spots to instead nab Mason Graham for the interior. Graham logged heavy snaps and played well as a rookie, so that pick looks like a winner.

Batting second on Day 2 of the draft, Cleveland hit a home run with Carson Schwesinger at 33 overall. Schwesinger's impact was immediate, as he was a relentless tackling machine with real sideline-to-sideline tracking ability from the MLB spot. Schwesinger racked up 86 tackles over his last eight games on his way to rightfully claiming Defensive Rookie of the Year honors.

In the secondary it was largely about safety tandem Grant Delpit and Ronnie Hickman, who teamed up to give Cleveland one of the better centerfield duos around. Hickman in particular was a great story: A 2023 UDFA, Hickman went from being a subpackage contributor to the solution for replacing departed vets Rodney McLeod and Juan Thornhill last year — and doing a bang-up job of it. Unfortunately for Cleveland, both Hickman and Delpit are on track to reach free agency after 2026.

There's just no way around it: This is a team that is currently on track to battle the New York Jets to the death for the highly anticipated 2027 No. 1 pick. An offensive line that was one of the two or three worst in the league in 2025 is now very likely going to be replaced almost whole cloth, and unless Cleveland taps the Deshaun Watson deal for yet more short-term cap relief, Cleveland will have to do that almost entirely via the draft. That will make Todd Monken's already difficult job of extruding above average quarterback play from Shedeur Sanders, Deshaun Watson, or somebody else close to impossible. With both Pittsburgh and Baltimore poised to improve defensively, the Cleveland faithful should plan to keep the cooler stocked with Dortmunder Golds to get through 2026.

Organizational Outlook
Roster: C-
Vision: F
Culture: F
2026 Schedule: C- (AFC South, NFC South, Raiders, Jets, Giants
2026 Outlook: Offense to avoid

How are we feeling, Dawg Pound faithful?

Chubb Rubb: "This season has been the definition of the Cleveland Browns experience. Losing games that should be gimmes, staying competitive with teams that should be blowing us out of the water; it's been a veritable roller coaster.

One thing is clear: Berry needs to go. Getting Stefanski out was a step in the right direction - though I am hesitant about Monken, who's only experience as a head coach was during a three year tenure at Southern Mississippi. He was able to turn a winless program into a 9-5 team during that span, however that was in 2015, and it's unclear where he will be able to muster the same type of upstart energy in a floundering, if promising, browns team- However; the bottom line remains that until management is improved our team has no chance to truly contend with the likes of Buffalo, Kansas City, New England, and the other AFC Powerhouses. Berry may have garnered enough favors this season to cool down his seat a bit, but he must be held accountable for years of mismanagement. The one bright spot in this lackluster season has been a surprisingly solid draft class (Dillon Gabriel notwithstanding.) now with Judkins injured, though, the future of our backfield is much murkier.

All that being said, I am cautiously optimistic for the future. We have a decent chunk of draft capital coming up in April. If we can hit on a couple of those picks and surround our QB with more talent (both on the receiving end, and on the offensive line) I think we have a solid chance to become a wildcard-level team.

A lot of this future depends on who is under center, though; and word out of the front office seems to indicate Watson getting at least one more shot before they bench him for good. I doubt any Cleveland fan is excited by that prospect, I know I personally would rather see Shedeur lead the offense. The only thing I know for certain though is that we cannot draft another QB this year. The pattern of drafting, starting, and ruining rookie QBs must stop if we want to have any chance of developing into a contender."

Want to send in your commentary on your team's 2025 performance, and help us decide which teams to do next? Drop it here!

—Luke Wilson

Previously:
Arizona Cardinals
New Orleans Saints
Las Vegas Raiders