It’s that time of year again. As Browns fans, history has shown that it’s our last chance to look forward to the NFL season with any sort of optimism. Will it all change in 2023?

I actually find something really interesting this year. I’ve been a Browns fan my entire life, and it never fails that we have the most optimistic fan base in the world. The year we went 0-16 you had people talking about the potential we had as a playoff team before the season began. Super Bowl chatter, Brandon Weeden as the missing piece, DeShone Kizer, Johnny Manziel, Baker, we all know about the infamous QB list and you’ll be pressed to find a Browns fan that wasn’t a believer in most of those guys. Maybe I’m just getting old and my confident peers have all given up on the dream. It makes sense that after 23 years of embarrassment we would start to calm our confidence a bit. Is it just me though? Is nobody on the planet, Browns fans included, picking us to be better than a .500 team this year?

Optimism runs in our Cleveland blood and I wouldn’t want it any other way, but where is it now and why does it make me feel slightly more confident than usual? I’m not kidding when I say that the best public prediction I have seen on our Browns is 9-8. Where are my 12-5 guys at? I see at least 10 of them every year across my social media and now there’s non. Here we are, the most talented Browns team in our lifetime and all the optimism appears to be gone.

Don’t worry, I’m here to hype you up and bring some optimism back to the Cleveland streets. Let’s start with this defense. I think you can agree, that talent wise, this is the best defense to ever take the field in Cleveland. I’m speaking on my lifetime so I’m sorry if this insults a team in the 50’s. Seriously though, Myles Garrett, Denzel Ward, Grant Delpit, Juan Thornhill, Zdarious Smith, JOK, the list actually goes on and on. Talent wise, we should and could be a force on the defensive side of the ball, even to the magnitude of a team like the 2013 Seahawks. The problem with our defense is that we have all that talent and somehow mediocrity continues to prevail. I do blame a lot of this on the coaching. Joe Woods was without question, one of the worst coaches I’ve ever seen in Cleveland. That’s saying a lot when we hired Freddy Kitchens a few years ago, whom I wouldn’t let manage my fantasy team for a week. We had a lot of this talent in 2022 and we still managed to be one of the worst defenses in all of football. I have really high expectations for Jim Schwartz taking over this team though. He’s an aggressive coach and I want that on the defensive side of the ball with this much talent. We should create turnovers more than anyone in the league and I have confidence that we will see a major improvement on that side of the ball and hopefully tap into some of this remarkable talent in 2023. I honestly think worst case scenario we are a top 15 defense, best case we are number 1, and there’s not a defense in the league with this much talent at each position to achieve that.

Offensively is where the big question remains. Will Deshaun Watson return to his Houston Texans form? Watson was one of the best quarterbacks in all of football before his legal trouble took him away from the game for 2 whole seasons. He’s still young at just 27, and even last year in his limited return we saw glimpses of that greatness. I don’t think it’s even a question, if you put 2020 Deshaun Watson on this Browns team, we would be a favorite in Super Bowl contention. That Texans defense was atrocious and his offensive line was the worst in the league. The only position better than Watsons current scenario in Cleveland was probably the wide receiver room. Still, Amari Cooper and Elijah Moore are not far behind Deandre Hopkins and that Texans group. Even 75% of that 2020 Watson would put this team in serious contention for the AFC North.

So where do I see the Browns finishing this year? I actually believe we will contend for this division. Maybe 11-6 if I had to put a number on it. I think we see an improvement on our Watson investment and lord do I hope so. If you remove all QBs from the conversation and ranked every team in the NFL, I truly think the Cleveland Browns would be among the best. That means the only question this year is on the shoulders of the guy with the largest guaranteed contract in NFL history. Don’t let us down Deshaun.