The Cleveland Browns enter this season fresh off a three-win campaign.
As such, it’s only normal to see that not many people think of them as a playoff-caliber team.
They added plenty of young talent in the offseason, and the offense should be better with Kevin Stefanski back in charge and the offensive line going back to their blocking schemes from the Bill Callahan era.
As a result, the defense should also get back to its dominant ways, as they may not be on the field as often as they were last season.
That’s why Denzel Ward and the players are shutting down all the outside noise.
When asked about the narrative around this team, the star cornerback made it loud and clear that they don’t read too much into that:
“Honestly, I don’t really think it matters whether someone ranks us 32 or ranks us No. 1,” Ward said. “We’re going out there as the best team that wins that day, and that’s the goal and that’s the focus. So you can’t look at all that outside noise and what’s going on where they’ve got you ranked. I mean, at the end of the day it doesn’t affect how we’re going to play come gameday.”
That’s the type of mindset all teams need to approach the season with.
They will have to perform and leave it all on the field week in and week out, regardless of what people think.
If anything, they should only be more motivated to prove everybody wrong and demonstrate that they can also compete at the highest level.
The Browns have almost the exact same core of players when they made the playoffs two years ago, and one could argue that they’re much more talented than the average three-win team.
Whether that will translate into another postseason berth remains to be seen, but they clearly have what it takes to play spoiler and surprise a lot of people this season.
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